Is less more? A randomized comparison of home practice time in a mind-body program
Open accessAbstract
Home practice is a major component of mind-body programs, yet little is known about how to optimize the amount of prescribed home practice in order to achieve an effective "dose" of practice while minimizing participant burden. This study tested how varying the amount of home practice in a mind-body program impacts compliance and stress reduction, and whether prescribing a flexible home practice schedule increases compliance. Eighty-four stressed participants undergoing a 12-week yoga program were randomized to low, medium, and high home practice conditions. The medium condition allowed participants the flexibility to choose one of two amounts of practice each day. The low practice group exhibited the highest compliance (91%) compared to the medium and low practice groups (∼60%), but exhibited the lowest total practice time, and did not significantly reduce stress. The high practice group was the only group to achieve significant stress-reduction, which was maintained 12 weeks post program. Prescribing a flexible home practice schedule did not increase compliance. Results suggest that prescribing higher practice doses may maximize practice time and symptom reduction despite lower compliance.
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For mindfulness-based interventions, there is a strong relation between degree of mindfulness practice at home and amount of improvement in mindfulness and wellbeing.
“Further, for mindfulness-based interventions, there is a strong relation between degree of mindfulness practice at home and amount of improvement in mindfulness and wellbeing (Carmody & Baer, 2009; Greenberg et al., 2018; Parsons et al., 2017).”
From Parent, child, and family outcomes following Acceptance And Commitment Therapy for parents of autistic children: A randomized controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as Greenberg et al., 2018
The Introduction (page unavailable) reports a statistically significant association between home practice and outcomes, but describes it as weak (r=.26) and says findings across studies are mixed—not strong. The Discussion (page unavailable) reports stress reduction in the high-practice group, but does not establish a strong relation with improvement in both mindfulness and wellbeing. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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- Authors
- Greenberg, J., Braun, T. D., Schneider, M. L., Finkelstein-Fox, L., Conboy, L. A., Schifano, E. D., Park, C., & Lazar, S. W.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- University of Connecticut (US)
- Massachusetts General Hospital (US)
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Greenberg, Jonathan
- Venue
- Behaviour Research and Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-12
- Volume
- 111
- Pages
- 52-56
- ISSN
- 0005-7967 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6538938
- OpenAlex
- W2894680263
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 3.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Behaviour Research and Therapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (R34-AT007197, R01-AG-048351)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- home practice, yoga, compliance, stress reduction, participant burden, dose-response relationship
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Female, Humans, Male, Patient Compliance, Self Care, Stress, Psychological, Time Factors, Mind-Body Therapies, Young Adult
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