Mindfulness-Based College: Stage 1

MB-College is an 8-week, 9-session curriculum providing systematic and intensive training in mindfulness meditation practices, applied to health behaviors relevant to college students. The curriculum is based on the manualized and standardized Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. The course builds a foundation of mindfulness self-regulation skills, including attention control, self-awareness and emotion regulation. It then directs those skills towards participants' relationships with health-related factors particularly salient in college undergraduates, including physical activity, diet, alcohol consumption, sleep, stress, social relationships, cognitive performance, and emotion regulation. Health behavior goal setting, and support for behavior change are integrated in the curriculum.

Participants in the enhanced usual care control group were spoken with by trained study staff, and as part of the enhanced usual care, were offered a referral to the study's psychiatrist and University counseling resources, if anxiety, depression, or suicidal ideation levels at baseline or follow-up reached clinical levels on the Beck Anxiety Inventory or the Revised Centers for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CESD-R) scale. Participants in the control group were eligible to take the MB-College program during the following university term.