In 2024, most of us have heard of mindfulness, and know that people practice mindfulness in various forms for a variety of reasons: to improve mental health, to reduce stress, to improve overall wellbeing. In some cases, people use mindfulness as an easy way to get focused in the morning or relax in the evening before bed.
Generally speaking, people use mindfulness because it’s an effective tool in the coping toolbox. Anecdotally, people say mindfulness helps them get perspective on the issues they face, helps them manage their reactions to various situations, and helps them find balance during difficult times.
Research verifies most of the anecdotal claims you hear from people out in the world. While some say mindfulness is a cure for everything psychological and emotional, peer-reviewed studies evidence don’t go that far. However, rigorous meta-analyses that examine decades of research on mindfulness – like this study published in 2018 – indicate that for most people, mindfulness yields results.
Benefits of Mindfulness: What the Evidence Says
Research shows mindfulness can:
- Improve general wellness
- Reduce stress
- Improve symptoms of mental health disorders, such as:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Schizophrenia
- Eating disorders
The evidence supporting the value and effectiveness is conclusive: mindfulness can and does work to help improve psychological and emotional health for millions of people worldwide. However, for people interested in starting mindfulness, the prospect can be overwhelming, because there are a significant number of mindfulness practices to choose from. There’s seated meditation, standing meditation, prone (lying down) relaxation, mindful walking, and mindful eating – and that’s a limited list.
In this article, we’ll review the results of a study called “Mindfulness Improves Psychological Health and Supports Health Behavior Cognitions: Evidence From a Pragmatic RCT of a Digital Mindfulness-Based Intervention” that examined the impact of mindfulness delivered via smartphone app on people with little to no mindfulness experience.
The study answers three basic questions:
- Can mindfulness via an online app improve mental health?
- Can mindfulness via an online app reduce stress?
- Does mindfulness improve sleep quality?
In addition, the study answers a question most people have about mindfulness:
How much mindfulness is sufficient to experience the benefits?
We’ll review the results below. First, we’ll take a brief moment to define mindfulness.
What is Mindfulness?
The Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, gets credit for popularizing mindfulness in the Western world. He brought his version of mindfulness – based on traditional Buddhism – to millions of people with the publication of his book, “Present Moment, Wonderful Moment.”
Here’s how he defines mindfulness:
“Mindfulness is our ability to be aware of what is going on both inside us and around us. It is the continuous awareness of our bodies, emotions, and thoughts.”
That definition elucidates the core components of mindfulness: our ability to pay close attention to our surroundings and our ability to develop a sophisticated awareness of our internal life. The third essential component of mindfulness is nonjudgment. While we learn to pay attention to our internal physical sensations, and learn to identify our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, mindfulness teaches us to do that as an objective observer: we see, we recognize, and we identify – but we don’t judge. We allow our physical sensations and our thoughts/feelings to be what they are, as they are, without rushing to attach qualities such as good or bad to them: we let them be.
That’s the short version of how mindfulness works. Once we learn to manage our unconscious reactions to internal and external stimuli, we can decide how to act or behave. Mindfulness is the method. How people use the clarity of mindfulness is an individual choice, which varies by the person, the situation, and their goals.
Now let’s take a look at that study.
Ten Minutes of Mindfulness a Day With a Smartphone App: Does it Work?
Here are the basic facts about the study:
- A research team from the Universities of Bath and Southampton in the United Kingdom recruited 1247 people from 91 countries and split them into two groups:
- Mindfulness group
- Control group
- The mindfulness group completed:
- 30 days of mindfulness practice via online app called Medito
- 10 minutes per day
- Weekly reminders
- Sessions included:
- Relaxation
- Intention-setting
- Body scans, i.e. going head to toe to identify sensations
- Breathing for focus and attention
- Personal reflection upon completion of session
Researchers collected data on three metrics at the beginning of the study, after completion of the 30-day protocol, and a follow-up one month after completion of the 30-day protocol. The metrics included:
- Wellbeing, as measured by the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS).
- Mental health/stress, as measured by the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress: Depression, Anxiety and Stress short-form questionnaire (DASS-21).
- Sleep quality, as measured by answering the following question on a scale of 1-10: How would you rate the quality of your sleep?
Let’s take a look at what they learned.
The Results: One Month of Mindfulness, Ten Minutes a Day
Here’s the tl;dr for the question we pose in the title of this article:
Yes, ten minutes of mindfulness a day can improve mental health.
Now for the details, starting with the results for overall well-being, then moving to depression, anxiety, stress, and sleep.
1. Mindfulness: Impact on Well-Being
- The mindfulness group showed significantly higher well-being scores after mindfulness intervention. Well-being scores improved 6.9% more than the control group.
2. Mindfulness: Impact on Depression
- The mindfulness group showed significantly reduced depression scores after mindfulness intervention. Depression scores improved 19.2% more than the control group.
3. Mindfulness: Impact on Anxiety
- The mindfulness group showed significantly reduced anxiety scores after mindfulness intervention. Anxiety scores improved 12.6% more than the control group.
In this study, the 30-day mindfulness intervention showed no statistically significant impact on overall stress or quality of sleep.
We’ll discuss these findings below.
Mindfulness, Well-being, and Mental Health
These outcomes, big-picture-wise, are not surprising. There are details that are surprising, however, and two very important takeaways.
- Not surprising: One month of daily mindfulness improved wellbeing and reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety.
- Surprising: One month of daily mindfulness did not reduce levels of stress or improve sleep.
The two very important takeaways:
- All improvements occurred after practicing mindfulness via an online/smartphone app
- All improvements occurred after practicing mindfulness for ten minutes a day.
In addition, researchers analyzed two more metrics, which we left out of our discussion: attitudes toward health and intention to improve health, both of which improved in the mindfulness group, compared to the control group.
What these results tell us is helpful. Mindfulness is an effective approach to improving psychological and emotional wellness – as well as personal attitudes toward health and wellness – and it works in just ten minutes a day over the phone.
That’s something we should all remember: if we have ten minutes to spare, access to a smartphone, and a mindfulness app, we can take proactive steps toward improving overall well-being.
