Advancing mindfulness research through innovative Ecological Momentary Assessment approaches

There are many critical and unresolved questions regarding how mindfulness impacts daily life experiences. In the current review, we put forward the perspective that ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a critical research tool to potentially address these questions and advance the field of mindfulness research, but also that it has yet to be fully harnessed, in terms of its key advantages. We highlight various ways by which EMA can be better integrated into mindfulness studies to investigate mindfulness mechanisms in daily life, including individual differences in the rates and patterns of mindfulness learning; the acute and long-term impact of practice experiences; the frequency, quality, and contextual factors that give rise to spontaneous mindfulness states; and the measurement and optimization of mindfulness intervention effects. We further discuss the integration of EMA approaches with both adaptive mindfulness interventions and ecological momentary mindfulness behavioral tasks, to enable simultaneous performance-based measurements and training of mindfulness across various times and contexts. Mindfulness researchers are encouraged to consider incorporating these flexible extensions of EMA methodology into their own work, so as to best combine the primary advantages of laboratory-based, naturalistic, and intervention approaches.