Developing a 5-minute meditation program for adolescents based on mindfulness and self-compassion and verifying their effectiveness: Focusing on anxiety and subjective well-being

Objectives The purpose of this study is to develop a youth meditation program based on mindfulness and self-compassion, and to verify the effectiveness of the developed program. Methods To this end, the mental and physical development characteristics of adolescents and the emotional difficulties they face were explored through prior research, and prior studies related to mindfulness and self-compassion were considered as key theories of youth meditation programs. In addition, advice on the composition of the program was obtained from an advisory group composed of school counselors and meditation guidance teachers in middle and high schools. Based on prior research and advice, the purpose and objective of the program, and the specific content and method of progress of the program were determined. The developed program secured validity based on the review of seven meditation and psychological counseling experts and developed the final program after some revisions. To verify the effectiveness of the developed program, 65 middle and high school students in Seoul, and the 20-term program was applied only to the experimental group. After that, anxiety and subjective well-being questionnaire tests were conducted before and after to verify the effectiveness. In addition, independent sample t-test was conducted to verify the prior homogeneity of major variables, and covariance analysis was conducted to verify the effectiveness of the program. Results As a result of the study, significant differences were found between the experimental group and the control group in all 2 sub-factors of anxiety (characteristic anxiety, state anxiety) and 3 sub-factors of subjective well-being (satisfaction, positive emotion, and negative emotion). Through this, it can be seen that the adolescents’ meditation program developed in this study is effective in lowering adolescents' anxiety and increasing their subjective well-being. Conclusions It is expected that the youth five-minute meditation program based on mindfulness and self-compassion can help adolescents' mental health and well-being.