Examining How Headspace Impacts Mindfulness Mechanisms Over an 8-Week App-Based Mindfulness Intervention

Abstract

Objectives Theoretical work proposed that mindfulness interventions function by enhancing various mindfulness mechanisms, including acceptance, attention monitoring, decentering, self-compassion, and nonreactivity. However, much of what is currently known about the effects of mindfulness interventions on mindfulness mechanisms comes from studies assessing these mechanisms pre- and post-treatment, which provides limited insights into how these mechanisms develop over the course of a mindfulness intervention. The present randomized, waitlist-controlled trial investigated how the proposed mindfulness mechanisms change over the course of an 8-week app-based mindfulness intervention (Headspace). Method A sample of university employees (n = 132; 76.5% female; age M ± SD = 38.5 ± 11.1; 54.5% White) was randomly assigned to participate in a mindfulness intervention (n = 92) or to a waitlist control group (n = 40). Mindfulness mechanisms were assessed using ecological momentary assessment, with participants providing reports on mindfulness mechanisms five times daily for four days during the baseline (pre-treatment), 2nd, 5th, and 8th weeks, resulting in a total of 6,327 assessments. Results Changes in the mechanisms of acceptance-attention and nonreactivity were observed from the second week of the intervention onwards, with marginal effects for decentering. These effects showed a steady linear increase in the mindfulness group. Conclusions Results demonstrate the potential for rapid and sustained improvements in mindfulness mechanisms following an app-based mindfulness intervention. Preregistration The study was preregistered on ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03652168.

A Mixed-Methods Study of Compassionate Mind Training for Pupils (CMT-Pupils) as a School-Based Wellbeing Intervention

“…In considering the quantitative analyses and results, it should be noted that whilst ANOVA analyses are wellaccepted control trial analysis methods, and the analysis used previously to explore the RCT trial of CMT-Teachers (Matos et al, 2022a), we did not correct for the number of analyses progressed (e.g., one per quantitative wellbeing indicator or factor). However, this is a limitation found in much of the extant literature (e.g., Gavrilova & Zawadzki, 2023;Haines et al, 2023). Whilst this could have increased our chances of finding effects (i.e., type 1 errors), we further note that sample size calculations for interactions are based on disordinal (vs. ordinal) interactions.…”

Testing the Efficacy of a Brief, Self-Guided Mindfulness Ecological Momentary Intervention on Emotion Regulation and Self-Compassion in Social Anxiety Disorder: Randomized Controlled Trial

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