Enhancing psychological health and cognitive inhibition in college students: insights from mindfulness training and high-intensity interval training.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2025 Yintu Bao, Jianqian Sun, Xiaochuan Zhang 1 citation
College students who completed six weeks of either mindfulness training or high-intensity interval training showed reduced depression and anxiety, with mindfulness training producing a significant improvement in psychological health immediately after the intervention. Both types of training improved the accuracy of response inhibition (the ability to stop an unwanted response) to a similar degree, but neither affected the speed of that inhibition. Mindfulness training was more effective than HIIT at improving interference inhibition accuracy (the ability to ignore distracting information), though neither training affected the speed of interference inhibition. The improvements in depression and anxiety were maintained at a six-week follow-up, but differences between the groups were no longer statistically significant, possibly due to the small sample size and short intervention period.