Relationship between mindfulness and general health among couples in Mainland China: A crossover perspective

Previous research has indicated that mindfulness can be beneficial both intrapersonally and interpersonally. Although mindfulness has been shown to improve an individual's health, much less is known about whether these health benefits extend to the individual's spouse.

The present study aims to establish a crossover model to expound ''how'' and ''why'' mindfulness might be associated with both the individual's and the spouse's general health.

In total, 319 married couples in Mainland China participated in a two-wave survey study with a 3-month interval. The hypotheses were tested by Structural Equation Modeling.

As expected, mindfulness was positively correlated with personal general health through decreases in perceived social undermining. However, mindfulness had an asymmetrical crossover effect on spouses' general health. Whereas wives' mindfulness had significant benefits for husbands' general health, husbands' mindfulness was not a significant protective factor of wives' general health. The benefits of wives' mindfulness on husbands' general health were mediated by the direct crossover of lower perceived social undermining from wives to husbands.

This study is the first to investigate the relationship between mindfulness and general health at the couple level. Our findings help clarify the benefits of mindfulness on couples' health management from a systemic perspective and provide further support for the crossover theory.