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Objectives <p>While mindfulness is known to influence distress tolerance, the dynamic bidirectional relationship between them remains unclear. This study investigated how multidimensional state mindfulness and distress tolerance interact reciprocally in depressed college students, echoing and providing new insights for the upward spiral model of mindfulness.</p> Methods <p>We conducted a 42-occasion intensive longitudinal study (twice per day) with 171 depressed college students, measuring distress tolerance and three state mindfulness dimensions: acting with awareness, present-moment attention, and nonjudgmental acceptance. Using dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM), we quantified cross-lagged effects and feedback effects to capture the bidirectional dynamics.</p> Results <p>Key findings revealed that (a) acting with awareness and distress tolerance form a self-perpetuating loop, that is, higher acting with awareness predicted increased distress tolerance, which subsequently boosted acting with awareness, yielding a medium to large feedback effect (FE1=0.003, 95% CI [0.001, 0.006]); (b) nonjudgmental acceptance and distress tolerance showed a small to medium self-perpetuating loop (FE3=0.001, 95% CI=[−0.000, 0.003]), though not statistically significant at the group level; (c) present-moment attention was unidirectionally enhanced by distress tolerance, but not vice versa. Critically, feedback effects varied substantially across mindfulness dimensions, underscoring their distinct roles.</p> Conclusions <p>This study provides the first empirical evidence for self-perpetuating loops between specific mindfulness dimensions and distress tolerance. We demonstrated that bidirectional effects should be analyzed holistically (via feedback effects) to fully capture and better describe dynamic processes. Interventions that involve improving distress tolerance should consider to&#xa0;prioritize acting with awareness, the dimension driving the strongest feedback loop, rather than treating state mindfulness as a unitary construct. These insights enrich the applications of feedback effect analysis and advance mindfulness-based interventions by identifying more specific mechanistic pathways.</p> Preregistration <p>This study is not preregistered.</p>

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Dynamic Interplay Between State Mindfulness and Distress Tolerance in College Students with Depression: A Feedback Loop Perspective

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月25日

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  • Jingxian Li,
  • Jieyuan Dong,
  • Hongyun Liu

摘要

Objectives

While mindfulness is known to influence distress tolerance, the dynamic bidirectional relationship between them remains unclear. This study investigated how multidimensional state mindfulness and distress tolerance interact reciprocally in depressed college students, echoing and providing new insights for the upward spiral model of mindfulness.

Methods

We conducted a 42-occasion intensive longitudinal study (twice per day) with 171 depressed college students, measuring distress tolerance and three state mindfulness dimensions: acting with awareness, present-moment attention, and nonjudgmental acceptance. Using dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM), we quantified cross-lagged effects and feedback effects to capture the bidirectional dynamics.

Results

Key findings revealed that (a) acting with awareness and distress tolerance form a self-perpetuating loop, that is, higher acting with awareness predicted increased distress tolerance, which subsequently boosted acting with awareness, yielding a medium to large feedback effect (FE1=0.003, 95% CI [0.001, 0.006]); (b) nonjudgmental acceptance and distress tolerance showed a small to medium self-perpetuating loop (FE3=0.001, 95% CI=[−0.000, 0.003]), though not statistically significant at the group level; (c) present-moment attention was unidirectionally enhanced by distress tolerance, but not vice versa. Critically, feedback effects varied substantially across mindfulness dimensions, underscoring their distinct roles.

Conclusions

This study provides the first empirical evidence for self-perpetuating loops between specific mindfulness dimensions and distress tolerance. We demonstrated that bidirectional effects should be analyzed holistically (via feedback effects) to fully capture and better describe dynamic processes. Interventions that involve improving distress tolerance should consider to prioritize acting with awareness, the dimension driving the strongest feedback loop, rather than treating state mindfulness as a unitary construct. These insights enrich the applications of feedback effect analysis and advance mindfulness-based interventions by identifying more specific mechanistic pathways.

Preregistration

This study is not preregistered.