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October 5, 2025 32 mins
In this episode of Healthy Mind Science, Dr. Alicia Sepulveda speaks with Amelia Moser, a PhD student in clinical psychology and neuroscience, about her research on mood disorders and anxiety in adolescents and young adults. They discuss the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, the design and findings of a study on mindfulness and behavioral activation, and the practical implications for educators and parents. The conversation emphasizes the importance of integrating simple mindfulness practices into daily life to improve mental health outcomes for young people.   Takeaways
  • Amelia Moser is a PhD student focused on mood disorders.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted college students' mental health.
  • Mindfulness practices can be simple yet effective for improving mental health.
  • The study showed that small changes can lead to significant improvements in anxiety.
  • Intolerance of uncertainty is a key factor in anxiety during stressful times.
  • Mindfulness can be integrated into daily routines easily.
  • Modeling mindfulness behaviors is crucial for educators and parents.
  • The study used a pre-registered design to ensure scientific integrity.
  • Participants who engaged more frequently in mindfulness activities saw better outcomes.
  • Future research will explore additional interventions for mood disorders.

To dive deeper into the study: 

Moser, A.D., Neilson, C., Peterson, E.C. et al. Self-Guided Mindfulness Reduces College Student Anxiety: A Scalable, Preregistered Pilot Study. Mindfulness 15, 1362–1374 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-024-02364-z

Connect with Amelia Moser on LinkedIn

Connect with Alicia Sepulveda on LinkedIn

Check out the Center for Healthy Mind and Mood at University of Colorado Boulder

 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Healthy Minds Science, a show dedicated to translating youth and young adultmental health research into the real world.

(00:07):
We have conversations with experts in psychology, neuroscience, human development,computer science, education, and more, with a focus on helping parents and educators take
research findings into their everyday lives and ultimately better support our youngpeople.
Healthy Minds Science is an affiliate of the Center for Healthy Mind and Moon, which is aninterdisciplinary research center at University of Colorado Boulder.

(00:29):
And we're on a mission to increase emotional resilience and end youth depression.
I'm your host, Alicia.
Let's get started.
All right, well today we have Amelia Moser on and I'm so excited because both your studyand just you are brilliant and so I'm really excited to have a conversation with you about
your work.

(00:49):
Amelia is a sixth year PhD student in clinical psychology and neuroscience.
And yeah, let's just go ahead and dive in.
Amelia, thank you so much for being on the show.
First off, why don't you just tell us a little just a bit about yourself?
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Like you said, I'm a student in clinical psychology and neuroscience, and I get reallyexcited when I have opportunities to talk about research.

(01:14):
So I'm excited to dive in.
Well, let's dive into what your research interests are.
what is your area of research right now?
I'm especially interested in predicting mood disorders for adolescents and young adults.
So trying to understand what factors are going to contribute most to who develops a mooddisorder and why to help inform preventative work.

(01:36):
And then I'm also interested in what changes in the brain when people with mood disorderslike depression get better.
And are there more efficient ways to facilitate that?
Are there new treatments we can come up with based on that information?
Yeah, that's super interesting.
So how did you get involved or just interested in this type of work?
When I was an undergrad, mean mental health problems are kind of everywhere.

(02:02):
so, especially in college students, college students have a really hard time.
And so I think it was just really apparent to me that this was a really big problem.
ah And I took a bunch of classes as an undergrad that were really interesting to me aboutkind of the biological bases of mood disorders and kind of what happens in the body when
people develop things like depression.
ah

(02:22):
And I specifically remember a class where I learned that common medications like Prozacthat are really commonly prescribed, there's only a limited understanding of why they
work.
They work pretty well, but we only have a limited understanding of why.
And that really surprised me as an undergrad and kind of made me really excited to try toresearch who do these medications work for?

(02:43):
Why do they work for them?
Other ways to make them better.
So now you're gonna just devote your life to figuring that out.
That's the idea.
There's a lot to know.
I think of it as like the ocean, like the great ocean where there's just an enormousamount that we don't yet know.
Yeah, I think I was surprised to kind of very early stage getting into this work.

(03:06):
Like, wow, we don't know a lot about it.
you talked about specifically Prozac, and that's one medication treatment for depression.
And so there's so many layers to even just get to that particular.
Number one, getting diagnosed.
So just the access and also getting it at the right time when you need it is reallydifficult.

(03:28):
But then it may or may not work for you.
so that's just one example, even though that one
is the most effective as far as medication wise.
Yeah, so it's just really interesting to hear that.
And also there's again so much to learn as well.
Absolutely.
So uh maybe we can go ahead and dive into the study that you worked on that we are talkingabout today, which is called Self-Guided Mindfulness Reduces College Student Anxiety, a

(03:58):
Scalable Pre-Registered Pilot Study.
So I'd love to maybe just get started on why you were sort of interested in this type ofstudy.
Yeah, I think uh our lab is really interested in kind of the impact of stress on mentalhealth problems because we know stress makes almost every mental health problem worse,

(04:22):
Stress often precedes mood disorders like depression.
can make anxiety worse.
It can make lots of things just harder.
um And we sort of viewed the COVID pandemic as a really big kind of mass stressor, right?
Especially for college students where classes were suddenly moved online.
A lot of them were sent home, so they had to move.

(04:43):
They maybe lost a job or family members were sick.
It was just, it was an enormous time of enormous stress, I should say.
And so we wanted to understand, are there kind of relatively basic wellness strategiesthat college students can use to buffer the effects of that major stressor and kind of
them be resilient in the face of this kind of um major change?

(05:09):
So that's kind of where this study came from.
love that.
so one of the things that I just want to kind of pinpoint just even from the title, youknow, it's a scalable pre-registered study.
What does that mean from a researcher lens to like the everyday person who maybe notdoesn't know that language?
Absolutely.
So the pre-registered part means we picked that, we did science the way you're supposedto.

(05:31):
We picked the hypotheses ahead of time and we laid out, this is what we think is going tohappen before we look at any of the data.
This is what we expect.
And we put that on an open science website so that other researchers have a record of whatour plan was.
um And then we did the analyses and did all the things we said we were going to do andpublished.

(05:52):
It's a way of kind of being more responsible in science, um just to hold ourselves allaccountable that we're doing.
exactly the science we said we were going to do.
We're not doing kind of extra tests afterwards to try to get the finding we wanted andthings like that.
The scalable part is one of the most exciting parts of this study to me is these werereally low level interventions, really simple interventions.

(06:16):
Some studies use great, really complicated, expensive interventions and those can bereally powerful.
The goal of this one was, there little things we can do that have a sizable impact?
on college student mental health.
And so the scalable piece just means it's easily disseminable.
We can kind of um get it, scale it in a broad way across a college campus or across kindof broader populations.

(06:42):
Yeah, for sure.
I love it.
Awesome.
Well, let's dive into the actual study design.
um well, and I guess maybe before we dive into that, I think in the intro, you really laidout beautifully
how prevalent anxiety is among college students specifically.
I didn't know if you wanted to add anything related to that at all, but it just, like Isee it, I feel it on college campuses.

(07:05):
uh We see it in so many different types of data that's being collected just from likesurvey reports all the way to rigorous research.
um But yeah, I don't know if you have anything else to add to that, but.
I think it's just important to note that it's really prevalent and it's increasing,especially anxiety has been increasing in college students even before the COVID pandemic

(07:29):
was pretty steadily increasing.
And then of course COVID seems to have made things worse and for people because it wasjust it was a really hard time.
um And I think that's important for people to know in terms of resources.
So college students need
as much support as possible because of that.
And I think it's really important from more of a stigma perspective that this issomething, if you're experiencing it, a lot of your classmates are experiencing it too.

(07:53):
And even though it might feel like you're alone in it, you're not.
That's a really, really good point.
Thank you for sharing that.
Well, let's dive into the study design and what you were trying to understand.
Absolutely.
This study started at the very beginning of the COVID pandemic, like March 2020, verybeginning.

(08:13):
They worked really hard to kind of get it rolling right away, which is exciting.
And they recruited 300 college students at the University of Colorado Boulder and randomlyassigned them to one of three groups.
So we designed a one wellness group based on mindfulness.
One wellness group based on behavioral activation, which is a treatment for depressionbased on positive activity scheduling.

(08:40):
And then one control group where they just filled out surveys to help us differentiate theeffect of filling out surveys over time and tracking mood from kind of these intentional
wellness groups.
So everyone was assigned one of those groups.
and asked the people in the wellness groups were asked to do one wellness activity perday.
So for example, the mindfulness group was asked to do one mindfulness activity per day.

(09:01):
The behavioral activation group was asked to do one kind of positive activating activityper day.
And we followed them for a couple of months and tracked kind of their mood progression,their anxiety progression, just saw how things kind of continued to develop over time.
Yeah, so how did you decide on the anxiety and I think you looked at intolerance ofuncertainty?

(09:21):
So I want to dive into both of the, well, maybe the measures that you used and how youwere trying to conceptualize those.
Absolutely.
So the intolerance of uncertainty is just a really interesting
idea and kind of variable to be using in research.
Intolerance of uncertainty is this idea that the unknown or having incomplete informationis distressing.

(09:46):
And so there's folks for whom having something be unknown, having some sort of incompleteinformation is really upsetting and really worrisome and really kind of gets in the way.
And that can even, it's not even just in uncertainty about kind of upcoming negativethings like fear.
So it's different from anxiety in the sense that it might be

(10:06):
you're distressed by uncertainty about a positive thing.
Like if I told you, might win the lottery tomorrow, that would be like, might beinherently really distressing because it's the not knowing that's so upsetting.
And I think COVID came with so much uncertainty.
There was so much you didn't know about what was going to happen, who might get sick, whatwas going to happen with school or work.

(10:27):
And so there were scientists creating these kind of models of anxiety and mental healthproblems specific to the COVID pandemic.
that really centered uncertainty and kind of how people interpret uncertainty.
um And so I thought that would be a really interesting place to go with these data and tryto see in our particular sample, did these wellness groups move the needle on anxiety over

(10:50):
time for folks?
And did intolerance of uncertainty change during that time or did that play a role in anyway?
Yeah, I think that just the construct is really interesting.
um And in my own life, probably in your own life, I don't know, it's just, it isuncomfortable, right?
To not know some things.

(11:10):
And yeah, different layers of stress, it can cause stress in different people anddifferent ways.
So I think it's just a really unique measure.
so was excited to see that in the study.
em Cool, well, I think.
Maybe next we can dive into, what did you think would happen?

(11:32):
Like what were the hypotheses that you were sort of trying to test?
oh
So broadly, thought that the wellness groups would show, so everyone started outrelatively anxious, just because this was the very beginning of the COVID pandemic.
So like on average, anxiety was a bit elevated.
And broadly, I expected folks in the wellness groups to show a steeper decline in anxiety.

(11:55):
So a bigger improvement in anxiety over time relative to our control group who were justfilling out surveys.
And then more specifically, I thought that folks who started out with really highintolerance of uncertainty might benefit the most from the wellness groups.
Like maybe if I have really high intolerance of uncertainty, uncertainty is reallydistressing.

(12:15):
Maybe a daily mindfulness practice would be even more powerful for me for reducing myanxiety.
And I thought that intolerance of uncertainty might change over time.
So as my anxiety got better, maybe my uh reduced intolerance of uncertainty might helpexplain that.
change in anxiety.
Yeah, yeah, that's really cool.

(12:36):
This is a side sort of like question.
Are there interventions to support intolerance of certain uncertainty?
Like to improve, is there data to show that like mindfulness or wellness activities orbehavior activation supports that or is that still pretty early on in the research?
So I would say it's both.
So it's relatively early on, um and there is some emerging evidence, especially aroundmindfulness, that mindfulness might be able to improve intolerance of uncertainty.

(13:04):
There's less overall data about behavioral activation classically as a treatment fordepression.
There's some evidence of it for anxiety and a little bit for intolerance of uncertainty,um but mindfulness is more directly thought to target that.
And so actually in our hypotheses, did specifically think that mindfulness would have thebiggest kind of positive effect on those variables relative to the behavioral activation

(13:31):
based group.
So you looked at these three groups, what happened?
What happened over time?
What did you notice?
Yeah, so everyone got a bit better over time.
think probably I attribute to kind of adjusting to the pandemic because if you recall, westarted in March 2020 and we followed them for a few months.
so everyone showed a little bit of improvement in anxiety across the whole sample.

(13:54):
But um really importantly, people in the mindfulness group showed the steepestimprovement.
So they showed kind of the biggest.
um
sort of benefit or biggest change in anxiety specifically relative to the control groupwho were just filling out surveys and even relative to the group that was doing a positive
activity each day.
um Interestingly, intolerance of uncertainty wasn't related.

(14:17):
So folks who started out highly intolerant of uncertainty showed basically the sameresponse to the wellness groups as everyone else.
and intolerance of uncertainty did not explain the change in anxiety.
So there's some other mechanism that's kind of at play, which I think is kind ofinteresting.
Yeah, that sounds really fun to continue to explore.

(14:39):
Well, I think it's just for folks who are listening, who are educators or parents workingwith young people, or educators who work with young people.
uh
Like I think we can talk a little bit about what those mindfulness practices are just at avery high level um and then compare that to kind of the positive activities that were kind

(15:01):
of underlying the behavioral activation.
Because em what I think I remember reading is that the mindfulness practices werespecifically like were much higher.
em
higher significance, was a higher change that was significantly different from the othertwo groups.
And I found that really interesting because, so for the mindfulness practices, it'sgrounding body, so grounding your body, and there's directions on how to do that for the

(15:28):
young person who was in the study.
uh Compassion, attention to emotions, walking meditation, and stress visualization.
And then there were other ones that you could choose, which I love that that was part ofthe study where it was really guiding
the young person to pick one that feels doable, that also feels like it's connected tosomething that really what they kind of aligns with them.

(15:51):
I loved that that that was part of the study design.
So that was sort of the mindfulness group.
So they had those five options plus the one that they could just choose that's related tomindfulness.
And so I found that that was really, uh really powerful because these can take fiveminutes, 10 minutes.
like doesn't have to be this enormous intervention.

(16:13):
And I think that's what you alluded to in the beginning of like, this is fairly a smallintervention.
And so how do we integrate this longer, you know, in longer term and in college settings?
But that's another question for another day.
But I found that that was.
Right, right, exactly.
So that's sort of like that group one that had the significant difference and then, this,you know, like a higher level of change and anxiety because of these, participating in

(16:42):
these activities.
And then the second tier was the positive activities that were related to behavioralactivation.
And what I love about these is that they're also very simple.
So I'll just list a few examples.
One is listening to a podcast, being outdoors, going for a walk or a run or a hike.
uh Singing around the house, taking a drive, spending time with family, uh stargazing,reading a book, having a lunch, uh making a gratitude list.

(17:10):
These are all really helpful for our self-care, for our daily well-being, but those didn'tnecessarily move the needle, it sounds like, as much.
Is that kind of what I'm understanding?
Yeah, I thought that that was really interesting.
And then of course, the control group didn't get either of these activities in, which Ilove that you all had that in the design because that obviously makes the findings even

(17:31):
more powerful.
What else do you feel like you learned from the study?
I think mostly I was just, was honest.
I mean, we had our hypotheses going in and they were authentic hypotheses.
And at the same time, I was genuinely a little bit pleasantly surprised that peoplebenefited from the wellness groups because they just, to your point, these are such
relatively small changes that we asked people to make and can be relatively easilyintegrated into daily life.

(17:58):
And so we weren't, I wasn't really sure if we were going to see, see anything, you know,especially
things being so stressful during COVID, like can this little change really make an impact?
I don't know.
I think it was really encouraging to see that even small changes can make a bigdifference.
So I think that's kind of one of the biggest things that I take from this.

(18:18):
Yeah, it's so true.
And this was, I think it was asked for daily and then you all asked if they were planningto do it or something.
Is that right?
there was a planning component, because there's research that if you make a plan for doingsomething the next day, you're more likely to.
So maybe you might get hassled around uh November elections.
You might get hassled by pollsters calling and asking for your voting plan.

(18:40):
And it's because there's research that if you make a plan for when you're going to vote,you're more likely to.
And the same is true for behavioral interventions and psychology.
If you make a plan for, I'm going to do this activity tomorrow.
you're much more likely to do it, or I'm gonna do this mindfulness practice tomorrow.
And so that was a way of trying to um people's kind of likelihood to engage with thepractices and um reduce barriers.

(19:07):
And looks like then you tracked it, actually did it as well, right?
You asked them in those daily surveys.
So I think that that is really super helpful too, because you could have just not trackedit and just assumed that folks were.
And so it's not just the treatment control or two different treatments and control group.
It's really like, they actually follow through with what the intervention was supposed tobe?

(19:31):
So I think that that's.
was a relationship between number of days where they did the activity and improvement.
So people who engaged more and had more frequent days where they really remembered to doit had kind of the best bang for their buck.
They had kind of the best uh outcomes in terms of reduced anxiety, which I think is alsokind of promising because that's what you would want to see if this is kind of uh offering

(19:53):
some help.
You would want there to be improvement with more consistent engagement.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, think that's really such a cool study.
em So what do you feel like are the practical implications?
What do you want parents and educators to know about the study?
I think the biggest thing is that introducing even brief mindfulness exercises uh can helpimprove mental health, at least a little bit.

(20:19):
And this is not kind of a one-stop shop where you should just do five minutes ofmindfulness and do nothing else for your mental health and you'll be great, right?
The idea is that this is part of kind of a suite or a toolkit of practices you can use toimprove mental health.
um
And at the same time, it's a relatively easy one that you can do from anywhere.

(20:40):
You don't need any special materials for.
um It could be as simple as starting your day with mindfully eating breakfast and reallyfocusing on specific things about like the texture of your cereal or the color of
something um of your apple that day or something like that.
um And so I think, and you raised this earlier.

(21:00):
One of the benefits of this study was that people were able to pick the practices theymost wanted to do that best aligned with their life.
And that's what's going to happen out in the real world, is people are going to do whatworks for them.
And our study was able to show that even with that really wide range of differentpractices people might do, there was still some overall benefit.

(21:20):
So think that's, for me, that's the biggest take home is that integrating even brief dailymindfulness activities can improve mental health and can be an additional
ah tool in our toolkit.
Yeah, I think it's such an interesting, again, intervention or tool that is so simple,but.

(21:41):
So it almost feels like there's no way that it can be this helpful to us, but it is.
And it's been shown in other studies as well, not just in this specific study.
So I think that, you know, that means that there's a lot of evidence to say, right, thatwe should be looking at this more and practicing it more and teaching our young people
especially, because the benefits are obviously lifelong.
If they can learn this as a teenager, uh going through lots of changes, lots of stress,lots of uncertainty, uh lots of feelings of anxiety and depression, if they have this

(22:10):
toolkit early,
they're able to use it and leverage it more often.
I think the other thing too that um stood out to me, one of the things that I was talkingabout with Dr.
Rosie Kaiser on a previous episode, but then also just uh in our work, was that one of thebiggest challenges to even just therapy is that

(22:31):
You know, you kind of are working through things during therapy and you know, you'retrying to encourage the client or the patient to actually practice strategies in the real
world.
And it's really hard to make that transition to get folks to make those changes in thereal world.
And so like you were saying, like these are very simple that you can kind of take and dowhat works for you.

(22:54):
But it's, really, we don't know what, young people don't know what works for them yet,maybe because they never practice this.
So really offering different
ones and having them actually try them out because I know I was so skeptical at first withmindfulness meditation and trying different things and um when I do it I do feel better
but it's hard to integrate that into your daily life.

(23:15):
Absolutely, and it can be hard to start out with because it, I mean, especially if you'refeeling more stressed or activated, it can be hard to kind of, even the thought of sitting
still for a second might sound really unpleasant or might kind of be like, I am too busy,like can't do that right now.
um And so I think even the practice of kind of getting settled in for a minute ofmindfulness, I think can be useful um as a starting point.

(23:42):
just like practically for educators and parents.
em
is practicing this with the young people, right?
So not just asking them to do it or teaching them how, but showing them how and practicingit alongside them.
think one of the things that I've noticed just raising a little, very, very little kid isjust they observe everything.
And I know that our young people do too, based on other conversations that we've had withyoung people.

(24:07):
Like they tell us stories about things that I know that their parents don't realize thatthey see, you know, it's so interesting.
And so if we can like practice it alongside it, hey, we're
to try this new thing together and then we can debrief and talk about it.
And I had a colleague who was a professor in, I want to say it was anthropology.
It was something that was a little bit different than what I would think mindfulness, buthe ended up practicing mindfulness in his class and doing it in the first five minutes of

(24:36):
class, every class or like once a week or something like that.
he just saw the engagement and it was so different in his classroom and just could see thealmost immediate impact that it had on college students.
And so I think that's also something that, especially from educator perspective, to tryand see if it works, right?

(24:57):
And it may not for your class, but it's something to potentially incorporate.
Absolutely.
I was in a class that did that and I thought it was really cool.
Basically, it was like in the middle of a long lecture, they would pause and have amindful minute and no one was allowed to look on their phone or like because, you know, if
you tell college students we're going to pause for a minute, everyone's going to get theirphones out or something.
Yeah.
So there were like rules about like, you know, you couldn't talk to your neighbor, youcouldn't look at your phone.

(25:21):
Everyone had to kind of just sit quietly for a minute.
And was really powerful.
there was definitely, felt like there was more, I mean, anecdotally, felt like there wasmore energy in the classroom afterwards.
So I think things like that can just be, and again, that took up, what, a minute of thelecture time?
Like these are really small changes.
Yeah, the other thing that stood out to me too was that it was sort of again prompted forthe young person because I know there's sometimes even when I was working with young

(25:48):
people, know, they'd be super excited about something.
They're like, yes, I want to make this change.
I'm going to go study right now, you know, and they're really hyped up.
They study that day, but then the next day comes and
They just don't have the same kind of energy around it or sometimes they forget becauseit's not part of routine or whatever it is, like whatever they had committed to, they sort

(26:11):
of forget.
um And so we know that their strategy is like writing it down, scheduling it in, thosetypes of things.
But I think one of the things that I loved about this study was that it prompted theperson to sort of like remember like, oh, hey, what strategy are you going to use?
And then again, the plan, I I just think that like all of that um and then asking about itafter.

(26:32):
It knew that it was going to ask if you did it or not.
And I think that it's like the accountability piece, the plan, and then the nudge.
I think that those three components were also super powerful.
And I don't want to overlook those because those might be needed in the day to day, atleast to form a habit.
Exactly.

(26:52):
And I think that's a really important point because there's still pieces, like you said,it can be really hard for college students to integrate these practices really
consistently and it takes time to build new habits.
And we're still sorting out what are the key ingredients to go into integrating this intodaily life.
And I think you're exactly right.
think things like scheduling it out and that accountability piece are really big and justfinding are there ways for us to set that up.

(27:18):
in a real world context when you're not in a study.
And I think I've talked to a lot of college administrators who work in health and wellnessand work in
Yeah, either like the prevention um or like health promotions and in those types of roles.
And they are seeking, you know, different ways to scale specifically interventions thatare going to actually help young people that are affordable or free and again, easy to

(27:48):
use, easy to support young people.
So I think this has, there's definitely something here that we can leverage and buildupon, I think in the future.
So just as such a cool study.
Anything else that you have in your mind that you
wanted to share about the study.
good question.
I guess you brought up the examples of the different practices and it reminded me of,reflects a lot of what you could put on like a brochure in like a campus counseling center

(28:13):
or something like that, just in a waiting room or something.
And so I like this idea that we can give people kind of menus to choose from, to choosetheir own what's gonna work for them from.
Like these things are evidence-based.
Can you find something amongst these items that might be useful for you to be able tointegrate?
And I think that's one of the pieces that might hopefully help us boost kind of uptake ishaving more agency over what they're deciding to do.

(28:39):
I just had this vision practically of like...
m
like if somebody didn't know how to do this, like so they see a brochure or something, butso it's almost like in high anxiety times that we know during midterms or towards the end
of the semester when, you know, anxiety is sort of elevated because there's a lot ofstress happening from the academic side at least.

(29:00):
And we know there's lots of stressors outside of academics too, but that's when we canhave a little bit more prediction around.
having this like tent that is like all blocked off and it's like, want to feel better?
Come in here.
for a minute, sit in like a dark like room, you know, you set the timer and then it'slike, just breathe and like center yourself, you know, right?

(29:23):
And then you just have like a line of like people wanting to go in and like you feelbetter on the way out.
I don't know, like that's something stupid and simple, but like just to sort of likeexpose people to this type of activity.
I don't know, but.
Well, and because people have really different ideas of what mindfulness is, right?
Like sometimes people picture like week-long silent retreats as being kind of the onlything that mindfulness is.

(29:46):
And the reality is mindfulness is anytime you're being kind of aware on purpose,non-judgmentally, right?
Anytime you're kind of just allowing things to be on purpose, that counts as beingmindful.
So maybe you're being mindful when you look at a cloud.
Or maybe you're being mindful when you eat a cracker.

(30:08):
Or maybe you're being mindful when you sit and count breaths for a couple breaths.
There's a lot of ways to be mindful.
Well, any other exciting projects that you're working on right now that you want to share?
Sure, I mean, so we have a lot, the lab has a ton of research going on, which is just areally exciting time.
One of the...
of them, I feel like.
oh
lot of projects.

(30:29):
get very excited about research.
so there's always time to add on another one.
um One of the projects I'm working on is we were curious about other interventionsalongside things like mindfulness and behavioral activation that could help with mood
disorders like depression.
um And so we had a pilot study where we looked at whether cannabidiol or CBD, is anon-intoxicating cannabinoid.

(30:55):
uh
in cannabis or hemp.
And we were curious, there's lots of people that are using CBD for all kinds of things,and there's almost no research for or against its effectiveness.
And there's lots of people using it specifically for depression.
And so we did a pilot study where we recruited folks who were interested in trying CBD fordepression, and we followed them over time and did a bunch of different tasks and surveys

(31:21):
and brain scans.
And so...
I'm just starting to dig into data from that study, so I'm really excited to see what wefind.
We will definitely bring you on to talk about that next because that sounds reallyexciting.
Awesome.
Any other advice or thoughts that you want to leave with parents or educators who workwith young people around depression,

(31:43):
your point about modeling behaviors is really well taken and really important, that theseare practices that we should be doing ourselves, you know?
So, and kind of putting our money where our mouth is and doing the things that will helpour own mental health and help kids' mental health, and making sure we're kind of being

(32:03):
consistent and that that is one of the best ways to kind of disseminate theseinterventions is by...
modeling it for other people and practicing it consistently.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
really appreciate you and can't wait to follow your research.
Thank you so much.
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