Mindfulness meditation is well-known to reduce stress and anxiety—so is moving the body. Put the two together, a new study from Penn State University reports, and the mental health benefits may be that much stronger. Since people tend to slip in and out of states of mindfulness thought the day, the authors suggest that intentional mindful movement may help people become more aware of their states, and more easily able to move into mindfulness.
To test whether mindfulness while moving was linked to well-being, the team had 160 Penn State students use a mobile app called Paco, which pinged them eight times a day and asked what they were doing, how focused on their present activity (i.e., mindful) they were at the moment, and how their stress level and mood were.
The team found that when participants were either moving or experiencing more mindfulness, they tended to feel better mentally. And when they were both moving and feeling mindful, their affect, or mood, and stress levels were even better. Not surprisingly, they were least happy when they were sitting.
“When people were both more mindful and more active than usual, they seem to have this extra decrease in negative affect,” said study author Chih-Hsiang “Jason” Yang, who’s now a postdoc at the University of Southern California. “Being more active in a given moment is already going to reduce negative affect, but by also being more mindful than usual at the same time, you can see this amplified affect.”
The study was only correlational, however, so can’t determine whether mindful movement actually causes the change in mental health. To address the issue, Yang carried out a true experiment, which will be published in Journal of Aging and Physical Activity. Here, older participants (average age, 73) were asked to take part in an outdoor mindful walking activity, where they were instructed to pay attention to their breath, steps, and emotional and bodily sensations. Their depression, anxiety, and mindfulness levels all improved after the treatment.
The results have a lot of practical implications, the most obvious of which is that mindfulness and movement are each good for mental health, while sitting is not. But more than that, the results remind us to pay attention when we’re exercising or just moving about. Going for a jog if you’re worrying the whole time probably won’t do much for mental health—but paying attention to your body and your surroundings on purpose is likely much more beneficial. And these are skills that we can foster with practice.
“Most studies in this area have focused on the differences between people who are more versus people who are less mindful, but we saw that college students often slipped in and out of mindful states during the day,” said author David Conroy. “Developing the ability to shift into these states of mindfulness as needed may be valuable for improving self-regulation and well-being.”
It’s also good news for people who want the mental health benefits of exercise without having to exercise—or at least swap it out for mindful walking from time to time. This less strenuous, but more mindful, activity may help both mood and stress levels.
“If someone is looking for a way to manage these kinds of feelings, it may be worth trying some sort of mindful movement,” Conroy said. “This option may be especially beneficial for people who don’t enjoy exercise and would prefer a less intense form of physical activity.”
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