Everyday mindfulness improves blood glucose levels, study finds

"Everyday" mindfulness is linked to improved blood glucose levels, according to new research. The study, which was conducted by researchers at Brown University, found that participants with higher everyday mindfulness scores had lower blood glucose levels than those with low everyday mindfulness scores. What is "everyday" mindfulness? Mindfulness is a meditative technique that focuses on awareness of the present moment to reduce stress and anxiety. Mindfulness practitioners focus on their feelings as they occur in order to better understand them. Everyday mindfulness is essentially the trait of being inherently mindful: that is, always being aware of one's thoughts and feelings in the present moment. Many people with diabetes experience anxiety as a result of the pressures of diabetes management, and mindfulness is a possible solution to this. How was the study conducted? The study is part of a wider programme at Brown University to test the potential effect of everyday mindfulness on risk of cardiovascular disease. The researchers hypothesise that people practicing mindfulness are more likely to be able to follow a healthy lifestyle. The study involved 399 participants. Those with high everyday mindfulness scores were less likely to be obese and more likely to believe they had control over important things in their life. "This study demonstrated a significant association of dispositional mindfulness with glucose regulation, and provided novel evidence that obesity and sense of control may serve as potential mediators of this association," wrote the authors. "As mindfulness is likely a modifiable trait, this study provides preliminary evidence for a fairly novel and modifiable determinant of diabetes risk." Mindfulness and diabetes: "We're getting a signal" This study is one of the few to investigate the potential benefits of mindfulness for people with diabetes. Although this study did not look specifically at the link between mindfulness and diabetes - despite finding a 20 per cent lower risk of diabetes amongst people with high mindfulness scores, the researchers argue that the study wasn't large enough to draw definitive conclusions - it did look at the relationship between mindfulness and blood glucose, which has an obvious relevance to people with diabetes. The researchers hope that further studies will elucidate the relationship between mindfulness and metabolic/cardiovascular conditions. Eric Loucks, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the Brown University School of Public Health, said: "There's been almost no epidemiological investigations on the relationship of mindfulness with diabetes or any cardiovascular risk factor. This is one of the first. We're getting a signal. I'd love to see it replicated in larger sample sizes and prospective studies as well." The findings are published in the American Journal of Health Behaviour.

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