College students are the elite among young people and bear the responsibility for the future development of the nation and society, tasked with building a prosperous, democratic, civilized, and harmonious socialist country. They are the most vibrant, enthusiastic, and creative group in society, representing the future and hope of the motherland. Their healthy growth is crucial for the formation of their outlook on life, values, and worldview. However, some college students around us lack confidence and joy in life, lack a proper outlook on life, values, and worldview, and have low life satisfaction. Analyzing the root causes, the social environment they are in and personal factors are the main influences on their life satisfaction. Researching methods such as meditation and mindfulness to improve college students’ life satisfaction has significant practical importance.

Keywords: Meditation; Life satisfaction; Mindfulness; Emotion and behavior; Dual mediation.

Copy right Statement: Content published in the journal follows Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). © Zhang J (2024).

Journal: The Journal of Clinical and Medical Images, Case Reports (JCMICR) is a fantastic resource for keeping up with the latest clinical advancements and for publishing case reports and clinical images related to a variety of medical illnesses.

Citation: Zhang J, Xiang S, Tang Y. Meditation and life satisfaction among college students: The dual mediating role of emotion and behavior, and mindfulness. J Clin Med Images Case Rep. 2024; 4(5): 1745.

As the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China approaches, our country has successfully achieved the grand goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, marking a new historical stage in our social development. Considering both domestic and international trends, China is still in an important period of strategic opportunities for development. It is believed that under the correct leadership of the Central Committee, China can basically achieve socialist modernization by 2035. From a sociological perspective, social development is essentially a state of social existence formed and manifested by the continuous development of people. Thus, in the current era, as people’s material lives are increasingly satisfied, the importance of satisfaction with their spiritual lives becomes particularly prominent. However, in recent years, alongside China’s rapid social development, psychological crises among university students have been frequent, with an increasing number of students experiencing psychological issues due to social changes. This study aims to examine the role of self-efficacy in the influence of social support on college students’ life satisfaction, providing actionable recommendations for improving their life satisfaction.

Meditation

Outlined [1] several potential mechanisms through which meditation training can improve telomere biology by altering habitual and acute stress processes. This model may help explain why various meditation interventions, as well as other mind-body interventions, have been found to positively impact telomere biology and other stress-sensitive biological outcomes. As methods for measuring telomere biology become more reliable and accessible, the next generation of research will be able to more definitively determine whether meditation interventions meaningfully affect telomere biology. Understanding how these practices impact telomere biology requires a more systematic investigation of the various dimensions that constitute meditation interventions, as well as better methods to capture the phenomena and psychological changes that may occur. Conducted [2] research on mind-wandering and meditation, showing that meditation may help reduce the frequency of mind-wandering. Therefore, assessing the quality of meditation should be based not only on the depth of meditation but also on the valence of mind-wandering and its ability to attract attention during meditation, which will benefit future meditation research. Additionally, physiological responses to these thoughts, such as muscle tension, are also important. These measurements could be used to predict the potential harmful effects of intensive meditation practice on certain individuals.

Life satisfaction

Argue that when college students receive more social support, they can enhance their social-emotional skills and indirectly improve their life satisfaction through a sense of security and positive psychological capital, thereby increasing their overall life satisfaction. Found that female college students with lower levels of social support tend to accumulate stress due to insufficient psychological resources when coping with stressful situations or negative events. Good social support can effectively reduce female college students’ perception of stressful events, decrease the impact of negative emotions, and play a crucial protective role in their mental health. Conducted a study on the life satisfaction and social exclusion of 2,297 college students, confirming that social exclusion is significantly negatively correlated with life satisfaction among college students. The more severe the social exclusion, the lower the students’ subjective evaluation of their life satisfaction. To mitigate the negative impact of social exclusion events, psychological educators need to guide students to positively and actively evaluate the psychological aspect of these events and adopt positive cognitive and behavioral coping strategies to alleviate the negative effects brought by such stressors (social exclusion).

Emotion and behavior

Revealed [3] an important and complex relationship between aggressive script rehearsal, emotion regulation difficulties, and aggressive behavior. The results indicate that beyond the initiating effect of emotions on script rehearsal, aggressive script rehearsal may also regulate emotions. Assessing each individual’s tendency to rehearse aggressive scripts, their emotion regulation abilities, and the relationship of these variables with aggression is essential for matching treatment strategies. However, these conclusions and recommendations are tentative; further research is needed to better understand the directional relationships between emotions, emotion regulation difficulties, aggressive script rehearsal, and aggression, and to test the intervention strategies proposed in the study. Conducted [4] a longitudinal study over the past five years on the relationship between emotion regulation and aggression/externalizing behavior in childhood. The research results indicate that emotional dysregulation in children is significantly associated with externalizing problems such as aggression, thus constituting an important risk factor. Since researchers frequently claim a lack of longitudinal studies investigating emotion regulation and psychopathology, this paper focuses solely on current research employing this design. Despite the limited number of existing longitudinal studies, the hypothesis that emotion regulation issues lead to or contribute to aggressive behavior seems to be supported. To date, there has been little research on this connection in infants and adolescents. Therefore, future research needs to provide a comprehensive understanding throughout childhood. The findings suggest that emotional dysregulation is clearly a risk factor for mental health issues rather than a consequence of such problems.

Mindfulness

Examined [5] the influential Buddhist concept of mindfulness in the West-a non-judgmental state of awareness that involves clearly seeing and accepting the mental and emotional phenomena arising in the present moment. One factor in the success and popularity of mindfulness-based therapeutic techniques may be their explicit focus on self-compassion. A compassion-based therapeutic approach, used to treat habitual self-criticism, known as Compassionate Mind Training, appears very promising. There is also reason to believe that increasing self-compassion may be easier than enhancing self-esteem. For these reasons, future research should aim to understand how to increase self-compassion in both clinical and non-clinical populations and should investigate the effects of self-compassion on physiological and psychological health.

Current research deficiencies

There is considerable theoretical research on meditation both domestically and internationally, with consistent conclusions indicating that meditation training can effectively reduce anxiety levels and improve concentration. However, research on life satisfaction has mainly focused on the factors influencing college students’ life satisfaction. The main deficiency is the lack of empirical studies confirming that meditation can predict college students’ life satisfaction. Additionally, few studies explore the relationships between emotions, behavior, mindfulness, and life satisfaction. This gap in research poses challenges for universities in finding ways to further enhance students’ life satisfaction. Furthermore, the relationship between emotions and behavior is quite complex, with emotional dysregulation being a significant risk factor for mental health problems. Therefore, it is particularly important to understand how to maintain a balanced emotional state, which is a key area that future research needs to address.

In conclusion, meditation training plays a crucial role in improving college students’ anxiety levels, thus enhancing their life satisfaction. Mindfulness allows individuals to adopt a non-judgmental state of awareness in life, assisting them in facing reality correctly and playing an important role in improving mental health. It serves as a mediator in both meditation training and life satisfaction. However, whether emotions and behavior mediate the relationship between meditation and life satisfaction still requires extensive empirical research.

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