Health and Well-Being: Mindfulness Training Effects on Daily Experiences of First-Year College Students

College students face unique challenges and increased stress from various personal, developmental, social, and academic demands. Over the course of 12 months, students report feeling overwhelmed (83%), exhausted (79%), and overwhelmingly anxious (51%). Freshmen particularly are prone to stress stemming from the adjustment to novel academic environment, different social expectations, and newly gained sense of freedom. Evidence-based intervention programs are needed to assist students during the adjustment period to promote healthy coping behaviors and support effective academic skills. Substantial evidence indicates the salutory effects of mindfulness-based practices on improving stress management skills, physical and mental health, and quality of life. Mindfulness trainings may particularly be relevant to first-year college students as they can promote stress resilience and effective emotion regulation to facilitate the transition process.

Here we report on the findings of a randomized waitlist controlled trial that examines the overall effects of an eight-session college-adapted mindfulness program [Learning to Breathe (L2B)] on the health, well-being, and academic performance of 100 freshmen living in residential dormitories at a prestigious university. L2B is an evidence-based, universal mindfulness program originally developed for adolescents that aims to enhance emotion regulation, strengthen attention and performance, support prosocial behavior, build stress management skills, and improve health and well-being. In addition to assessing overall outcomes, we evaluated the impacts of mindfulness practice on students’ day-to-day experiences by using the ecological momentary assessments (EMA). Three bursts of EMA (8 consecutive days, 4x day) were collected before the beginning, during, and after the intervention. Randomly selected half of the intervention and half of waitlist control students participated in the EMA portion of the study.

Our presentation will focus on the outcomes of this trial, in particular the effects of mindfulness training on students’ (1) daily experiences of mindfulness, emotion regulation, and interpersonal interactions, (2) moment-to-moment patterns of stress reactivity, and (3) overall well-being. We will also examine if students receiving EMA had better outcomes in stress, emotions, and health symptoms compared to students who do not receive EMA. Finally, we will discuss the potential enhancement and interaction effects between the intervention and EMA on the overall measures of health and well-being.