Online mindfulness training reduced stress and anxiety, but did not affect economic decisions involving risk or patience, according to research published in Plos One by ILR Professor Michèle Belot and three colleagues.

“Mind training, stress and behaviour—A randomised experiment” assigned half of a group of 139 University of Edinburgh students to a four-week on-line mindfulness program and half to a control group that watched the “BBC Ancient World” documentaries for four weeks.

Repeated online “Be Mindful” exercises of meditation, breathing and yoga proved as comparable in reducing perceived stress, anxiety and depression as face-to-face mindfulness courses and treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy, the researchers reported in the paper, published in November. 

The research team members were Yonas Alem of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden; Hannahg Behrendt of the Behavioural Insights Team, United Kingdom; Anikó Bíró of the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungary, and Belot.

A full version of this story can be found on the ILR website.

Mary Catt is the ILR School’s director of communications.