Objectives Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, such as poor diet and physical inactivity, are prevalent among college students. This study aimed to investigate whether a digital, self-guided mindfulness-based intervention could directly improve health-oriented decision-making in the domains of food choice and physical activity among this population. Method A 21-day digital self-guided mindfulness-based randomized controlled trial was conducted among 90 Chinese college students. The intervention group engaged in daily mindfulness practice for accumulatively at least 10 min via the mobile application “Tide,” while an active control group recorded their daily events. Participants completed computer-based behavioral tasks assessing food and physical activity decision-making at pre- and post-intervention. Mixed-effect models, adjusted for baseline covariates, were used to assess changes in decision-making indicators, primarily health-attribute weighting and successful self-control. Results Significant group-by-time interaction effects were observed in food decision-making, evidenced by an increase in health-attribute weighting (β [95% CI]: 0.12 [0.027, 0.21], p = 0.016) and a higher proportion of successful self-control trials (β [95% CI]: 0.13 [0.056, 0.21], p = 0.0013). In contrast, no significant intervention effects were found for physical activity decision-making, which may involve higher perceived effort costs and might require a longer or more supervised intervention period. Conclusions This study demonstrated that a brief, digital, self-guided mindfulness-based intervention can improve health-oriented decision-making for food choices in an experimental task, likely by enhancing self-control. However, its effect on more effortful decisions, such as those regarding physical activity, was limited. These findings suggest the potential of such digital scalable tools to influence cognitive precursors of health behavior and highlight domain-specific effects. Future research is needed to examine whether these changes in decision-making translate into sustained health behaviors in daily life. Preregistration This study was preregistered on the Open Science Framework platform at <a href="https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CE562">https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CE562</a>.

Digital Mindfulness Interventions in 21 Days: A Self-guided Mobile-Based Randomized Controlled Trial on Health-Related Decision-Making

期刊论文
发表日期：

2026年3月13日

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Yao Zhang,
Chunchun Chen,
Miaozhe Wei,
Xin Lin,
Jianping Huang

摘要

Objectives

Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, such as poor diet and physical inactivity, are prevalent among college students. This study aimed to investigate whether a digital, self-guided mindfulness-based intervention could directly improve health-oriented decision-making in the domains of food choice and physical activity among this population.

Method

A 21-day digital self-guided mindfulness-based randomized controlled trial was conducted among 90 Chinese college students. The intervention group engaged in daily mindfulness practice for accumulatively at least 10 min via the mobile application “Tide,” while an active control group recorded their daily events. Participants completed computer-based behavioral tasks assessing food and physical activity decision-making at pre- and post-intervention. Mixed-effect models, adjusted for baseline covariates, were used to assess changes in decision-making indicators, primarily health-attribute weighting and successful self-control.

Results

Significant group-by-time interaction effects were observed in food decision-making, evidenced by an increase in health-attribute weighting (β [95% CI]: 0.12 [0.027, 0.21], p = 0.016) and a higher proportion of successful self-control trials (β [95% CI]: 0.13 [0.056, 0.21], p = 0.0013). In contrast, no significant intervention effects were found for physical activity decision-making, which may involve higher perceived effort costs and might require a longer or more supervised intervention period.

Conclusions

This study demonstrated that a brief, digital, self-guided mindfulness-based intervention can improve health-oriented decision-making for food choices in an experimental task, likely by enhancing self-control. However, its effect on more effortful decisions, such as those regarding physical activity, was limited. These findings suggest the potential of such digital scalable tools to influence cognitive precursors of health behavior and highlight domain-specific effects. Future research is needed to examine whether these changes in decision-making translate into sustained health behaviors in daily life.

Preregistration

This study was preregistered on the Open Science Framework platform at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CE562.