Deconstructing mindfulness and constructing mental health: Understanding mindfulness and its mechanisms of action

Mindfulness is associated with improved mental health, but the mechanisms by which it exerts its beneficial effects are currently unclear. The sequence of two studies presented here attempted to better understand the composition of mindfulness, as a construct, and explored potential mechanisms by which it might influence mental health. These studies examined mindfulness as a naturally-varying, individual difference in a non-clinical sample.;The first study examined both the factor structure of current mindfulness and emotion regulation measures and the relationships among these factors. Factor analysis results indicated that the terms “mindfulness” and “emotion regulation” refer to heterogeneous and overlapping constructs, and may be more accurately thought of as present-centered attention, acceptance of experience, clarity about one’s internal experience, and the ability to manage negative emotions. Furthermore, results from a structural equation model that combined the factor structure identified above with a path analysis suggested that clarity and the ability to manage negative emotions may be sequelae of the two most commonly-recognized components of mindfulness, present-centered attention and acceptance of experience.;The second study expanded upon results from the first study to explore four potential mechanisms of action in the relationship between mindfulness, redefined after the first study as present-centered attention and acceptance of experience, and mental health, which included both psychological distress and flourishing mental health. The four potential mechanisms of action examined were clarity about one’s internal life, the ability to manage negative emotions, non-attachment (or the extent to which one’s happiness is independent of specific outcomes and events), and rumination. Results confirmed the importance of these four constructs as mediators in the relationship between mindfulness and mental health. One aspect of mindfulness, present-centered attention, exhibited a complex and paradoxical relationship with psychological distress, whereby an increased tendency to observe one’s present-moment experience was directly associated with greater psychological distress, but indirectly associated with diminished distress via attention’s salubrious impact on intervening variables in the model.