Mindfulness with tai chi or resistance training showed different patterns of change
Students improved in both exercise programs, but the study compared active approaches and cannot show how either performed against no program.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
The abstract reports better mindfulness and well-being, alongside less anxiety, in both student groups after training, with improvements maintained at follow-up. Tai chi showed faster early mindfulness gains, while resistance training showed stronger later well-being gains. These differences describe patterns over time, rather than establishing one approach as the overall better choice.
Both groups received mindfulness-enhanced exercise; the abstract reports no inactive comparison group. It also gives no effect sizes or confidence intervals, so the size and precision of the changes cannot be assessed.
What the comparison can answer
Random assignment lets the study compare the combined programs. Because mindfulness was included in both, the results do not isolate its contribution from exercise or show what would have happened without either program.
How to read the proposed mechanism
Repeated measurements linked changes in mindfulness with changes in anxiety and well-being in both directions. This statistical pattern is consistent with related changes over time, but does not by itself prove which change caused another.
The original publication
A comparative study between mindfulness-enhanced exercise training with tai chi and resistance training for college students' mental health: Efficacy, trajectories, and mechanisms.
Qu P, Deng H, Cao Q et al.
Appl Psychol Health Well Being · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 41363026
- Record checked
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