How 15-Minutes of Mindfulness Meditation Significantly Lowers Stress

Mindfulness meditation has become a popular strategy to support stress management and well-being, but its effectiveness is still debated. Therefore, a 2024 study published in Nature Human Behaviour involving over 2,000 meditators aimed to determine if self-administered mindfulness meditation may indeed support stress management and whether its efficacy may be influenced by personality traits, specifically neuroticism.

Key Takeaways

• Self-administered mindfulness meditation is effective in reducing feelings of stress

• Body scan, mindful breathing, mindful walking, and loving-kindness meditation were all effective in reducing stress

• The neuroticism personality trait did not affect the efficacy of these mindfulness exercises

Self-Administered Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Feelings of Stress

Mindfulness meditation is the practice of purposefully and non-judgmentally focusing on the present moment to reach a mental state of calm concentration and positive feelings. It involves focusing your attention on what’s happening in the moment by directing your awareness to your breath, bodily sensations, thoughts, and feelings, observing and accepting your thoughts and feelings without judgment, and letting them go.

Although there are mindfulness meditation programs administered by professionals, it doesn’t need to be practiced in such settings—you can do it on your own. One of the reasons why mindfulness is so popular is because it can be self-administered at any time and anywhere using prerecorded protocols with the aid of apps or audio and video recordings. 

Despite its popularity, studies and meta-analyses on the efficacy of self-administered mindfulness meditation for stress management have yielded conflicting results, with some showing reductions in stress response and others failing to find robust benefits. One of the reasons for this variability may be that some people respond better to mindfulness meditation than others based on individual personality traits. For example, a meta-analysis has shown that all Big Five personality traits are associated with the efficacy of mindfulness meditation for stress management, with neuroticism showing the strongest association—i.e., higher neuroticism was associated with poorer efficacy.

Therefore, a recent study involving 37 research institutions and over 2,000 participants aimed to answer two questions: First, are self-administered mindfulness meditation interventions effective in reducing stress levels? And second, which self-administered mindfulness exercises, from the many available, might work best? 

To do so, the authors started out by conducting a survey among mindfulness practitioners to identify the self-administered mindfulness exercises that are most likely to reduce stress. This led to the selection of four types of mindfulness exercises to be included in the study: body scan, mindful breathing, mindful walking, and loving-kindness meditation. 

To assess their efficacy for stress reduction, these exercises were self-administered in 15-minute mindfulness meditation sessions (pre-recorded by a certified meditation trainer) and their effects on participants’ feelings of stress were assessed with a validated stress questionnaire. The effects of the mindfulness interventions were compared to those of a non-mindful control group who listened to audiobook excerpts. 

Results showed that all four mindfulness conditions were effective in reducing participants’ self-reported stress levels compared to the active control condition, with the highest effect being observed for body scan.

As an additional goal, and based on previous findings on the influence of personality traits, the study explored whether these effects are moderated by participants’ levels of neuroticism. Furthermore, because knowledge of a language plays a role in making meaning of emotional experiences and perceptions, the study also explored whether these effects are moderated by the participants’ English language proficiency. Results did not show moderation effects by neuroticism or English language proficiency in the efficacy of mindfulness.

In conclusion, this study indicated that 15-minute sessions of mindfulness meditation exercises, namely body scan, mindful breathing, mindful walking, and loving-kindness meditation, can be a simple approach to help reduce feelings of stress, regardless of your personality traits and English proficiency. 

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Referenced study
Sparacio A, et al. Self-administered mindfulness interventions reduce stress in a large, randomized controlled multi-site study. Nat Hum Behav 2024, 8(9):1716-1725. doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-01907-7