Engaging In Work, Enjoying Life: Influence Mechanism Of Trait Mindfulness On Daily Recovery

At present,people’s healthy life has been affected by the widespread great stress,and the realization of healthy life requires individuals to recover from the daily stress,which is beneficial to individuals and organizations.However,as the dramatically increasing number of mental workers,the recovery field faces huge challenges.Previous recovery studies thought that when demands are no longer imposed upon people they would more or less automatically recover from work.However,this perspective does not necessarily apply to mental workers:people may still think about the activity they are engaged in during the short break,which still would require involvement of their mental capacities.In view of this situation,some scholars have redefined recovery as an all-day process to restoring and expending resources,and is actively controlled or regulated by the individual.The new definition,on the one hand,indicates that the flow of resources during work period is equally important as which in recovery period.On the other hand,it proposes the role of individuals in the flow of resources,which requires the consumption of limited self-control or self-regulating resources.Therefore,the current study will consider both the work period and the recovery period from the all-day perspective of "work-rest cycle",and explore the influence mechanism of trait mindfulness(related to stronger self-control and self-regulating behavior,hereinafter referred to as mindfulness)on flow of resources in different periods.Therefore,based on the Conservation of Resources Theory,using a diary design(N=91;5 days;4 measurement occasions per day),the current study(1)explored the influence mechanism of mindfulness on daily recovery from the perspective of work-rest cycle,and(2)explored the interaction between mindfulness and time on recovery from the process perspective.Results:(1)in the work period and recovery period,high mindfulness individuals can be engaged in the roles of different current stages as soon as possible(work engagement or pleasure experience),so as to reduce the resource consumption in the work period and promote the resource restoration in the recovery period;(2)mindfulness and time interact on pleasure experience,but not on the recovery state at the end of working period and recovery period.Specifically,the pleasure experience and the recovery state at the end of two periods of low mindfulness individuals gradually increased as the week progressed;the high mindfulness individuals maintained a high level of pleasure without systemic change during the week,however,although the high mindfulness individuals remained a high level of recovery state,but the change trajectories was the same as that of the low mindfulness individuals.Theoretical contributions:(1)considering both the work period and the recovery period,the current study found that trait mindfulness is the promoting factor of pleasure experience on the one hand,and on the other hand,it takes work engagement as the mechanism to promote recovery for the first time.(2)our research adds to previous research exploring cyclical variation and day-of the week effects in everyday experiences in the newly proposed process perspective of the recovery field.Practical advice:individuals should learn and practice mindfulness,and engage in favorite recovery activities at the beginning of the week to avoid accumulation of fatigue.Organizations should introduce mindfulness interventions to achieve"win-win"outcomes,while providing additional restorative strategies at the beginning of the week.