The roles of dispositional mindfulness and free time activities in recovery from stress

Coping with work stress is one of the major challenges in working life. A lot of research has focused on the topic but a lot remains unknown. New interventions for stress reduction are constantly developed, and their effectiveness needs to be examined. The aim of this thesis was to gain better understanding on how dispositional mindfulness and engaging in different types of free time activities relate to recovering from stress. Furthermore, it was examined whether dispositional mindfulness has a moderating effect on the relationship between engaging in free time activities and experiencing recovery. Additionally, a newly constructed mindfulness questionnaire was validated as a part of this study. The participants of the study were 814 employees from eleven companies, working in knowledge-intensive occupations. The data were gathered at two time points in 2013 and 2014, using online questionnaires. It was hypothesized that dispositional mindfulness would be positively connected to experiencing recovery from stress as well as to the time spent on certain types of free time activities. The relationships between six different types of free time activities and recovery from stress were also expected to be mainly positive, and the possibility of dispositional mindfulness moderating those relationships was investigated. The mindfulness questionnaire used in this study turned out to be valid and reliable. Furthermore, the results showed that higher levels of dispositional mindfulness were positively related to experiencing recovery. Time spent engaging in most of the free time activities also related positively to recovery from stress, and mindfulness moderated a few of those relationships. There appeared to be no connections between people s levels of dispositional mindfulness and the time spent on different free time activities. The results were relatively consistent at both time points. To conclude, the findings of this thesis suggest that recovery from stress might be enhanced by leading a more active life (i.e., engaging in various types of free time activities, such as physical, social, cultural or creative activities), and by engaging in practices that increase mindfulness