Mindfulness with Collegiate Gymnasts: Effects on Flow, Stress and Overall Mindfulness Levels

The physical and psychological demands of sports can place an athlete under a variety of stressors. Subsequently, the way in which athletes deal with such stressors can positively or negatively affect their performance. Flow is defined as a type of experience where one is completely engaged in an activity and optimally functioning. Recently, an increase in mindfulness and acceptance based approaches have been utilized as a means to augment negative emotions in sport and many have suggested a link between mindfulness and flow. Thus, if mindfulness can positively influence flow, perhaps performance can also be positively affected. There has also been a need to determine optimal intervention lengths to successfully teach mindfulness practices within sports teams. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of a mindfulness training program on mindfulness scores, dispositional flow scores, and perceived stress scores within a population of Division I female collegiate gymnasts. Results from a repeated measures ANOVA indicated that athletes who participated in the mindfulness training demonstrated a statistically significant difference in the dispositional flow dimensions of loss of self-consciousness and the autotelic experience. These results suggest that mindfulness may influence factors associated with athletic performance.