An online course on handling hard feelings helped students put things off less
Who it’s about: Students, Young adults
- Helped
A 9-week online course on handling hard feelings helped students put things off less than the waiting group.
- Action: Practise mindfulnesstested
- Action: Challenge unhelpful thoughtstested
- Rule: Get a remindertested
- Rule: Every daytested
- Rule: Through an online programmeused
Randomised trial of 148 university students in Germany · vs students still waiting for the course · they rated themselves · ⚠ numbers unreliable
The study
Who took part
171 students at a university in Germany joined, and 148 were counted at the end. About half studied psychology. They were about 23 on average, and three in four were women. They were not chosen for putting things off.
What they did
For 9 weeks, one group did an online course at their own pace. It had three parts with video lessons, a booklet, audio and daily text reminders. It covered mindfulness, relaxing, planning nice things to do and changing unhelpful thoughts. The other group waited and got the course after.
What happened
At the end, the course group rated themselves as putting things off less than the waiting group. The gap was small to medium. Part of it went along with better skills for handling feelings. Some of the paper's numbers don't add up, and the groups differed in gender and subject at the start.
Source
“I’ll Worry About It Tomorrow” – Fostering Emotion Regulation Skills to Overcome Procrastination (2022)
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.780675 (opens in a new tab)Tools in this study
Action5
Challenge unhelpful thoughtsCognitive restructuring of beliefs such as perfectionism or catastrophising.
