Mindfulness Improves Adolescent Emotional Problems

Depression is increasingly serious among school teenagers.Mindfulness training as an emerging intervention can effectively reduce adolescents’ depression symptoms.However,previous studies have mainly focused on adolescent groups with emotional disorders(e.g.,depressed adolescents)from the perspective of clinical treatment.Few studies have focused on normal adolescents from the perspective of school mental health education for preventing the occurrence of adolescents’ depression.In addition,some complex mindfulness techniques such as body scanning and long-term concentration training are not suitable for school teenagers,especially junior high school students.On the other hand,negative automatic thinking is positively related to depression,implying that deautomatization might reduce depression symptoms.This study aimed to develop a simplified version of mindfulness training suitable for junior high school students through partially modifying the guidance of mindfulness breathing in standard mindfulness training from the perspective of deautomatization of mindfulness.Then the applicability of the simplified mindfulness would be validated by empirical design so that the simplified version can be better integrated into the mental health system of basic education.First,a simplified version of mindfulness training suitable for school adolescents was determined from the perspective of deautomatization.Then verify the effect of the simplified version.Participants were 135 junior high school students who underwent eight-week training with the simplified mindfulness and 46 students as the controls.Their mindfulness levels,negative automatic thinking levels and depression levels were measured every two weeks by using questionnaire measurement.Analysis of variance was done for examining the effects of training compliance,initial negative automatic thinking level and initial depression level on the efficacy of mindfulness training.After the mindfulness training,a semi-structured interview on the efficacy of mindfulness training will be conducted to investigate the subjective feelings from 29 participants and their 28 parents.The questionnaire test results showed that the simplified mindfulness training effectively improves the mindfulness levels of junior high school students and reduces their depression symptoms.Specifically,when stress events occurred,the adolescents with the mindfulness training could better maintain the mindfulness levels and the depression levels and recover to the levels significantly higher than the baseline mindfulness levels and lower than the baseline depression levels quickly after the stress event disappeared.These results indicated that the simplified mindfulness training can buffer the negative effects of stress events.Analysis of variance showed that the training compliance affects the efficacy of the simplified mindfulness training,that is,subjects with higher compliance can benefit faster and better than those with ordinary compliance and showed better efficacy.The initial negative automatic thinking level and the initial depression level affect the efficacy of the simplified mindfulness training,that is,the adolescents with high negative automatic thinking levels or high depression level obtained more prominent improvements in automatic thinking or more decrease in depression symptoms.The interview results on the adolescents revealed that the adolescents with the simplified mindfulness training obtained the improvements in attention and the academic performance,especially in mathematics.They demonstrated less tricks in class after the simplified mindfulness training and better control themselves and less swings in mood and so on.The interview results on their parents revealed that the adolescents could concentrate more attentions on their homework and be better control their temper after the simplified mindfulness training.In summary,the simplified mindfulness training from the perspective of deautomatization could reduce depression symptoms of Grade 1 students in junior high school,especially for those with high depression tendency,and improve their mindfulness levels and maintain stability when faced with stressful events,and reduce their negative automatic thinking levels,especially for the students with the high negative automatic thinking levels.