Using YouTube meditation videos to boost mindfulness and occupational health

“

It is worth highlighting the following considerations in this research design. First, a daily 10-minute guided meditation intervention is feasible to continue daily. Traditional Zen retreats require individuals to practice meditation for several hours per day (Jiang et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2021). For many, such dedication may be unattractive, whereas 10-minute daily sessions might be more acceptable to the general public. Second, among various types of meditation practices (e.g., mantra meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and seated Zen meditation), guided meditation was selected for this study because it can be practiced without religious beliefs (allowing practitioners to purely focus on body and mind as well as connecting with the natural environment) and may be customized with different natural images (e.g., ocean view, mountain view, lake view, or sunrise view) (Condon & Makransky, 2020). Third, this study sampled employees as participants because they have experienced job insecurity and/or financial concerns during the pandemic (Wilson et al., 2020). Fourth, to systematically clarify changes in cultivating mindfulness via daily 10-minute guided meditation, both state and trait mindfulness are examined in this study (Kiken et al., 2015). Fifth, this study includes constructs related to daily occupational health surveys to examine how leisure time meditation could improve occupational mental health (Hafenbrack, 2017). Sixth, this longitudinal study was conducted over eight days. The eight-day period was selected based on Buddhist teachings that contend the benefits of meditation require daily sessions for no less than one week (Hanh, 2012). This provides convenient compatibility with potential practitioners as it is common to engage in week-long business trips, road trips, or getaways, and the most common prescheduled programs at wellness resorts or retreat centers are one week long (Kelly, 2010). Seventh, data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. The timing of data collection allowed the findings to authentically reflect the effectiveness of daily 10-minute guided meditation sessions during adversities and uncertainties (Jiménez et al., 2020; Matiz et al., 2020; Vatansever et al., 2021).

”