Relationship between self-compassion and mindfulness on anxiety of the individuals

Background of the study

The study is about analysing the ways of being mindfulness and self-compassionate as it has crucial impacts on the individuals, where they try to lead a normal life like others. There are various reasons of anxiety among the individuals due to recent fast life activities and through mindfulness and self-compassion; the individual can manage their stress level and anxiety of the individuals. This study is hereby beneficial to identify the ways of developing mindfulness and self-compassion among the individuals for controlling their anxiety in long run. There is linkage between the mindfulness and anxiety, where the individuals can develop effective ways to ensure mindfulness and reduce the stress level. Self-motivation, working with others, engaging themselves in the social activities and physical activities are effective for the individuals to manage their stress and reduce anxiety in long run. Through quantitative and qualitative research, the researcher would be able to analyse the relationship between being mindfulness and self-compassionate and anxiety of the individuals.

Literature review

Self-compassion is the way of being warm and understanding towards others when the individuals are in bad time and feeling inadequate with self-criticism (Joss et al., 2019). On the other hand, mindfulness is the meditation in which the individual can focus on being intensely aware about the feeling and moment in theory lives without any judgements and interpretation. Practice of mindfulness includes breathing methods, guided imagery and the practices to relax bodies and mind set of the individual for reducing the stress level (Proeve, Anton and Kenny, 2018). On the other hand, self-compassion is also another necessary factor to reduce stress level and lead the life successful by meeting own needs and preferences (Joeng et al., 2017).

For ensuring self-compassion, it is necessary to comfort the body and eat healthy so that the individual can lead a healthy life style with discipline and healthy eating habit. Self-encouragement and motivation is another factor which is beneficial to be self-compassionate in the society where the person can motivate himself through daily activities, physical exercise and doing more works according to the experience and knowledge (de Bruin, van der Zwan and Bögels, 2016). This further encourage the individual to work better and perform efficiently in near future, constant engagement in the working activities and social involvement further help the individuals to reduce the stress level and lead a healthy lifestyle (Siegel and Kocovski, 2020). Hence, there are great impacts of being self-compassionate on anxiety. On the other hand, being mindfulness, doing meditation, relaxing the body and engaging himself in daily activities are helpful for the individual to improve understanding and reduce the stress level (Takahashi et al., 2019). In general, there is negative relationship between anxiety and being mindfulness and self-compassionate, which indicates that, the individual with high score of mindfulness and self-compassionate have lower score on anxiety as he or she is able to manage anxiety.

Rationale of the research

In the recent era of globalisation, there is increasing number of cases in the health and social care sector, which is related to anxiety and stress where the individuals fail to control their anxiety and stress level which deteriorate the living condition of the personal (Harwood and Kocovski, 2017). Through this study, it is possible to understand the reasons of anxiety among the individual so that it would be possible to suggest some strategies for anxiety control. In this regard, mindfulness and self-compassion are important factors that reshape the human being in living healthy life (Baker, Caswell and Eccles, 2019). This research also provides a scope to evaluate the ways of being self-compassionate and mindfulness so that one can control their stress level and anxiety and maximise their standard of living.

Aim of the study

The aim of the research is to analyse the relationship between being mindfulness and self-compassionate and anxiety of the individuals.

Research objectives

To understand the ways of being self-compassionate

To evaluate the ways of developing mindfulness

To analyse the impacts of self-compassion and mindfulness on anxiety of the individuals

To recommend some suitable suggestions to the individuals to reduce anxiety and stress level through being self-compassionate and mindfulness

Quantitative hypothesis

H1: There is strong relationship between mindfulness, self-compassionate and anxiety of the individuals.

H0: There is no such relationship between mindfulness, self-compassionate and anxiety of the individuals.

Research methodology

The research methodology is mandatory for the researcher to complete the task ethically within effective time (Husni, 2020). In this research the positivism research philosophy and deductive research approach will be chosen to conduct the study efficiently. The positivism research philosophy is helpful for conducting the study by engaging the individuals and deductive approach is suitable for analysing the findings by applying the theories and concept to evaluate the above mentioned research topic. The researcher will choose both the primary and secondary data collection method. For secondary data collection, the researcher will review the literature sources including books, journals and articles. For primary data collection, the researcher will choose interview strategy to gather authentic information directly from the participants.

In this regard, the survey will be arranged with the patients in the health and social care institutions who are getting good health care services for anxiety control activities. On the other hand, the researcher will arrange interview with the patient for understanding their views and personal opinion over self-compassionate and anxiety management. The collected data will be analysed through quantitative data analysis method and qualitative data analysis technique, where descriptive analysis will be chosen for evaluating the survey feedback and the thematic analysis will be chosen for qualitative study. Hence, mixed method is adopted by the researcher to conduct the study efficiently, where both the primary and secondary data will be analysed through quantitative and qualitative data analysis method to identify the practice of being self-compassionate and mindfulness to control anxiety of the individuals. The sample size for the survey is 50 where the patients will be able to share the relevant information about managing self-compassion to control anxiety and cooperate with the health care professionals for getting the quality care and treatment. Random sampling technique will be adopted to include 50 patients in the health care institution to analyse the impacts of self-compassion among the individuals on anxiety control practice. On the other hand, interview will be conducted with 4 participants for understanding their views on anxiety management and being self-compassionate and mindfulness. For survey, the researcher will develop close ended questionnaire and for conducing interview, open ended questionnaire will be deigned.

Reference List

• Baker, D.A., Caswell, H.L. and Eccles, F.J., 2019. Self-compassion and depression, anxiety, and resilience in adults with epilepsy. Epilepsy & Behavior, 90, pp.154-161.
• de Bruin, E.I., van der Zwan, J.E. and Bögels, S.M., 2016. A RCT comparing daily mindfulness meditations, biofeedback exercises, and daily physical exercise on attention control, executive functioning, mindful awareness, self-compassion, and worrying in stressed young adults. Mindfulness, 7(5), pp.1182-1192.
• Harwood, E.M. and Kocovski, N.L., 2017. Self-compassion induction reduces anticipatory anxiety among socially anxious students. Mindfulness, 8(6), pp.1544-1551.
• Husni, H., 2020. The effectiveness of the social responsibility program for Islamic religious education through the participatory action research method. The Social Studies: An International Journal, 6(1), pp.103-116.
• Joeng, J.R., Turner, S.L., Kim, E.Y., Choi, S.A., Lee, Y.J. and Kim, J.K., 2017. Insecure attachment and emotional distress: Fear of self-compassion and self-compassion as mediators. Personality and Individual Differences, 112, pp.6-11.
• Joss, D., Khan, A., Lazar, S.W. and Teicher, M.H., 2019. Effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on self-compassion and psychological health among young adults with a history of childhood maltreatment. Frontiers in psychology, 10, p.2373.
• Proeve, M., Anton, R. and Kenny, M., 2018. Effects of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy on shame, self‐compassion and psychological distress in anxious and depressed patients: A pilot study. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 91(4), pp.434-449.
• Siegel, A.N. and Kocovski, N.L., 2020. Effectiveness of Self-Compassion Inductions Among Individuals with Elevated Social Anxiety. Mindfulness, 11(11), pp.2552-2560.
• Takahashi, T., Sugiyama, F., Kikai, T., Kawashima, I., Guan, S., Oguchi, M., Uchida, T. and Kumano, H., 2019. Changes in depression and anxiety through mindfulness group therapy in Japan: the role of mindfulness and self-compassion as possible mediators. BioPsychoSocial medicine, 13(1), p.4.

Appendix

Ethical consideration

Consent:

BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct (2018) and General Data Protection Regulations (2018) are implemented in this study for completing the research ethically. The consent form will be provided to each respondent in the survey.

Deception:

There is no such deception and the researcher ensures that the participants will be informed with all the information related to the research before participating in the survey.

Debriefing:

The debrief form will be given to the patients after the study in order to thank the respondents. The participants will get cooperation during the study as well as the researcher would like to communicate with the respondents for developing good bonding and trust while data collection and analysis method in this study.

Withdrawal from the investigation:

The participants can identify necessary withdrawal information in the consent form, where they are informed that they can withdraw from the study at any time as per their choice.

Confidentiality and anonymity:

The confidentiality and anonymity are also managed well in this study, where the researcher is able to secure the gathered data as well as will not disclose the name and personal information of the respondents in the study.

Protection of participants:

The researcher ensures that, the study will not have any emotional, psychological and physical impacts on the participants and the participants will be provided all the necessary information during the research. The consent form will also be given to each respondent so that they can feel safe in taking active part in the interview session. The researcher will not force any participants, rather the researcher will try to convince the respondents and they can withdraw from the study at any time as per their preferences.

Observation research:

N/A

Giving advice:

The participants are not provided any advice during the interview but the participants are guided with the information about the interview question, so that they can provide authentic information during the interview session. All the information and data are shared with the respondent so that they can feel safe and share the authentic data and information about the research topic. Transparency and accountability are managed in this regard for conducting the study efficiently.

Research undertaken in public places:

N/A

Data protection:

Data Protection Act 1998 is necessary to be implemented in this study and in this regard the researcher will ensure that the collected data will be kept safely. The researcher is also efficient to ensure that the gathered information is utilised only for this study, not for any other purpose.

Animal Rights:

N/A

Environmental protection:

N/A

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