Pre-retirement Employees Experience Lasting Improvements in Resilience and Well-Being After Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

Marina Diachenko,Niels Viggo Hansen,Klaus Linkenkaer-Hansen,Kristina K. Smith,Karen Johanne Pallesen,Lone Fjorback

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.699088

Abstract

The socio-economic benefits of interventions to prevent stress and related mental health problems are enormous. In the labor market, it is becoming desirable to keep employees for as long as possible. Since aging implies additional stressors such as increased risk of illness, and added pressure by professional tasks such as transferring knowledge, or learning new technologies, it is of particular relevance to offer stress-reduction to pre-retirement employees. Here, we report the effects of an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention on mental well-being in 60–65-year-old work-active Danish employees, compared to a waiting-list control group. We observed improvements in resilience (Brief Resilience Scale) and mental well-being (WHO-5) not only at the end of the intervention, but also at the 12-month follow-up measurement that was preceded by monthly booster sessions. Interestingly, whereas well-being usually refers to experiences in the past weeks or months, we observed increasing Comfort in the MBSR-intervention group during a 5-minute eyes-closed rest session suggesting that this therapeutic effect of MBSR is measurable in how we feel even during short periods of time. We argue that MBSR is a cost-effective intervention suited for pre-retirement employees to cultivate resilience to prevent stress, feel more comfortable with themselves, maintain a healthy work-life in the last years before retirement, and, potentially, stay in their work-life a few more years than originally planned.

Highlights

Work processes become more complex, more intense, and require flexibility and mobility from employees, more than ever due to changes in the workforce spurred by globalization, digitization, and societal transformation (Mack et al, 2015)
In the electronic questionnaires, which were administered at home, participants were guided through a 5-minute eyes-closed rest session followed by reporting of thoughts and feelings using the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire (ARSQ), after which they filled in five validated questionnaires: the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), the WHO-5 wellbeing scale (WHO-5), the Symptom Checklist-5 (SCL-5), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS)
Four out of the five scales indicated that Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) participants with no previous practice presented with significantly better mental well-being at baseline (T0 in Table 2) compared to MBSR participants with experience, i.e., symptoms of anxiety and depression were lower, whereas scores on resilience, satisfaction with life, and well-being were higher in MBSR participants without previous experience

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Work processes become more complex, more intense, and require flexibility and mobility from employees, more than ever due to changes in the workforce spurred by globalization, digitization, and societal transformation (Mack et al, 2015). It is plausible that mindfulness practice may promote healthy aging (Klimecki et al, 2019) by reducing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress, which are recognized risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia (Wilson et al, 2011; Diniz et al, 2013; Marchant and Howard, 2015; Gulpers et al, 2016). This association is corroborated by findings of improved memory and executive function in older adults following mindfulness training (Lenze et al, 2014; Moore et al, 2016; Wetherell et al, 2017). We hypothesize increasing Comfort, and decreases in Discontinuity of Mind, Sleepiness, and Negative Thought

Participants

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ETHICS STATEMENT