A pilot study : can mindfulness help high performance athletes? : a Masters thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Psychology, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
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Date
2021
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Massey University
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Abstract
To investigate whether mindfulness is effective for decreasing perceived stress in high performance athletes experiencing high levels of stress, the current single case pilot study (SCD) employed a Mindfulness Based Intervention (MBI) consisting of a video recorded mindfulness psychoeducation session, followed by the ‘1 Giant Mind – Learn to Meditate’ phone application. Participants (N = 3) were instructed to use the ‘1 Giant Mind – Learn to Meditate’ smartphone application and meditate once a day for 30 days. The study measured participants' perceived stress, psychological inflexibility, dispositional mindfulness and self-compassion at baseline, mid and post intervention. Mindfulness psychoeducation and meditation effectively decreased perceived stress and psychological inflexibility, and increased dispositional mindfulness and self-compassion from baseline to post intervention for all three participants, with a large group level effect across all four measures. Given that athletes are particularly vulnerable to experiencing the detriments of stress, this research is necessary to gain a better understanding of the benefits of mindfulness psychoeducation and meditation on high performance athletes experiencing high levels of stress.