Mindful Attractiveness Case Study

Patient Background & History: Meghanne is a 21-year-old white female. She is completing her third year at the University of Minnesota and will be graduating this May. She works part time as a receptionist and lives with her male partner and their mutual friend. Meghanne has struggled with anxiety and stress since she was young, but in her final semester of her undergraduate career, she has noticed that her mind wandered more often and she became more physically tense in response to stressors. She states that it has been difficult for her to focus on one thing at a time because she will lose focus and become absentminded. This has created issues when dealing with school work and her part time job as a receptionist. Though this lack of focus
is causing distress, it is not impeding her grades in her course. She worries that the stress may cause her to have a difficult time with her final exams. Some days she feels that the stress or tension may be making it difficult for her to fall asleep at night. The tension is mildly interfering with her personal relationships with her mother and partner. If she is stressed when her mother calls, she has been short and sometimes difficult. Her partner has been supportive, but she feels some guilt about being so stressed causing increasing distress. Contributing to her problem is the feeling of not having enough time in the day. She has tried yoga and mindfulness practices in the past but stopped because she felt there were more important things to do with her time. This is also an obstacle for successful change. If she feels as though this mindfulness yoga is not directly benefitting her, it may be difficult for her to adhere to the treatment program.

Pre-treatment: During the baseline week, Meghanne acted as she normally would without any treatment in place.
She completed the MAAS (Mindful Attention Awareness Scale) twice that week. The MAAS is a 15 item psychometrically sound measure examining automatic inattentiveness as the underlying latent trait of mindfulness. of mindfulness in everyday life (Brown & Ryan, 2003). The MAAS quantifies mindfulness through a series of responses to statements with a Likert scale; 1 being almost always and 6 being almost never. The assessment’s questions were answered by accounting for the past three days of experiences. For example an item would be read “In the three days, I rush through activities without being really attentive to them.” This was done to reduce the variation seen by mood or activity during any specific day and get a better idea of her perceptions of mindfulness on a week by week basis. All of the items are scored with lower numbers being less mindfulness. Meghanne’s initial measurement reported lower scores (M=2.73, SD=1.163) than the sample of college students measured (N=2277; M=3.83, SD=.70). Based on her background, she appears to have cycled through the stages a couple of times and is now in the contemplation stage once again (Prochaska & Norcross, 2001). She appears ready for change though nervous about feeling as though she has too little time again. This feeling of lacking time sometimes increased her anxiety or stress and proved to be somewhat more harmful than helpful. Meghanne is still optimistic about the potential for an exercise that is also supportive of a mindful and calm environment and will attempt the treatment with hope for
change.

Treatment Plan: Meghanne will be doing a short yoga routine in the morning for three days each week to improve her mindfulness. Her aim is to be on par with the norms in the college age sample mentioned above (M=3.83) within the next month. On a day to day basis, she hopes the treatment reduces her absentmindedness and improves her ability to focus on one thing at a time as well as not think so much about the future. She believes this to be in line with the S.M.A.R.T. goals guidelines as it is specific, objectively measureable, has a time limit, and can be achieved realistically. She plans to let her roommates know in order to help her as accountability partners as they are working on their own changes (working out more, and running). Meghanne does not have a specific partner who will be doing the treatment plan with her. The sessions will occur three times a week during the work week (Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings) and will last approximately 20 minutes each. To track her progress and potential change, she will complete the MAAS twice per week, once on Tuesday night and once on Friday afternoon.

Treatment Progress & Summary: The treatment resulted in moderate improvement of Meghanne’s attentiveness. Her MAAS scores increased from M=2.73, SD=1.163 to M=3.13, SD=.990. At the end of the treatment period, she was scoring better than she had prior to treatment, but she had not reached the scores of the college sample norms (M=3.83). These data can be seen in figure 1; the first two weeks noted are the initial baseline week assessments and the following scores were gathered during the treatment period. She gained .4 points on average over the course of the treatment period, and she had .7 more points on average to go before meeting her goal. She felt that she was more aware of the things she was doing in her day to day life, but the yoga and mindfulness treatment did not seem to impact her difficulty with staying in the moment and frequent thoughts about the future.
While she did not reach her previously set goal, Meghanne did recognize the change in her thoughts and stress levels. Given this improvement, she plans to continue this treatment for the next couple of months and may continue to monitor her progress with the MAAS. Meghanne is also aware of potential confounding variables at play for the next few months being finals week, graduation activities, and then a more consistent summer schedule that will hopefully lead to lower stress levels. The more constant scheduling will also make it easier to work into her schedule without her concerns of not having enough time to complete everything she wants to do. It would be best if she were to increase the yoga routine to four times a week and then potentially move up to all five of the days in the work week, but this will be monitored by Meghanne and adjusted overtime with her stress level and mindfulness concerns. Meghanne will keep the goal of matching the college sample mean score and continue to work towards that in the coming months.