Although playing a crucial role for the prevention of long-term health impairment, interventions aiming at the improvement of employees' recovery processes are still scarce. In this study, we therefore investigated the effectiveness of a low-dose mindfulness intervention for recovery from work. In addition, differential responding to the treatment in terms of treatment-by-baseline interactions was studied. A sample of 140 employees participated in a randomized field experiment with a self-training and a wait-list control group. Three central recovery processes (psychological detachment, sleep quality, and sleep duration) were assessed with event-sampling methodology involving daily measurements over 10 workdays. Growth curve analyses revealed intervention effects on sleep quality and sleep duration. No effects were found for psychological detachment after work and for the proposed treatment-by-baseline interactions. Our findings are discussed in the context of occupational health promotion in general and mindfulnessbased interventions in specific. Practitioner pointsAlthough daily recovery from the demands of work has been shown to be vital for employee well-being and performance, research on how workplace interventions can help improve recovery is still scarce. This study investigated the effectiveness of a brief, economic mindfulness intervention on processes that are vital for recovery -psychological detachment, sleep quality, and sleep duration. Findings revealed positive effects of the intervention on sleep quality and duration, but not on psychological detachment.

Psychological detachment from work during off-job time is crucial to sustaining employee health and wellbeing. However, this can be difficult to achieve, particularly when job stress is high and recovery is most needed. Boosting detachment from work is therefore of interest to many employees and organizations, and over the last decade numerous interventions have been developed and evaluated. The aim of this metaanalysis was to review and statistically synthesize the state of research on interventions designed to improve detachment both at work and outside of it. After a systematic search (covering the period 1998-2020) of the published and unpublished literature, 30 studies with 34 interventions (N = 3,725) were included. Data were analyzed using a random-effects model. Interventions showed a significant positive effect on detachment from work (d = 0.36) on average. Moderator analyses revealed that it did not matter how the different studies conceptualized detachment but that the context in which detachment was measured (outside or at work) significantly influenced intervention effectiveness. Furthermore, using the stressordetachment model as the organizing framework, we found that while interventions addressing job stressors or altering primary and secondary appraisal were all effective, only the interventions that addressed primary appraisal were more effective than those that did not. Additionally, while the delivery format did not moderate intervention effectiveness, interventions with longer durations and higher dosages were more effective than shorter and lower dosage interventions. Finally, interventions were more effective among older participants and participants with initial health or recovery-related impairments.

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In this daily diary study, we examined the moderating role of employee domain‐specific mindfulness within the stressor–detachment model (Sonnentag & Fritz, , Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36, 72). According to the stressor–detachment model, emotional and quantitative demands should be associated with decreased psychological detachment after work, which in turn is associated with decreased well‐being (i.e., low positive affect and high negative affect) at bedtime. Moreover, we proposed that both mindfulness at work and home should buffer the relations between job demands and psychological detachment and between psychological detachment and well‐being. Sixty‐five employees completed two daily surveys (i.e., after work and before going to bed) over five workdays. Results of multilevel analyses revealed that job demands did not predict psychological detachment, which in turn did not predict well‐being at bedtime. However, the relation between emotional demands and psychological detachment was buffered by both mindfulness at work and at home while the relation between quantitative demands and psychological detachment was moderated by mindfulness at home only. Moreover, we found that mindfulness at home moderated the relation between psychological detachment and positive affect at bedtime. Our study demonstrates the buffering role of daily mindfulness within the stressor–detachment model and highlights the value of considering domain‐specific mindfulness. Practitioner points Being mindful at work and at home buffers the negative relationships between job demands and psychological detachment after work. Promoting mindfulness both in the work and home domain can help employees psychologically detach from work despite high job demands.

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