Relating Mindfulness and Self-Regulatory Processes
Abstract
Brown, Ryan, and Creswell (this issue) summarize the recent surge in mindfulness research and practices, and they propose methods for developing a further understanding of the mindfulness phenomenon. We share the authors’ enthusiasm regarding the usefulness of mindfulness measures and interventions, and in order to facilitate the movement forward in this line of work we highlight two areas where the distinction between mindfulness and self-regulatory (or self-control) processes may require attention. First, there appears to be some theoretical overlap between mindfulness interventions and self-control exercise. Recent work (for a review, see Baumeister, Gailliot, DeWall, & Oaten, 2006) has shown that engaging in self-control exercises on a daily basis increases the general capacity for self-control, and that such an increase results in a variety of benefits for the self.