Scientific mindfulness test: How mindful am I?

When we have a cold, we boost our immune system with ginger and hot lemon; we can relieve muscle tension with heat pads and yoga exercises. When we struggle with minor physical ailments, we regularly turn to our home medicine cabinet. What if we could supplement our home remedies with an effective aid against stress, rumination, and other mental health issues? What could be better suited for such an aid than mindfulness? In this post, you will not only get tips for your personal recipe, we also have a scientific mindfulness test for you.

A measuring device for mindfulness

When we have a fever, we need a thermometer to check our temperature. So we thought it would be just as practical to have a measuring device for mindfulness. That’s why we are proud to present to you: the first scientifically validated mindfulness test on the German-speaking internet – of course free and without registration. Just as you like, you can take the test now and continue reading afterwards, or vice versa. The test takes no longer than two minutes.

Give each answer option a score of 1-4 from left (1 = almost never) to right (4= almost always). For questions 13 and 14, number them in reverse order (4 = almost never ... 1 = almost always). The higher your score, the higher your current level of mindfulness. However, there’s no normative value for when you are particularly mindful or not. You can use the test to check how your mindfulness develops over a period of time. 

What is mindfulness?

When we buy a medication, the active ingredients are clearly visible on the packaging. But since mindfulness is (unfortunately) not available in suppository form, we first need to understand what this remedy actually consists of. Only then can we put together our own recipe.

To decipher the essence of mindfulness, the test mentioned above – The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) [1] [1] Buchheld, N., Buttenmüller, V., Kleinknecht, N., Schmidt, S., Walach, H. (2006) Measuring mindfulness—the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI)   – was examined using statistical methods. You could say that mindfulness was spun vigorously in a centrifuge so that it would separate into its elements. The result shows two main components: Presence, the conscious perception of the moment, and Acceptance, a non-judgmental attitude towards all experiences. [2] [2]  Kohls, Sauer, and Walach (2009). Facets of mindfulness – Results of an online study investigating the Freiburg mindfulness inventory 

For risks and side effects, read our newsletter The Mindful Three or ask your 6-Minute-Team.

This finding wonderfully summarises the common definitions of mindfulness: For Jon Kabat-Zinn, the pope of mindfulness in Western alternative medicine, being mindful means “being in the present moment without judging” and “accepting the reality of the present moment.” [3] [3]  Jon Kabat-Zinn on the definition of mindfulness (English)   Buddhist teachings also describe mindfulness as “unbiased observation of all phenomena without emotionally or intellectually distorting them”.  [4] [4] The historical roots of mindfulness meditation – An excursion into Buddhism and Christian mysticism – By Nina Rose and Harald Walach 

Now we know which active ingredients must absolutely be included in our recipe. But how do we increase the dose when we, for example, fall into acute stress? How do we practise daily mindfulness to strengthen our psychological immune system, our resilience in the long term?

How mindful am I?

Living in the here and now

Nina Rose: “To promote attention to the present moment, I recommend pausing several times a day. First, notice your body. How are you sitting? What do you feel? Your body is a valuable instrument for being present in the here and now.”

By the way, you can find wonderful exercises for this technique in the free basic meditation course by 7mind.

Nina Rose: “My next tip: Make an inner commitment to yourself to do one thing mindfully every day. It can be any activity, such as brushing your teeth, taking out the trash, vacuuming, or showering. Feel how cold or warm the water is. Feel the foam, feel every single drop on your skin. Try to perceive these sensations immediately and gently bring wandering thoughts back to your senses.”

Learning acceptance

Nina Rose: “Learning acceptance means developing a friendly, accepting attitude towards all impressions. Often, it is the unpleasant experiences, e.g. difficult feelings, that we resist. Tell yourself: “It is okay. I am ready to feel it.” Stay with this feeling and notice whether it changes, becomes stronger, or less intense.

Making room for negative emotions, allowing them, is a major challenge because we have often been taught a different way of dealing with them. In doing so, we sometimes forget that we cannot always choose our feelings. We don’t intentionally wake up depressed in the morning. For me, the phrase: “It is okay, because it is – It is okay because it is there” is very helpful.”

Your mindfulness test

With these tips, you can now create your personal mindfulness recipe. It will provide you with relief when you fall into stress or are overwhelmed by negative emotions. To play around a bit with your personal recipe, the mindfulness test is also available to you.

For example, you can test your mindfulness now and set yourself the goal of meditating once a day for the next four weeks – even if it’s only for a few minutes! Then retake the mindfulness test. This way, you can check whether the meditation practice has already had an effect on your everyday life. But please remember: mindfulness isn’t a miracle cure. As with all techniques, whether back school or playing the piano, it takes a lot of practice before an effect shows. Have fun experimenting!

About Dipl.-Psych. Nina Rose

Nina Rose studied psychology in Freiburg and Paris. She then worked in oncological and psychiatric clinics until she opened her own practice in Oldenburg in 2012. She lives there with her husband and two children.

Her favourite mindfulness moment of the day is when she pauses on the sofa after lunch, lets her thoughts come and go, and simply “does nothing” for a while.

We would like to thank Dipl.-Psych. Nina Rose very much for providing the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory and for her cooperation.

Can’t you get enough of mindfulness? Then we have here our favourite mindfulness podcasts and here five lessons on mindfulness from children. 

Additional information: How to develop a mindfulness test [5] [5]  Buchheld, N., Grossman, P., & Walach, H. (2001). Measuring mindfulness in insight meditation (vipassana) and meditation-based psychotherapy: the development of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI). Journal for Meditation and Meditation Research, 1, 11–34. 

At the beginning of her mission to make mindfulness measurable, Nina Rose pored over Buddhist literature and spoke with meditation teachers to find out what mindfulness actually means. From this, she developed a selection of 38 items - that is, the statements in the questionnaire – such as “I am open to the experience of the moment.”

She tested this preliminary questionnaire on 115 people before and after they participated in a Vipassana meditation retreat. Her hypothesis: If this instrument can actually measure mindfulness, participants should report a stronger sense of mindfulness after the retreat than before.

Eureka! The results confirmed her suspicion. Now she additionally tested the validity of the test statistically. In doing so, she removed eight items that were not meaningful enough. Like a cook who doesn’t want a watery soup, Nina Rose also reduced her questionnaire to the essentials.

Subsequently, together with Prof. Harald Walach and colleagues, she developed a shorter version with only 14 items. This short version is suitable for use outside of a scientific or medical setting. Et voilà! The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory is ready, which we make available to you here.

 ____________________

This post is by Amelie Haupt. Thanks to her studies in business psychology, she is the “Psycho-Aunt” of the 6-Minuten-Verlag. Like her texts, her life is structured. She needs it too when she is out and about as a digital nomad again.

Sources:

[1] Buchheld, N., Buttenmüller, V., Kleinknecht, N., Schmidt, S., Walach, H. (2006) Measuring mindfulness—the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI)

[2] Kohls, Sauer, and Walach (2009). Facets of mindfulness – Results of an online study investigating the Freiburg mindfulness inventory

[3] Jon Kabat-Zinn on the definition of mindfulness (English)

[4] The historical roots of mindfulness meditation – An excursion into Buddhism and Christian mysticism – By Nina Rose and Harald Walach

[5] Buchheld, N., Grossman, P., & Walach, H. (2001). Measuring mindfulness in insight meditation (vipassana) and meditation-based psychotherapy: the development of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI). Journal for Meditation and Meditation Research, 1, 11–34.