The influence of an application-based mindfulness intervention on self-reported rumination, stress, emotional intelligence and life satisfaction in undergraduate students

"Mindful practice is suggested to improve emotional intelligence (EI), life satisfaction (LS), trait mindfulness (TM) and alleviate both stress and rumination. These notions are postulated to benefit undergraduates’ scholastic experience. Subsequently, short-term digital mobile mindfulness applications have evolved, including Headspace®. However, insufficient research has explored the effectiveness of Headspace®. Using a mixed field design, this study investigated the effectiveness of Headspace® on undergraduates’ self-reported rumination, stress, TM, LS and EI, in comparison to an active control condition. Participants listened to either ten minutes of guided meditation using Headspace® (n = 23), or an informative recording (n = 21), each day for ten days. A 2 X 2 mixed factorial ANOVA revealed Headspace® significantly improved LS and EI, but did not significantly improve TM nor reduce stress and rumination pre-post intervention. A mediation analysis revealed that rumination mediates the relationship between mindfulness and stress regardless of Headspace®. The findings indicate Headspace® is effective in improving EI and LS within undergraduates and that one mechanism by which mindfulness alleviates stress is via rumination. The applications, limitations and further research directions are discussed.