Stress Free UC Merced: The Effect of 8 Weeks of Mindfulness App Headspace on Stress in a Sample of University Employees

Stress at work has shown to be an important health risk for employees. It is associated with poor mental and physical health including anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, gastrointestinal problems, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Work stress also has major implications for employers as evidence suggests that high levels of work stress predict employee burnout, turnover intent, absenteeism, and poor job performance. Mindfulness and its positive effects on a variety of outcomes, including stress reduction, have been documented in many studies. The most common definition of mindfulness is as the state of being attentive to and aware of the present moment with an attitude of openness and acceptance. Several mechanisms by which mindfulness exerts its positive effects have been proposed in the literature including cultivating the attitude of non-judgement and acceptance, ability to observe one's experiences objectively without reacting to them, and ability to be more patient and kind toward oneself. Recent evidence suggests that teaching mindfulness in the workplace not only reduces stress but also improve psychological well-being. With advances in technology, technology-based delivery of many interventions has become popular. App-based treatments for improving psychological health are becoming increasingly important due to high accessibility and cost-effectiveness of smartphone technology. Despite a great number of app-based interventions, there has been little research evaluating their efficacy. Support for the use of smartphone app-based mindfulness interventions comes from a few small studies that found these interventions to produce benefits comparable to traditional delivery methods. While app-based interventions offer a convenient alternative to traditional delivery methods as well as promising initial empirical evidence, more research is needed in order to further evaluate and promote these interventions. The proposed study has several goals. The first goal is to investigate the effects of the app-based mindfulness intervention on overall physical and psychological health (e.g., perceived stress, mindfulness, sleep quality, self-reported health, anxiety symptoms). The second goal is to examine the effect of the intervention on a variety of work-related outcomes (e.g., work stress, job satisfaction, work-related burnout). Further, the study will examine potential mindfulness mechanisms that may drive these effects (e.g., acceptance, reactivity, decentering).