Summary: A new study finds that mindfulness helps improve sleep quality and reduce stress by focusing on the present and minimizing negative thoughts. The study followed 144 nurses for two weeks, highlighting how mindfulness influences emotion regulation and overall well-being.
These findings provide valuable information to employers who want to reduce work-related stress. Future research will further explore effective stress reduction strategies in various professions.
Highlights:
- Improved sleep: Mindfulness improves sleep quality by reducing negative emotions and rumination.
- Emotion regulation: Staying present helps nurses better manage stress.
- Workplace interventions: Results support the use of mindfulness-based stress reduction programs.
Source: University of South Florida
Mindfulness – focusing on the present moment – can improve sleep, reduce stress and improve overall health. A new study from the University of South Florida helps explain why.
Researchers studied 144 nurses for two weeks to see how well they could stay focused on the present and how often they focused on negative thoughts. Nurses completed surveys three times a day and reported on their sleep quality the next morning.
The findings shed light on the link between mindfulness and emotion regulation, as well as how people handle stressful situations, such as a setback at work.
And they provide a clearer picture of how employees and employers can reduce work-related stress, said Claire Smith, lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychology in the USF College of Arts and Sciences.
“Mindfulness is often seen as a magical panacea for employee stress,” Smith said. “The way it’s often talked about makes it seem like staying grounded in the present moment and accepting it means you’ll never be stressed. For me it is crucial to add more nuances.
That’s where the study comes in, providing insight into how the connection between mindfulness and emotion regulation affects sleep quality.
“We know that good sleep rejuvenates us physically and psychologically, and makes us happier, safer and even more ethical at work,” Smith said. “We wanted to explore what aspects of sleep are influenced by mindfulness and why.”
Smith’s team included three colleagues from USF and two researchers from Penn State. It was recently published in the journal Health psychology.
Researchers focused on nurses because of their long, irregular schedules and high-stress work environment, which often lead to sleep problems that can affect not only their health, but also patient safety.
The study found that mindfulness helped nurses experience fewer negative emotions and less rumination – repetitive negative thoughts.
“For example, if you receive a negative review of your performance at work, you may choose to shift from negative thoughts about how you failed and how incompetent you were to positive thoughts about what you did well and how you can grow,” Smith said.
Smith and his co-authors believe the findings could help employers make better decisions about implementing strategies to improve the health of their workers. Popular employer interventions include mindfulness-based stress reduction programs, as well as yoga, meditation, tai chi and therapy. These programs have been shown to help employees manage stress and improve their overall well-being.
“Mindfulness is a hot topic, but we need to understand why it works,” Smith said. “Our research is about going back to the drawing board to understand the reasons behind the benefits of mindfulness at work. »
The authors acknowledge the need for further study to explore the best methods for reducing work-related stress and how they apply to different professions, including more traditional office environments outside of healthcare.
“We hope that future research on mindfulness will look not only at general outcomes like better sleep or productivity, but also at how it affects things like emotion management,” Smith said.
“When an intervention doesn’t work, it helps us understand where the problem is coming from. When it works, it tells us why.
About this news on research on mindfulness, sleep and stress
Author: John Dudley
Source: University of South Florida
Contact: John Dudley – University of South Florida
Picture: Image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Closed access.
“Be present now, sleep well later: Mindfulness promotes sleep health via emotion regulation” by Claire Smith et al. Health psychology
Abstract
Be present now, sleep well later: mindfulness promotes sleep health via emotion regulation
Objective: Despite the popularity of mindfulness in research and interventions, there is a lack of information on how and why mindfulness can benefit employees’ sleep health. Drawing on emotion regulation theory, we assess affective rumination, negative affect, and positive affect as potential mechanisms.
We also explore the differential effects of traits and states of attentional mindfulness on subjective (e.g., quality and sufficiency) and actigraphic (e.g., duration and awakening after sleep onset) aspects of sleep health.
Method: Ecological momentary assessment and sleep actigraphy data were collected from two independent samples of health workers (N1 = 60, N2 = 84). Ecological momentary assessment was also used to collect daily information on state of mindfulness, affect, and rumination.
Results: Our results support rumination and, to a less consistent extent, negative affect as mediators of the association between mindfulness and sleep health, but not positive affect. Trait and state mindfulness demonstrate comparable benefits for employee sleep health, but these benefits emerge largely for subjective dimensions of sleep rather than actigraphic measures.
Conclusions: These findings support emotion regulation as a strong theoretical framework for sleep and mindfulness research and may support more informed mindfulness interventions in the workplace.