Mindfulness and Meditation Practice as Moderators of the Relationship between Age and Subjective Wellbeing among Working Adults

Promoting the health and wellbeing of an aging and age-diverse workforce is a timely and growing concern to organizations and to society. To help address this issue, we investigated the relationship between age and subjective wellbeing by examining the moderating role of mindfulness in two independent studies. In study 1, trait mindfulness was examined as a moderator of the relationship between age and vitality and between age and work-family balance in a sample of 240 participants. In study 2, data from the second phase of the Midlife Development in the USA (MIDUS II) project was used to investigate mindful-practice (i.e., meditation) as a moderator of the relationships between age and multiple measures of subjective wellbeing (life satisfaction, psychological health, physical health) in a sample of 2477 adults. Results revealed that mindfulness moderates the relationship between age and multiple indicators of subjective wellbeing. In addition, study 2 results indicated that individuals who reported that they mediated often combined with those who reported they meditated a lot reported better physical health than those who reported that they never meditate. The findings suggest that cultivating mindfulness can be a proactive tool for fostering health and subjective wellbeing in an aging and age-diverse workforce.