Mindfulness can be defined as a process of openly attending, with awareness, to one's present moment experience (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007). An exponentially increasing body of evidence accumulated since the 1990s suggests a solid link between mindfulness interventions and increased wellbeing and cognitive performance (Creswell, 2017). In the face of this growing enthusiasm for mindfulness, scholars advise against taking too uncritical a stance towards the extensively reported salubrious effect of mindfulness training (Baltzell, 2016; van Dam et al., 2018), and call for more nuanced and balanced reporting of the research evidence in this field (Coronado-Montoya et al., 2016). Nonetheless, the potential of mindfulness and its capacity to increase attention and awareness (Brown et al., 2007) is especially relevant for education today, because it might help counteract the increasing tendency among students to get distracted by a proliferation of social media activity, shown to adversely affect academic achievement (Hollis & Was, 2016). While mindfulness training may serve as a potential catalyst for higher student achievement, the evidence-base examining the potential link between Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) in schools and academic attainment is still patchy. The evidence from prior meta-analyses of MBIs in schools (Zenner, Herrnleben-Kurz, & Walach, 2014; Klingbeil et al., 2017) and with general youth populations (Zoogman, Goldberg, Hoyt, & Miller, 2015) points to broad potential benefits but more research is needed in this emerging field. In particular, Klingbeil et al.'s (2017, p. 5) comprehensive meta-analysis of 6121 children and youth participating in school and clinical MBIs found generally small, positive effects on young people's overall outcomes, as well as specifically on academic achievement, however the authors reported on varying research quality across the 76 papers included in the analysis. By the same token, the
This conceptual analysis contributes to extending the transformative potential of mindfulness for consumers and society by creating a mindfulness matrix that uncovers new linkages across previously siloed mindfulness literatures and by arguing that next-generation mindfulness research and practice should draw on underexplored synergies between these. The paper
Mindfulness has come to be considered an important approach to help individuals cultivate transformative capacity to free themselves from stress and suffering. However, the transformative potential of mindfulness extends beyond individual stress management. This study contributes to a broadening of the scope of contemplative science by integrating the prominent, individually focused mindfulness meditation literature with collective mindfulness scholarship. In so doing, it aims to illuminate an important context in which mindfulness interventions are increasingly prevalent: workplaces. Typically, the intended effect of workplace mindfulness training is to help workers manage stress better. Since mindfulness in organizations impacts individual and collective processes, the study blends the above literatures to create a cross-level “next-generation” Team Mindfulness Training (TMT) pilot. Its potential in helping individuals and teams to manage work stress better is investigated via a two-phase mixed-methods research study in high-stress military work populations, and compared to a conventional (“first-generation”) 8-week mindfulness meditation program based on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Results suggest that compared to the “first-generation” mindfulness program, TMT seems no less effective in raising individual stress management skills, and may hold more promise in generating collective capacity to manage stress and unexpected difficulty, linked to an apparent interdependence between collective and individual mindfulness capacity development. Based on these empirical results, the study contributes to theory in three important ways: first, it outlines how individual and collective mindfulness in workplaces may be interdependent. Second, it explains why “next-generation” workplace training interventions should apply a cross-level approach. And third, it illustrates how its transformative potential for people at work, individually as well as collectively, can be extended by moving beyond an inward-looking meditation focus in mindfulness training. The study contributes to practice by providing a detailed outline of the pilot TMT program, and offers a series of follow-up research opportunities to inspire further scientific innovation in workplace mindfulness training, especially for high-stress work populations. The study’s ultimate aim is to prompt a shift away from adapting clinically oriented, self-focused “first-generation” mindfulness training protocols, and towards mindfulness as team sport: a more prosocially oriented mindfulness science intent on generating wisdom and compassion, for one and all.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.