Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness exercises have been shown to improve strategic thinking, focus, awareness, and overall executive functioning abilities, including working memory, emotion regulation, and self-monitoring. Research shows that participation in a program that utilizes MBSR leads to improvements in behavioral regulation and overall executive functioning in elementary school students (Flook et al., 2010; Mendelson et al., 2010)
MBSRs have long been recognized as effective strategies for managing stress-related illness and enhancing psychological well being across the lifetime. In addition, MBSRs increase activity in the parasympathetic nervous system, deactivating the body’s fight-or-flight stress response (Esch et al., 2003; Brown & Ryan, 2003). To date, several comprehensive reviews and meta-analyses have demonstrated that Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) can improve the psychological wellbeing of healthy individuals (Chambers, Gullone, & Allen, 2009; Gu, Strauss, Bond, & Cavanagh, 2015). Importantly, it has been demonstrated that mindfulness encourages greater self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence, which has been described as an interrelated collection of capacities believed to support greater well-being (Vago and Silbersweig, 2012).
Mindfulness exercises lead to improvements in academic and behavioral outcomes. One study found that adolescent students who were exposed to two or more semesters of classes that included mindfulness-based exercises demonstrated higher GPAs, improved work habits, and higher cooperation scores than students who had less exposure. Similar studies have demonstrated significant increases in self-esteem, greater improvements in levels of perceived stress and anxiety, as well as an increase in health-promoting behaviors (Benson et al., 1994, 2000; Foret et al., 2011).
