An energizing microintervention: How mindfulness fosters subjective vitality through regulatory processes and flow experience at work.

A brief morning meditation before work can improve well-being later in the evening by fostering autonomous self-regulation and increasing the experience of flow at work. In a 10-day quasi-experimental study with 78 participants, a 10-minute mindfulness intervention during the final 5 days showed a positive indirect effect on subjective vitality in the evening through self-regulation and flow. However, the intervention did not indirectly affect vitality via effortful self-control. The findings clarify how mindfulness influences distinct regulatory processes that cross the boundary between work and home domains.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Can adopting one's morning routines influence employees' experiences throughout the day? To answer this focal question, we examine the daily effects of a brief meditation in the morning on well-being throughout the day considering spillover effects from the home to the work domain and back. To identify the dominant underlying mechanisms of this daily spillover, we draw on the personality systems interactions theory that distinguishes between autonomous self-regulation and effortful self-control as two psychological processes that reflect the regulation of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in alignment or contradiction with one's interests, values, and goals. Accordingly, we hypothesized that meditating in the morning before work fosters autonomous self-regulation and reduces effortful self-control in the work domain, which subsequently facilitates the experience of flow at work and hence fosters subjective vitality in the home domain after work. A quasi-experimental daily-diary study over 10 days with a brief 10-min mindfulness intervention during the final 5 days with 78 participants (588 day-level data points) supported most of our predictions. More specifically, our data suggest a positive indirect effect of the intervention on subjective vitality in the evening via self-regulation and flow experience. However, there was no indirect effect of the intervention on subjective vitality via self-control. The results help to clarify how a mindfulness-based intervention can influence distinct regulatory processes and well-being, crossing boundaries between the work and home domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).