Mindfulness during exercise may strengthen training habits and increase enjoyment of movement

May 11, 2026

A new meta-analysis suggests that bringing more mindfulness into exercise may improve how movement feels.

Mindfulness during exercise may strengthen training habits and increase enjoyment of movement

Why emotions during exercise matter

Most people understand, at least in theory, that regular movement is important for health. In practice, however, knowing that something is healthy is rarely enough to sustain it for months and years.

One reason is how a person feels during exercise. If training is mainly associated with pressure, discomfort, and “getting it done,” it becomes easier to abandon. If movement creates a sense of energy, agency, or pleasant connection with the body, the chance of repeating it may increase.

That is why researchers are paying more attention not only to what happens after exercise, but also to what happens during it. A new paper published in Psychology of Sport and Exercise examined whether mindfulness integrated directly into exercise can improve affective responses to physical activity — in other words, the emotional and subjective experience of movement.

Study details

Publication title: Mindfulness during exercise and its effects on affective responses: a systematic review and meta-analysis with implications for exercise behavior.
Authors: Jiao Liu, Wen-Jing Liu, Yue Qiu, Zhi-Xiong Mao.
Publication date / year: 2025 online; journal issue: March 2026.
Journal / venue: Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Volume 83, Article 103054.
Identifiers: DOI: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.103054; PMID: 41390109.
Full-text source: ScienceDirect.
Study type and design: systematic review and meta-analysis, reported according to PRISMA 2020.
Population and sample: 17 studies were included in the systematic review, and 13 were included in the meta-analysis.
Intervention or exposure: exercise interventions in which mindfulness was intentionally integrated into physical activity, such as walking, running, or cycling. Sitting meditation and inherently mindful movement practices such as yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong, and Pilates were excluded.
Main outcome / endpoint: affective responses to exercise, meaning subjective emotional experiences during or after physical activity.
Conflicts of interest: the authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Journal context: Psychology of Sport and Exercise is a specialist journal in the fields of sport psychology, physical activity, and exercise behavior.

This context matters because the paper did not examine “mindfulness” as general meditation. It specifically focused on mindfulness practiced during movement.

What the meta-analysis found

The main result was positive: interventions combining mindfulness with exercise improved affective responses to training.

The meta-analysis used a three-level random-effects model. The pooled result showed a statistically significant positive effect:

g = 0.41
95% CI: 0.19–0.63
p < 0.001

In simple terms: people who exercised with a mindfulness component tended to report more favorable emotional experiences related to movement than people in control groups.

The authors also noted that the effect appeared stronger in people who were already highly physically active, as well as in samples where baseline physical activity was not clearly specified. Other factors — including exercise intensity, duration, frequency, setting, control group type, and the specific type of affect measured — were not significant moderators.

This suggests that mindfulness may work not by changing the training plan itself, but by changing how the effort is experienced.

What it means in practice

Mindfulness during exercise does not have to mean meditation or a spiritual practice. In this context, it is more about deliberately directing attention to the body, breath, rhythm of movement, muscle tension, emotions, and thoughts — without automatically judging every sensation or constantly distracting oneself from discomfort.

In practice, this may look like:

noticing the rhythm of steps and breathing during a walk,
observing tension, pace, and bodily sensations while running,
paying attention to leg movement, breathing, and surroundings while cycling,
distinguishing between “hard but stable” and “too intense and chaotic” during cardio,
briefly checking after exercise whether movement created more energy, calmness, satisfaction, or tension.

This approach may be especially relevant for people who already train regularly but feel that their workouts have become increasingly mechanical, pressure-driven, or disconnected from how they actually feel.

This does not mean that music, podcasts, or distraction are always bad. The study does not show that they should be eliminated completely. Rather, it suggests that a more conscious connection with movement may be an additional tool for improving the quality of the training experience.

Limitations and cautious interpretation

The findings are promising, but they should not be interpreted as definitive proof that mindfulness during exercise automatically increases long-term physical activity.

The authors highlighted several important limitations:

the included studies were methodologically diverse,
some samples were small and homogeneous,
the definition and implementation of mindfulness varied across studies,
many studies did not provide sufficient preparation for participants to practice mindfulness,
studies often did not verify whether participants were actually more mindful during exercise,
individual characteristics, such as prior meditation experience or trait mindfulness, were rarely controlled,
few studies measured real exercise behavior over a longer period.

The most reasonable conclusion is therefore this: mindfulness during exercise may improve the emotional experience of training, but better and longer studies are needed to determine whether it truly translates into lasting behavior change.