Mind—Body—Spirit Practice and Perceived Self-Efficacy for Mental Health Promotion: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

An increasing number of adults are exploring community-based alternative and complementary health care as a method for stress reduction and health promotion. This study explores the multidimensional impact of mind—body—spirit (MBS) practice on psychological wellbeing (mind), health (body), and spirituality and altruistic behaviors (spirit). It describes the benefits and challenges of holistic MBS practices and presents MBS as a possible intervention. The study's respondents included 357 adults who regularly practiced MBS techniques of yoga, meditation, and tai chi. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to determine the relative importance of three categories of predictors (demographics, MBS practice, self-efficacy) on outcome variables (health status, depression, life satisfaction, spiritual experiences, and altruistic behaviors). The findings of this study suggest that MBS practice variables can influence certain dimensions of health status. In particular, perceived MBS self-efficacy became the consistently significant predictor of all health domains – physical, psychological, and spiritual. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Keywords:

• mind-body
• spirituality
• mental health promotion
• self-efficacy
• holistic practice