MINDFUL-ICE II

Updated June 15, 2026

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Key Details

Organisation Name

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Location

Concordia Base

Antarctica

eMHIC Member Status

Research Collaborator

At a Glance

Description

MINDFUL-ICE II delivers a brief, tailored mindfulness program, including guided practices and creative exercises, to support psychological well-being, stress regulation, and adaptation among Antarctic winter-over crews in isolated, confined, and extreme environments.

Implementation Status

Early-stage development

The program is being tested with Antarctic crews through pre-departure training and in-mission booster sessions, with longitudinal quantitative measures and post-mission interviews.

Target Population

Antarctic crews

Personnel spending winter-over periods in isolated and confined Antarctic stations.

Space analogs

Individuals in environments simulating long-duration space mission conditions.

Impact & Outcomes

2023-2027

Outcomes will be assessed through longitudinal psychological questionnaires, adherence tracking, brief in-mission feedback, and post-mission qualitative interviews.

TBD

Reduction in stress

TBD

Reduction in stress

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Initiative Overview

The Current Gap

Antarctic winter-over crews face prolonged isolation, confinement, sensory monotony, interpersonal strain, disrupted routines, and limited access to psychological support. Although these conditions resemble key challenges of long-duration space missions, scalable and low-burden mental health interventions remain limited. Existing approaches often require substantial time, specialist delivery, or are not tailored to the operational constraints of extreme environments.

MINDFUL-ICE II addresses the need for a brief, feasible, and scientifically grounded program to support stress regulation, emotional flexibility, and psychological adaptation during missions.

What else should we know?

MINDFUL-ICE II builds on previous research conducted with Antarctic crews and is part of a broader research line on psychological adaptation in isolated, confined, and extreme environments.

The project has strong translational relevance for space psychology, astronaut support, and other high-risk operational contexts. Its low-cost and scalable format makes it suitable for deployment in settings where access to continuous psychological care is limited, while still allowing rigorous scientific evaluation.

Our Solution

MINDFUL-ICE II is a tailored mindfulness-based program designed for Antarctic winter-over crews. It combines brief pre-departure online training with in-mission booster sessions and simple experiential practices, including guided exercises and creative activities such as mandala colouring.

The program is designed to fit demanding operational schedules while promoting awareness, cognitive flexibility, stress regulation, and adaptive coping. Its impact is evaluated through longitudinal psychological measures and post-mission qualitative interviews, generating evidence relevant to both polar missions and future long-duration space exploration.

Key Features

1

Operationally brief

Designed to fit the limited time and demanding routines of Antarctic crews.

2

Tailored to ICE environments

Addresses isolation, confinement, monotony, stress, and interpersonal challenges.

3

Pre-departure training

Provides participants with practical skills before entering the mission environment.

4

In-mission boosters

Reinforces practice through periodic sessions during the winter-over period.

5

Experiential exercises

Includes guided mindfulness practices and accessible activities such as mandala colouring.

6

Scientific evaluation

Uses longitudinal questionnaires and qualitative interviews to assess feasibility and impact.

Collaboration in Action

Main Collaborators

Italian Space Agency, ASI – IT
European Space Agency, ESA – EU
Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide, PNRA – IT
French Polar Institute Paul-Émile Victor, IPEV – FR

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Key Learnings

Main Challenges

The main challenges were adapting a psychological intervention to an extreme operational context with limited time, high workload, environmental constraints, and variable crew needs. The program had to be brief, engaging, culturally flexible, and feasible without continuous specialist presence.

Another challenge was balancing scientific rigor with operational simplicity, ensuring that assessments and booster sessions did not increase participant burden during an already demanding Antarctic mission.

Important Lessons

Similar initiatives should prioritize feasibility, simplicity, and co-design with the operational context.

In extreme environments, even evidence-based interventions must be adapted to crew schedules, fatigue, privacy needs, and mission culture.

Brief practices, flexible delivery, and low-burden assessment are essential.

It is also important to combine quantitative outcomes with qualitative feedback, since participant experience often reveals what makes an intervention truly usable and meaningful in the field.

Collaborative Insights

International collaboration was essential because Antarctic missions and space analog research require multidisciplinary expertise, operational access, and cross-context relevance. The initiative integrates clinical psychology, mindfulness science, polar medicine, human spaceflight research, and mission support.

Collaboration across institutions also strengthens scientific validity, cultural adaptability, and translational impact, allowing lessons from Antarctic winter-over crews to inform psychological support for astronauts and other teams operating in isolated, confined, and extreme environments.

Looking Ahead

Future Plans

Future plans include completing the pilot evaluation, analyzing longitudinal psychological data, and integrating post-mission qualitative interviews to refine the program. The next step is to improve the intervention based on crew feedback and assess its scalability across other Antarctic stations and space analog settings.

Future studies may also include physiological and behavioral indicators, such as sleep, heart rate variability, and team functioning, to better understand mechanisms of adaptation.

Opportunities

We welcome collaboration with organizations working in polar research, space psychology, human performance, occupational health, and extreme environment medicine. Opportunities include joint data collection, implementation in other Antarctic or analog settings, cross-cultural adaptation, and integration with wearable or psychophysiological monitoring.

What's the future Vision

The long-term vision is to develop MINDFUL-ICE II into a scalable psychological support model for people living and working in isolated, confined, and extreme environments.

By combining brief mindfulness-based practices, operational feasibility, and rigorous evaluation, the initiative aims to support resilience, emotional flexibility, and crew well-being in Antarctica, space analogs, and eventually long-duration space missions. Especially looking at the Mars mission!

Key Contact

Francesco Pagnini