Dispositional mindfulness and stress resilience: Self-regulatory capacity, affective stability, and presleep arousal in daily lif

Mindfulness training appears to promote healthy and adaptive functioning by enhancing self-regulatory capacity and stress resilience. Less is known about whether dispositional mindfulness (DM) is similarly associated with self-regulatory capacity and stress resilience. Fifty-six healthy adults completed a self-report DM questionnaire and performance-based measures of executive function (EF) prior to daily life experience sampling of affect, self-regulation, presleep arousal, and sleep quality. DM was not associated with objective measures of EF but was significantly associated with self-reported cognitive, emotional, and behavioral self-regulation. Further, although DM was not associated with average affect levels (i.e., across positive/negative valence, low/high arousal domains), dispositionally high-mindful individuals exhibited less extreme changes in negative/low arousal affect (e.g., sad, bored) and negative/high arousal affect (e.g., stressed, angry) and evidenced less variability in positive/low arousal affect (e.g., relaxed, serene). Higher DM was also associated with lower presleep arousal and higher sleep quality. At the facet-level, mindful awareness was associated with daily self-reported EF and predicted cognitive presleep arousal and sleep quality; conversely, mindful acceptance was associated with greater stability across negatively valenced and low arousal affect states, and more strongly predicted somatic presleep arousal. Results indicate that mindful awareness and mindful acceptance, two distinct yet complementary processes, appear uniquely associated with components of self-regulation.