How is your mindfulness?: Data on qualitative interpretations of the meaning of mindfulness

Despite the growing interest in mindfulness over the last two decades, what mindfulness means to people can be different due to diversity in personal experience, social, and cultural background. To gain some insights on what mindfulness means to different people in different countries/regions, a research project entitled “How is your mindfulness” was conducted in early 2019. 247 adults from 35 countries/regions provided valid responses to an online questionnaire. Primarily, the questionnaire solicited open-ended responses about participants’ interpretation of mindfulness and descriptions of their own their mindfulness skills. Participants also rated their mindfulness skill, self-esteem, and life satisfaction through single-item scales. Availability of the open-ended responses is valuable for researchers interested in further understanding mindfulness from a qualitative angle. The availability of data from single-item measures of mindfulness skills, self-esteem and life esteem also provides a quantitative dimension to this issue. Taken together, the current data set provides an initial record of how different people are interpreting mindfulness, and could be further developed to advance mindfulness research.