Mindfulness – An Effective Survival Tool for College Students

Sharon Moore January 16, 2014

College life can be difficult as it is enjoyable. There can be a lot of excitement, and at the same time, pressure, demands and distractions. These problems often make students unable to concentrate, which leads to stress, and poor performance in school.

In a new study, US researchers designed a mindfulness training programme for undergraduate students to train their attention abilities and improve learning during the academic semester.

It was also the first study to examine the incidence of wandering and the impact of mindfulness training, at different time points in the academic calendar. Students were assigned to either Mindfulness Training (MT) group or a control group, who received no training. All of them completed two testing sessions – one at the start of the study and another at the end of the training interval, which is close to the examination period.

The research involved 58 undergraduate students who participated in an experiment testing the effectiveness of a seven-week mental training program designed to tame the mind wandering and increase focus.

Mindfulness training (MT) emphasises attention-building exercises and learning to observe the activity of the mind, the researcher explained. Before the study, participants did not differ in their attention levels and mind-wandering activities. However, by the end of the training interval, the control group showed diminished attention and reported increased mind-wandering, while those who participated in the programme showed significant improvements in attention and no increase in reported mind-wandering.

“This work was the first to integrate mindfulness training into the academic semester by embedding training in students’ course schedules, hosting training in the academic building to best accommodate their schedules, and providing a supervised space for mindfulness exercises,” said lead author Dr Amishi Jha, associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Source of this article:

Mindfulness Training Catches On in College