Short-term effects of an online mindfulness meditation intervention

The paper presents the results of a validation of an online intervention comprising a three-week course in mindfulness meditation with daily guided meditation sessions. The study used a randomised wait-list control group design with a pre-test and a post-test. Dependent variables included indicators of emotional and psychological well-being, reflective processes, self-control and self-regulation. Participants were anonymous volunteers recruited via social networks (N = 206; with N = 56 in the experimental group and N = 44 in the control group after dropout). The results indicate that taking part in a mindfulness meditation intervention is associated with higher emotional well-being, reduction of non-productive reflection (rumination), development of self-determination, self-motivation, self-relaxation, cognitive self-control and activity concentration skills. At the same time, participants who dropped out had different self-control and affective self-control scores at pre-test. The findings indicate that regular mindfulness meditation sessions as part of an online intervention develop self-regulation skills in individuals whose self-control is sufficiently high in order to adhere to a regular meditation schedule.

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