The Effect of a Brief Mindfulness Intervention on Memory for Positively and Negatively Valenced Stimuli

A core component of mindfulness is non-judgmental observation of internal and external stimuli. The present study investigated
the effect of mindfulness on memory for emotional stimuli. Participants were exposed to a brief mindfulness intervention and
subsequently performed a verbal learning test consisting of positive, neutral, and negative words. Control participants received
no intervention and directly performed the verbal learning test. After 20 min, participants recalled as many words as possible.
Participants in the mindfulness condition remembered a significantly lower proportion of negative words compared to control
participants. No differences between both groups were observed for the proportion of remembered positive words. These findings
suggest that memory processes may be a potential mechanism underlying the link between mindfulness and subjective well-being.