A daily diary study of the relationships among daily self‐compassion, perceived stress and health‐promoting behaviours

Abstract

Previous studies consistently found that trait self‐compassion is positively associated with health‐promoting behaviours, and perceived stress mediates the relationship. The current study primarily aimed at examining whether state self‐compassion varying from day to day (daily self‐compassion) played the same role as trait self‐compassion in improving health‐promoting behaviours and whether or not perceived stress would be the mediator in this relationship. Eighty‐nine Chinese employees were recruited to finish demographic information and the trait measure of self‐compassion first, and then finish daily diaries for seven consecutive days. Daily diary measures included daily self‐compassion, perceived stress and health‐promoting behaviours including both eating behaviours and exercise behaviours. The results of 1‐1‐1 multilevel mediation analyses showed that, at both the within‐ and between‐person level, daily self‐compassion could positively predict daily eating behaviour through the reduction of perceived stress. However, daily self‐compassion did not influence exercise behaviour at both levels. The results of 2‐1‐1 multilevel mediation analyses cross‐validated the between‐person relationships in the 1‐1‐1 multilevel mediation models. These results suggest that, both short‐term interventions aiming at increasing state self‐compassion and long‐term interventions aiming at increasing trait self‐compassion can benefit one's eating behaviours through the reduction of stress.

Daily interventions and assessments: The effect of online self‐compassion meditation on psychological health

“…The results indicated that when an individual was more self-compassionate toward him-or herself on a given day, he or she was less likely to perceive a lot of stress and be emotionally exhausted on that day and on the next day. These findings were in line with the results of previous cross-sectional and longitudinal studies (Allen & Leary, 2010;Atkinson et al, 2017;Li et al, 2020).…”

“…Daily self-compassion was assessed with the 6-item Daily Self-compassion Scale (DSCS; Li et al, 2020). Participants were asked to respond based on how they treat themselves during difficult times of that day using a scale from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always).…”

“…In other words, individuals high in self-compassion are more likely to have less stress and emotional exhaustion than individuals low in self-compassion. Recently, one study also revealed that selfcompassion is associated with stress at the within-person level (Li et al, 2020). That is, on days when a person treats him or herself more self-compassionately than usual, he or she experiences less stress.…”

Feel Good, Eat Better: The Role of Self-Compassion and Body Esteem in Mothers’ Healthy Eating Behaviours

“…Higher self-compassionate individuals have been found to display less motivation to eat palatable but unhealthy foods [23]. There is also evidence that daily fluctuations in self-compassion could play a role in the quality of the food eaten [24]. Yet, in a study conducted by Mantzios, Egan, Hussain, Keyte, and Bahia [25], self-compassion was not found to be significantly related to fat and sugar consumption.…”

“…In this paper, we posit that self-compassion will be directly and/or indirectly (via body esteem) related to eating behaviours and diet quality. Indeed, research suggests that daily fluctuations in self-compassion play a role in the quality of the food that is eaten [24] and in the levels of intuitive eating [9]. Other researchers have reported that self-compassion is strongly associated with fewer feelings of shame toward one's body [38] and helps mitigate the negative effects of social media on body image [39].…”