Psychoneuroimmunology of Mindfulness: What works, how it works, and for whom?

Abstract

As a major risk factor for mental and physical health disorders, chronic stress presents a critical public health challenge. Over the past decades, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have gained empirical support as a promising approach to mitigating its harmful effects. However, important research gaps remain in the psychoneuroimmunology of mindfulness. This article synthesises the current state of research and identifies three central gaps that offer future directions for advancing the field. The first gap concerns the lack of a unified theoretical framework in mindfulness research, which hinders progress and cross-disciplinary integration. Researchers are invited to use the testable INterdiSciPlinary TheoretIcal FRamEwoRk (INSPIRER) that integrates the psychological, neural, and immune mechanisms by which mindfulness produces broad benefits across different levels of observation. The second gap refers to individual differences in responses to MBIs, emphasising the need for precision approaches to discover who benefits most and for whom these interventions may be contraindicated. Baseline levels of psychopathology are some of the participant characteristics that influence responses, but only further identification of participant characteristics and replication of existing ones will allow for more targeted interventions. The final gap addresses adaptations to existing MBIs that may further increase effectiveness or accessibility across diverse populations—such as varying intervention duration and doses of home practice or utilising technology. By addressing these three research gaps, we can advance the field of mindfulness in the 21st century and contribute to the development of cost-effective and personalised interventions that can be applied on a large scale to mitigate the effects of chronic stress and protect human health.

1. Introduction

The detrimental effects of chronic stress on human physical and mental health are indisputable and well understood because of previous research efforts in the field of psychoneuroimmunology (Acabchuk et al., 2017; Cohen et al., 2012; Gouin et al., 2012; McEwen, 2017). In this context, chronic stress refers to the exposure to stress stimuli that persist over time, such as frequently repeated or continuously persistent life difficulties. This process includes the psychological experience of stress—the emotional and cognitive reactions to perceived threats—and the physiological stress response, which involves the sustained activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic nervous system. Chronic stress increases the risk of inflammation-related mental and physical disorders such as anxiety, depression, asthma, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and neurodegenerative disorders (Acabchuk et al., 2017; Cohen et al., 2012; Gouin et al., 2012; McEwen, 2017). However, less is understood about what can be done to prevent or mitigate the effects of chronic stress. A promising approach to stress reduction and prevention is mindfulness, which belongs to the family of mind-body interventions, together with other types of meditation and movement-based practices such as yoga or Tai Chi. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) include a broad set of techniques that can be divided into formal and informal. Formal mindfulness techniques are structured meditations that typically involve sitting or lying down with eyes closed in a quiet environment and directing attention to a certain aspect of the present moment experience, noticing when the mind has wandered, and gently redirecting attention back to it. That certain aspect of the present moment can be internal, such as directing attention only to thoughts, only to emotions, or only to bodily sensations (e.g., observing the movements that occur in the abdomen with every inhale and exhale or observing sensations during mindful yoga). Attention can also be directed in a broader sense, as in the practice of choiceless awareness”, where the attention is open to all aspects of the present moment without focusing on any one object in particular. Other than directing attention to internal aspects, some formal mindfulness techniques are centred around external aspects of the present moment experience, including sensory information from the outside world, such as auditory or visual stimuli (e.g., attentively listening to sounds that are present in the room or outside of the room). Complementary to formal techniques, informal mindfulness techniques integrate mindfulness into routine activities such as eating, showering, or dressing. Performing these activities with greater awareness and noticing aspects of the present moment can counteract the habitual tendency to engage in tasks automatically. For instance, mindful eating may include directing attention to the smell of food, then to the sensory experience of making a bite, chewing, or swallowing, or observing the sensations of fullness in the body. All formal and informal mindfulness techniques have one thing in common—they aim to induce a state of awareness that arises when we direct attention to one aspect of the experience in the present moment without judging it or trying to change it. Overall, the three central processes targeted by every mindfulness technique can be remembered as the three A's of mindfulness: attention, awareness, and acceptance (see Fig. 1). One important distinction is that, unlike relaxation techniques whose aim is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to induce a transient state of relaxation by manipulating the physiological (e.g., deliberately slowing down the exhale) or psychological (e.g., visualising being in a preferred relaxing environment) level of experience, mindfulness techniques aim to cultivate a state of non-judgmental awareness of the present moment experience without trying to change it in any way (Montero-Marin et al., 2019; Luberto et al., 2020). While both mindfulness and relaxation techniques can induce a degree of relaxation in the face of acute stress, mindfulness offers broader benefits in clinical and non-clinical populations (Montero-Marin et al., 2019; Khoury et al., 2013) including coping with chronic stress (Garland et al., 2017). Meta-analyses of previous studies consistently demonstrate a strong efficacy of MBIs across various outcomes, including reductions in stress and mental health problems that are associated with it (Bohlmeijer et al., 2010; Goldberg et al., 2018; Goyal et al., 2014; Khoury et al., 2015a; Galante et al., 2021). They have also been linked to benefits for some aspects of physical health, such as systolic blood pressure (Scott-Sheldon et al., 2020) and immune functioning (Black and Slavich, 2016; Oyler et al., 2023; Dunn and Dimolareva, 2022), but more rigorous studies are needed to replicate and further substantiate the effect on physical health. The field of mindfulness has been growing rapidly in recent years, reaching 16 581 studies published between 1966 and 2020, and now over 2000 novel studies continue to be published annually (Baminiwatta and Solangaarachchi, 2021). Despite the extensive number of mindfulness studies available across various fields including psychology, neuroscience, and immunology, there are three central gaps in research on the psychoneuroimmunology of mindfulness that remain due to methodological and theoretical pitfalls that can be summarised as: (a) How does mindfulness work? (b) For whom does it work best? and (c) What works best? Below, I describe each of these gaps in mindfulness research and provide suggestions on how they can be addressed in future studies.

Fig. 1.

A graphical representation of the three A's of mindfulness, i.e., the three central processes engaged during the implementation of any mindfulness technique: attention, awareness, and acceptance. With repeated implementation over time, mindfulness improves capacities for self-regulation. Self-regulation is the central psychological mechanism, which is what ultimately gives rise to a wide range of benefits that can be observed, such as improvements in mental and physical health.

2. State of the art

2.1. How it works: core mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions

Meta-analyses of previous studies clearly show that the benefits of mindfulness are broad, not only ranging from improving health, quality of life or social functioning to reducing stress, anxiety or depression in non-clinical populations (de Vibe et al., 2017; Khoury et al., 2015b), but also reducing symptoms of psychiatric disorders across clinical populations (Goldberg et al., 2018). How can a set of relatively simple techniques that cultivate non-judgemental awareness of the present moment experience lead to such broad benefits? More specifically, what are the central mechanisms in the mind and the body that enable these benefits to emerge? It is not fully understood how MBIs establish their beneficial effects, and available knowledge is poorly integrated and scattered across disciplines. For instance, psychologists have focused on psychological processes that are strengthened by regular practice of mindfulness techniques (Shapiro et al., 2006). Neuroscientists have suggested that structural changes observed in the brains of regular mindfulness practitioners might be the key to understanding the mechanisms by which mindfulness works²²¹. Molecular biologists have primarily focused on inflammation and gene expression changes, where studies have shown that MBIs have beneficial effects on immune-related gene expression (Buric et al., 2017). Although all disciplines provide valid findings, we can only obtain a full picture of how mindfulness works by integrating these findings and testing hypotheses about their interactions. While several notable conceptual perspectives discuss biopsychosocial pathways through which mindfulness may promote stress reduction (Crosswell et al., 2024; Tang et al., 2015; Vago and Silbersweig, 2012; Creswell and Lindsay, 2014), they lack specific, testable frameworks that can be used for empirical validation. Without this, research remains fragmented, leading to inconsistencies in outcome measurement and difficulties in synthesising findings across studies. Developing a common theoretical framework would enable greater consistency in study designs, facilitate the standardisation of outcome measures, and allow for collaborative data pooling, thereby increasing statistical power for more advanced analyses. With this aim in mind, I below briefly describe an Interdisciplinary Theoretical Framework (INterdiSciPlinary TheoretIcal FRamEwoRk; INSPIRER) that will be published in full elsewhere. The INSPIRER builds upon existing perspectives by explicitly integrating psychoneuroimmunological pathways, offering a testable framework that demonstrates how mindfulness may counteract the effects of chronic stress on multiple interconnected levels of observation—psychological, neural, and immunological—and how it may thus reduce the risk of physical and mental health problems. At the psychological level, the INSPIRER recognises self-regulation as the central psychological mechanism, which refers to the ability to regulate thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations or impulses for behaviours (Bell and Deater-Deckard, 2007). Namely, through mindfulness we develop self-regulation, enabling us to respond to internal processes on purpose and choose responses that align with long-term values, rather than reacting automatically and continuing dysfunctional habitual patterns.

„Between a stimulus and a response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

• -Viktor Frankl

However, due to challenges in the adequate operationalisation of the construct of self-regulation (Duckworth and Kern, 2011), emotion regulation is a highly overlapping construct that emerges as a methodologically adequate substitute (Gratz et al., 2015). In this context, emotion regulation is a multidimensional construct that includes awareness, goal-directed behaviour, appropriate emotion regulation strategies, and willingness to experience negative emotions (Gratz and Roemer, 2008), which may all be directly trained through mindfulness practice, particularly through the cultivation of equanimity (Buric et al; Desbordes et al., 2015; Lindsay and Creswell, 2019; Simione et al., 2021). Emotion regulation is also a transdiagnostic construct because deficits in emotion regulation are consistently observed across a wide range of psychiatric populations (Cludius et al., 2020; Sloan et al., 2017), thus this explains why previous studies observed that MBIs can address multiple psychiatric disorders (Goldberg et al., 2018). Therefore, there is theoretical justification to measure emotion regulation as a central psychological variable in mindfulness studies and to continue investigating its relationship with other observed benefits.

Building capacities for emotion regulation via mindfulness can mitigate the impact of past and future stress stimuli, and these benefits may then be reflected on other levels of organisation. Neuroscience meta-analyses showcased that regular mindfulness practice is associated with structural and functional neural changes that can be observed in many different regions and networks of the brain (Boccia et al., 2015; Sezer et al., 2022; Guendelman et al., 2017). More specifically, mindfulness has been shown to functionally impact the default mode network, salience network, and central executive network, which are involved in processes that facilitate emotion regulation, such as self-referential thinking, interoception, and cognitive control (Sezer et al., 2022; Rahrig et al., 2022; Ganesan et al., 2022). Structurally, mindfulness is associated with changes in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex, all of which also contribute to emotion regulation (Pernet et al., 2021; Fox et al., 2014). On the one hand, it is expected that diverse neural changes are detected given that mindfulness techniques engage diverse and complex processes, namely attention, awareness, and acceptance. On the other hand, it remains unclear to what degree these findings reflect reality because effect sizes might be overestimated due to small sample sizes and publication bias, which is an apparent problem in neuroscience that is not unique to mindfulness research (Marek et al., 2022). Therefore, until more studies with higher methodological rigour replicate these findings, it remains impossible to pinpoint one or several central neural mechanisms of mindfulness. More clarity is available at the immunological level, with evidence pointing to inflammation as the central mechanism. MBIs not only lead to gene expression changes where the activity of genes that promote inflammation decreases and the activity of antiviral genes increases (Buric et al., 2017), but also at the protein level where changes in inflammatory protein can be observed, primarily as reductions in levels of interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein (Oyler et al., 2023). These biological effects are primarily regulated by the Nuclear Factor kappa B (NF-κB) transcription factor (Black and Slavich, 2016; Oyler et al., 2023; Dunn and Dimolareva, 2022; Buric et al., 2017), consequently contributing to improved immune function and overall health. Therefore, this evidence forms a theoretical basis for evaluating inflammation as the central biological mechanism of mindfulness and for exploring whether it is directly related to improvements in emotion regulation and whether it acts as a mediator of the additional benefits of mindfulness on mental health or physical health. While other systems, such as autonomic regulation and social dynamics, may also play a role, the INSPIRER framework prioritises testable psychoneuroimmunological mechanisms with the strongest empirical support. Through collective effort in adopting a standardised theoretical framework, we can bridge existing gaps in mindfulness that extend beyond understanding its mechanisms to exploring individual variability and testing novel interventions.

2.2. For whom does it work best: individual differences in responses to mindfulness-based interventions

When we talk about the benefits of mindfulness, we commonly refer to meta-analyses that have examined the overall effects of mindfulness on well-being or health-related outcomes across different populations (e.g. (Scott-Sheldon et al., 2020; Dunn and Dimolareva, 2022; Khoury et al., 2015b; Pernet et al., 2021)). Meta-analyses are valuable for summarising available data, but it is important to note that they report average effects at the group level, which means that individual variations in outcomes are masked. The same approach is applied in individual MBI studies as the focus is on statistically testing changes on the level of a group. This might create an illusion that mindfulness will affect all individuals in the same way, but mindfulness—just like any other type of psychological intervention—is not a panacea that universally leads to large benefits. In reality, the effects of MBIs vary among individuals within the group. Most participants will gain benefits that are close to the group average, while some might experience extreme improvements, and some might experience unpleasant, or even adverse effects (Schlosser et al., 2019; Cebolla et al., 2017; Lindahl et al., 2017). The estimated prevalence of unpleasant experiences is between 25 % and 32 % in experienced mindfulness meditators (Schlosser et al., 2019; Cebolla et al., 2017), and they may arise in the cognitive, perceptual, affective, somatic, conative, sense of self, or social domains (Lindahl et al., 2017). These unpleasant experiences are commonly transient in nature, but several case studies documented that adverse effects (including psychosis, mania, or depersonalisation) are possible. The adverse effects of meditation are estimated to have a prevalence of approximately 8 %, which is comparable to the prevalence of adverse effects of psychotherapy (Farias et al., 2020). The question that arises is: “For whom does mindfulness work best and for whom it may be contraindicated?“. More specifically, are there participant characteristics that we can measure at baseline to predict their response to MBIs? Identifying those who may respond positively, neutrally, or negatively based on their personal characteristics could allow for targeted intervention assignments. For instance, if we could accurately predict that certain individuals will experience adverse effects, we could then assign them to another non-mindfulness type of intervention or test if adverse effects would be prevented in a modified form of MBI. This personalised strategy can simultaneously optimise resource allocation and prevent potential harm. Currently, there is a scarcity of comprehensive studies that explored individual differences in responsiveness to mindfulness and other types of meditation. My first-authored meta-analysis addresses this gap by synthesising findings from 51 studies on baseline participant characteristics and their relationships with meditation outcomes (Buric et al., 2022). The results showed that psychological traits, self-concept, and demographics were non-significant factors, while several others were significantly related to both negative and positive outcomes of meditation. For instance, baseline levels of depression were significantly related to negative outcomes, suggesting that individuals with depression may experience worsened mental health with meditation techniques such as mindfulness. Similarly, a recent individual participant data meta-analysis by Galante et al. (2023) examined several baseline participant characteristics as moderators of effectiveness. However, this meta-analysis did not find significant moderation by baseline psychological distress, age, gender, education level, or dispositional mindfulness. This aligns with the notion that mindfulness may benefit a broad range of individuals, but also emphasises the need for further research. Although the majority of currently available studies explored psychological variables, it's crucial to recognise that their significance and explanatory power might not be the highest. In fact, a narrative review on the same topic pinpointed that biological factors like BDNF and COMT gene polymorphisms, IL-6 levels, and amygdala and insula activity seem to also play a role in influencing outcomes of MBIs (Buric et al., 2021). Examining individual differences in mindfulness outcomes across various levels, including biological, social, and psychological, allows for the exploration of their individual and joint contributions. By shifting the research focus from group averages to individual differences, we can understand the variance that might otherwise be overlooked or dismissed as an error. Further advances can be made by drawing inspiration from precision medicine (Cuthbert and Insel, 2013) and applying machine learning approaches to model complex psychoneuroimmunological relationships to identify patterns and predict which subgroups or individuals are most likely to benefit from MBIs. Going forward, this approach can ultimately lead to personalised treatment or prevention recommendations for individuals where mindfulness might or might not be an optimal approach for them.

2.3. What works: optimising formats of mindfulness-based interventions

In clinical, non-clinical, and research settings, mindfulness is typically taught in a secular form using manualised group intervention protocols. These protocols include standardised group sessions that are led by a trained mindfulness teacher once per week over a duration of eight weeks, where each session lasts approximately 2.5 h, and one session is day-long. Each weekly session includes dialogue among group members and together with the teacher, relevant psychoeducation, and learning one or two new mindfulness techniques. The group members are typically required to dedicate 45 min to 1 h each day to engage in mindfulness practice at home. The most notable and well-researched examples of group MBIs are Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (Kabat-Zinn, 2013) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) (Segal et al., 2002). The effectiveness of MBSR and MBCT is found across populations, typically showing effect sizes that are comparable to other evidence-based psychological interventions such as cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy (Khoury et al., 2013; Bohlmeijer et al., 2010; Goldberg et al., 2018; Dunn and Dimolareva, 2022; de Vibe et al., 2017; Sezer et al., 2022; Creswell, 2017). Not surprisingly, mindfulness is also the central component of third-wave psychotherapies, namely Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (Cristea et al., 2017) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Hayes et al., 2006), which are typically implemented through individual sessions with a trained psychotherapist. These most common secular formats of mindfulness that we use today in the West are different from the religious origins of mindfulness that stem from Buddhism. Within Buddhism, mindfulness is also typically implemented within a group, but without a standardised protocol that has a start and end date or predefined content for every group session. Secular and traditional formats contain similar mindfulness techniques, but what makes the difference is what surrounds them (i.e., psychoeducation or religious aspects) and the aim with which they are practised (i.e., stress reduction and well-being or spiritual enlightenment). Nevertheless, meta-analyses show that both secular and religious mindfulness approaches have comparable beneficial effects on psychological and biological outcomes (Goyal et al., 2014; Boccia et al., 2015; Marchand, 2012). In terms of the necessary dose of mindfulness practice, it seems that just like with physical exercise, larger doses of mindfulness practice at regular intervals produce larger effects, but there is a limit after which no additional benefits occur—cross-sectional data suggests that these effects plateau after the first 500 h of practice (Bowles et al., 2022). Similarly, a meta-analysis found that more dose-intensive formats of MBIs do not consistently lead to better psychological outcomes, particularly for depression and anxiety (Strohmaier, 2020).

The question that remains and represents a gap in research is whether adjustments in intervention formats can enhance effectiveness or accessibility. Meta-analyses typically show significant effects of MBIs, but there is always variability in how individuals within each group respond. This suggests that while MBIs are effective, there is room for further refinement. Adaptations—such as altering the duration and intensity of interventions or incorporating technology—could potentially optimise their impact and make them more accessible to a wider range of populations. Ever since Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn established MBSR in 1979 as the first standardised and secular MBI, the majority of subsequent creators of MBIs chose to apply a very similar format. The 8-week duration and 2.5-h weekly sessions plus 1 h per day of home practice became the norm, yet the rationale behind this remains unclear. Based on the studies of habit formation, humans need on average 9.43 weeks to form a new behavioural habit such as daily mindfulness practice, but the time to form a habit largely varies between individuals (from 18 to even 256 days) (Lally et al., 2010). This suggests that the 8-week format might be too short for most people to form a habit of daily mindfulness practice, which is necessary to maintain the long-term benefits of mindfulness practice. The potential impact of alterations, such as varying the number of weeks, session frequency, or the amount of home practice, remains insufficiently explored. The current 8-week standard is generally effective, but many people cannot adhere to its intensity because the required time commitment is often incompatible with the modern way of life. Interestingly, variations of the original MBSR format with reduced class hours bring the same psychological benefits despite their lower dose (Carmody and Baer, 2009; Buric et al., 2025). A meta-analysis of 65 randomised controlled trials showed that even shorter MBIs ranging from a single session to two weeks in length also produce measurable, albeit smaller, effects on negative affectivity outcomes such as stress, depression or anxiety (Schumer et al., 2018). These findings are far from negligible because if a larger population gets smaller effects, that will have immense public health benefits and the potential to minimise the ongoing mental health crisis (Sohn, 2022). However, given that previous studies suggest the immunological effects of mindfulness are small (Oyler et al., 2023), further research is needed to determine whether reducing intervention intensity might diminish or eliminate these effects altogether.

Nevertheless, the way to deliver smaller effects to a larger population is by developing effective low-dose MBIs that can be easily incorporated into existing systems such as education, health care, or workplaces, and even more possibilities arise by utilising technology. For instance, technology can help overcome geographical barriers, allowing individuals in remote areas or those with mobility issues to access interventions. MBIs are traditionally delivered face-to-face with a trained teacher and other group members, but studies show that it can be equally effective when delivered online as long as it is not pre-recorded, so that there are still opportunities for group and teacher interactions (Tellez Infantes et al., 2022; Spijkerman et al., 2016; Sommers-Spijkerman et al., 2021). Conversely, even mindfulness apps show smaller beneficial effects on depression, stress, anxiety and well-being in the short-term (Wu et al., 2022; Gál et al., 2021). However, retention and engagement are much lower in apps than in standard MBIs (Bowles et al., 2022; Linardon, 2023; Lam et al., 2022), with most participants engaging only in one or two meditation sessions of app use over multi-week intervention periods (Lam et al., 2022). Consequently, few people who have access to mindfulness apps will actually benefit from them and form a habit of regular mindfulness practice (Bowles et al., 2022; Linardon, 2023; Lam et al., 2022). Additionally, some studies suggest that initial exposure to mindfulness through a smartphone app is not associated with a higher likelihood of adverse effects overall, but is linked to a greater likelihood of functional impairment and longer-lasting difficulties among those who experience them (Goldberg et al., 2022). Thus, additional safeguards may be needed within apps to ensure safety and mitigate risks for vulnerable individuals.

Therefore, further tailoring of MBIs should have three aims: (a) to discover new and ethical ways of forming and maintaining the habit of regular mindfulness practice through technology (e.g., utilising artificial intelligence to provide personalised interventions may help maintain engagement and adherence), (b) to test MBIs with lower doses of contact hours and home mindfulness practice to find the minimal dose that produces clinically relevant changes, while also exploring whether extending standard interventions may enhance outcomes for some individuals, and (c) to develop formats of MBIs adapted to cultural factors, such those tailored to Hispanic populations (Castellanos et al., 2020), or adapted to rare clinical populations, such as prisoners with personality disorders (Buric et al., 2023). Overall, we know that standardised 8-week MBIs are effective for those who complete them, at least in the short term. In the upcoming decades, it is time to optimise the existing formats of MBIs so that they can be easily accessible across populations and implemented with minimal costs and maximum benefits.

3. Conclusions

Today we are living longer than ever in human history, but at the same time, 50 % of all deaths are due to inflammation-related chronic diseases, and we are amidst a mental health crisis. Therefore, it is important to understand and find ways to counteract chronic stress that inevitably comes with modern ways of life, and mindfulness is one way to alleviate that burden. Currently available mindfulness research is extensive, but there are three central gaps that are specifically relevant to research on the psychoneuroimmunology of mindfulness: how it works, for whom, and what works best. First, the question of how MBIs work refers to the underlying mechanisms of mindfulness. A briefly summarised theoretical framework INSPIRER integrates findings from psychology, neuroscience, and immunology to gain a comprehensive understanding of how mindfulness works on multiple interconnected levels of organisation and serves to enable further interdisciplinary collaborations. Second, the question for whom mindfulness work best refers to understanding that mindfulness is not a panacea and to predicting individual variations in responses to MBIs, which is an often-overlooked topic with clinical implications that can lead to cost-effective personalised approaches. Lastly, in terms of what works, standard formats of MBIs are effective and thoroughly researched, but novel adjustments to the intervention formats could further enhance effectiveness or accessibility. By addressing these gaps, the field of mindfulness research can further advance within this century with a focus on the quality, and not merely quantity, of published studies.

<au id=“1”>I am a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), working as an interdisciplinary researcher with experience in psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology. I hold a dual PhD from Coventry University (England) and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University (Netherlands), awarded for my research on the psychobiology of mind-body interventions. In 2021, I obtained a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship to further develop an independent line of research, with an emphasis on mechanisms of mindfulness and cross-disciplinary research training. In 2024, I received a Varela Grant to establish a Mindfulness Consortium and develop a shared database of existing studies to support future mindfulness research. I am also a certified project manager (AgilePM®) and the founder of Mindfulness Centre Split (Croatia), where I contribute to teaching mindfulness across clinical and non-clinical populations. My main research mission, as this article suggests, is testing MBIs, understanding how they work, and for whom they work best.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: The author occasionally teaches mindfulness professionally and receives compensation for these services.

Data availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.