ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Mindfulness
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1528049
This article is part of the Research TopicNovel Intervention Models Transcending Borders for Stress Management - Volume IIIView all 6 articles
Enhancing psychological health and cognitive inhibition in college students: Insights from mindfulness training and high-intensity interval training
Provisionally accepted
- 1dalian minzu university, Dalian, China
- 2Aviation University of Air Force, Changchun, China
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Background: This study aimed to examine the effects of mindfulness training (MT) and highintensity interval training (HIIT) enhancing psychological health and cognitive inhibition in college students. Methods: 132 undergraduates were recruited and randomly assigned to three groups (MT group, HIIT group and control group). Both the MT and HIIT groups received training twice a week for six weeks, with each session lasting one hour. The control group did not undergo MT and HIIT training during the experimental period. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Stop Signal tasks, and Flanker tasks were assessed at baseline, six weeks (post-test), and six weeks after the end of intervention (follow-up). Results: Both MT and HIIT were effective in alleviating depression and anxiety in college students, with MT showing significant improvement in psychological health after intervention. Both MT and HIIT effectively improve the response inhibition accuracy of college students, with similar effects. However, neither MT nor HIIT affects the response inhibition reaction time. MT was more effective than HIIT in improving interference inhibition accuracy, but neither MT nor HIIT had an effect on the interference inhibition reaction time. Conclusions: Within-group analyses demonstrated significant pre-post reductions in depression and anxiety scores following both MT and HIIT interventions. While between-group comparisons suggested a trend toward greater symptom improvement in the MT group at post-test, the differences did not reach statistical significance at follow-up, possibly due to limited sample size and intervention duration. These preliminary findings warrant replication in larger-scale trials with extended observation periods.
Keywords: psychological health, Cognitive Inhibition, High-intensity interval training, mindfulness training, college students
Received: 14 Nov 2024; Accepted: 18 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bao, Sun and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yintu Bao, dalian minzu university, Dalian, China
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