First-Year College Students' Health and Well-Being: The Long-Term Effects of Mindfulness Training at 3- and 6-Month Follow-up

The transition to college is a critical developmental period when all aspects of a person’s life are in flux. Freshmen are particularly prone to stress stemming from the adjustment to the novel academic environment, different social expectations, and newly gained sense of freedom. The heightened vulnerability to stress may provide fertile grounds for declining mental health, deteriorating academics, and unhealthy relationships. Current statistics show the evidence that college students face alarming levels of mental health difficulties (overwhelming anxiety, depression symptoms, social isolation) and subsequent consequences of maladaptive coping skills (alcohol abuse, procrastination, drop-outs).

 In efforts to implement campus-level interventions, one particularly promising approach that is receiving growing attention is mindfulness. This practice fosters stress resilience, attention and focus, healthy coping, and the potential to promote development of a person as a whole. Mindfulness skills may particularly be relevant to first-year college students as they can promote stress management and effective emotion regulation skills to facilitate the transition process. However, very little is known about the potential long-term effects of mindfulness training in the college population.

This poster will examine the potential long-term benefits of mindfulness training at 3-,  and 6-month follow-up to assess the potential long-term benefits of mindfulness training during the 1^st year of college. A randomized waitlist controlled trial was conducted with 109 freshmen living in residential dormitories to examine the carry-over effects of mindfulness training during the first semester of college into the subsequent semester. The immediate post-test effects of an eight-session college-adapted mindfulness program [Learning to Breathe (L2B)] on the health, well-being, and academic performance showed that the intervention group in comparison with the control reported significant improvement in life satisfaction, and decreases in depression, anxiety, sleep issues, and alcohol use. At a 3-month follow-up, we found an intensification of effects for additional indicators of healthy adjustment to college and belonging to the student community. The results suggest that developmentally timed mindfulness-based training can lead to improving 1^st year college students’ coping skills, mental health, and well-being.