The Experiences of A Mindfulness-Based Workshop: A Focus Group Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study used a focus group approach, inviting participants to an eight-week workshop on mindfulness that met for two hours each week. The program integrated mindfulness techniques aimed at enhancing both physical and mental well-being. Research indicates that mindfulness can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression by promoting present-moment awareness without judgment. For many local Chinese Canadians, this concept was novel. During the focus group discussions, participants examined their relationships with food and reflected on their personal experiences. The study was co-facilitated by a social worker and a registered dietitian and included 16 female participants with an average age of 56.6 years. Four semi-structured interview questions guided the discussions, and content analysis revealed five key themes: (1) A new and exciting experience, (2) the practice is challenging and requires time, (3) transforming stressful situations into purposeful, healthy experiences, (4) regaining control, and (5) supporting one another. The findings highlight the transformative potential of mindfulness-based interventions, particularly in mindful eating. Participants found mindfulness engaging but recognized the difficulty of maintaining a consistent practice, emphasizing the need for long-term reinforcement. Notably, mindfulness allowed them to reframe stress as an opportunity for growth, fostering resilience. The theme of regaining control illustrated how mindfulness empowers individuals to cultivate healthier relationships with food and emotions. Additionally, the focus on social support underscores the communal benefits of mindfulness. This study contributes to the literature on mindfulness by demonstrating how virtual interventions can facilitate meaningful change. Future research should refine program delivery to enhance accessibility, engagement, and sustained impact.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".