Higher trait mindfulness is linked to lower anxiety and perceived stress in university students. A brief mindfulness training reduced anxiety state and perceived stress and increased state mindfulness, while both mindfulness and active control groups showed reduced negative affect and cortisol. Changes in state mindfulness mediated increases in positive affect and decreases in perceived stress and cortisol regardless of trait mindfulness, but anxiety reduction occurred only in those with high trait mindfulness. The results suggest that brief mindfulness interventions can help reduce psychological distress in healthy young students.
A brief three-day mindfulness training increased interoceptive sensibility—the self-reported tendency to notice and attend to body signals—in 40 healthy young adults naive to meditation, compared with an active control group. Five of eight subdomains of interoceptive sensibility improved after the training, but interoceptive accuracy (objective performance on a heartbeat-detection task) did not change. The increase in interoceptive sensibility statistically mediated reductions in state anxiety, suggesting a plausible mechanism for the anxiolytic effects of brief mindfulness practices.