From Our Delhi Bureau
Taking a walk may be a good opportunity to mentally review your to-do list, but using the time to instead be more mindful of your breathing and surroundings may help boost your wellbeing, according to researchers.
The researchers found that while students reported being less stressed while they were on their feet and moving, they received an even greater benefit when they reported also being more mindful.
Chih-Hsiang “Jason” Yang, a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Southern California who led the study while earning his doctorate at Penn State, said the results suggest a simple way for people to boost their wellbeing throughout the day.
David Conroy, professor of kinesiology at Penn State, also said the findings — recently published in the journal Psychology of Sports and Exercise — could help people who are not able to engage in strenuous exercise.
“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.”
According to the American College Health Association, more than half of college students experience anxiety, sadness or mental exhaustion at least once a year. Because students are often moving throughout their days, as they walk to class and go about other activities, the researchers wanted to see if there was a connection between mindfulness, movement and a reduction in negative states.
The researchers recruited 158 Penn State students for the study. For two weeks, a special mobile phone app, called Paco, randomly prompted the participants eight times a day to answer questions about their current activity and states of mind.
After analysing the data, the researchers found that in the moments when participants were more mindful or active than usual, they showed reduced negative effect. They also found a possible synergistic effect when people were both mindful and active.
“When people were both more mindful and more active than usual, they seem to have this extra decrease in negative effect,” Yang said. “Being more active in a given moment is already going to reduce negative effect, but by also being more mindful than usual at the same time, you can see this amplified effect.”
The researchers said that in the future, studies that collect more objective data — like gathering information about physical activity by using accelerometers — and include more varied populations could be useful.
