Brief mindfulness meditation can lower health threat avoidance and promote intentions but not behaviors in sleep and screening: experimental evidence.
Psychology, health & medicine February 4, 2026 Chaokang Luo, Nuoyan Lu, Chun-Qing Zhang
Brief mindfulness meditation reduces defensive reactions to threatening health messages and increases intentions to adopt healthy behaviors, though it does not significantly change actual behavior. Across two online experiments involving sleep hygiene advice and a fictional rare disease screening scenario, participants who engaged in a short mindfulness meditation showed less defensiveness and greater willingness to improve sleep or seek screening. In the screening experiment, mindfulness helped people accept risk feedback and lowered message defensiveness, which in turn boosted screening intentions. However, the meditation did not lead to a significant increase in actually making a screening appointment. Brief mindfulness practice may help health communication by making people more receptive to threatening information.