If you’re worried about job, money, the status of the world, or anything else, try a moment of mindfulness. Paying close attention to the present moment without judgment — the basic idea behind all mindfulness techniques — can help calm anxiety and improve focus, said Resh Gupta, a postdoctoral research associate with the Mindfulness Science and Practice research cluster.

“A lot of research has shown that mindfulness can reduce anxiety symptoms,” she said. The calming power of mindfulness is well-known to people who have made the practice a part of their daily lives. Still, experts continue to investigate how it works and which types of mindfulness might be most useful for different types of anxiety, ranging from fleeting bouts of worry to more chronic, clinical anxiety disorders.

“We all experience anxiety, but it can manifest in many different ways,” Gupta said. “It’s a tough problem to pin down.”

In a paper published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Gupta and co-authors laid out a new approach to understanding the relationship between mindfulness and anxiety. Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, they propose that different kinds of mindfulness practices might be helpful for different varieties of anxiety.

The proposed framework should ultimately help us understand how to match anxiety sufferers with more precise treatments, Gupta said. Todd Braver, the William R. Stuckenberg Professor in Human Values and Moral Development and a professor of psychological and brain sciences, is a co-author of the paper. The other co-author is Wendy Heller, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The work was supported in part by the Mindfulness Science and Practice cluster and the Arts & Sciences’ Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures.

Braver said that the new paper is emblematic of the kinds of work being done by the cluster.

“There is a growing recognition that these practices can be incredibly useful in enhancing psychological well-being,” Braver said. “But we still do not fully understand the mechanisms of action by which mindfulness can produce beneficial effects. That’s where the scientific research can be so valuable, by helping us more precisely identify why and how mindfulness works for different people and conditions.”