ORIGINAL PAPER Mindfulness and Meditation Practice as Moderators of the Relationship between Age and Subjective Wellbeing among Working Adults Tammy D. Allen 1 & Tyler G. Henderson 1 & Victor S. Mancini 1 & Kimberly A. French 1 Published online: 10 February 2017 Abstract Promoting the health and wellbeing of an aging and age-diverse workforce is a timely and growing concern to organizations and to society. To help address this issue, we investigated the relationship between age and subjective wellbeing by examining the moderating role of mindfulness in two independent studies. In study 1, trait mindfulness was examined as a moderator of the relationship between age and vitality and between age and work-family balance in a sample of 240 participants. In study 2, data from the second phase of the Midlife Development in the USA (MIDUS II) project was used to investigate mindful-practice (i.e., meditation) as a moderator of the relationships between age and multiple mea- sures of subjective wellbeing (life satisfaction, psychological health, physical health) in a sample of 2477 adults. Results revealed that mindfulness moderates the relationship between age and multiple indicators of subjective wellbeing. In addi- tion, study 2 results indicated that individuals who reported that they mediated often combined with those who reported they meditated a lot reported better physical health than those who reported that they never meditate. The findings suggest that cultivating mindfulness can be a proactive tool for foster- ing health and subjective wellbeing in an aging and age- diverse workforce. Keywords Mindfulness . Age . Wellbeing . Health . Lifespan . Meditation Introduction Buoyed by a growing body of research demonstrating a vari- ety of benefits, the study of mindfulness has garnered consid- erable attention in recent years among organizational scholars (e.g., Allen and Kiburz 2012; Glomb et al. 2011; Good et al. 2016; Reb et al. 2014). Moreover, a diverse array of organi- zations have begun to implement mindfulness-based training programs as a tool to improve employee wellbeing, further fueling the study of mindfulness among working adults (Allen et al. 2015). Mindfulness has been described as the ability to be present in the moment through attention and awareness, and it in- volves the cultivation of an attitude of non-judging, non-striv- ing, and patience (Brown et al. 2007; Kabat-Zinn 1990). Two primary streams of mindfulness research include a focus on trait-like mindfulness as an individual difference (e.g., Brown and Ryan 2003) and a focus on mindfulness-based training as a therapeutic intervention, often incorporating meditation practice (e.g., Kabat-Zinn 1990). Both types of studies show mindfulness is associated with positive outcomes such as re- ductions in stress, depression, and physical health symptoms, as well as improvements in sleep quality and interpersonal relationship quality (see Brown et al. 2007 and Glomb et al. 2011 for reviews). Mindfulness may be particularly beneficial for older adults. Older adulthood is often associated with declining health, so- cial losses, and other forms of psychological stressors (Gallegos et al. 2013; Truxillo et al. 2015). Because of the risks of losses in physical health, social capital, and cognitive competence, subjective wellbeing may decline as one ages. Indeed, there is evidence of a negative relationship between chronological age and subjective overall health (Stephan et al. 2012). However, meta-analytic evidence suggests that where- as older workers report more clinical health problems (e.g., * Tammy D. Allen tallen@mail.usf.edu 1 Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., PCD 4118G Tampa, Tampa, FL 33620, USA Mindfulness (2017) 8:1055–1063 DOI 10.1007/s12671-017-0681-6 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017