There is growing interest in the integration of meditation into higher education. Meditation practices
may help to foster important cognitive skills of attention and information processing, as well as help to build stress resilience and adaptive interpersonal capacities.
Meditation Benefits
• Mindfulness meditation may improve ability to maintain preparedness and orient
attention.
• Mindfulness meditation may improve ability to process information quickly and
accurately.
• Concentration-based meditation, practiced over a long-term, may have a positive impact
on academic achievement.
• Mindfulness meditation may decrease stress, anxiety, and depression.
• Mindfulness meditation supports better regulation of emotional reactions and the
cultivation of positive psychological states.
• Meditation can support the development of creativity.
• Meditation supports and enhances the development of skills needed for interpersonal
relationships.
• Empathetic responses are increased with meditation and mindfulness practices.
• Meditation may help to cultivate self-compassion.
Despite its importance to learning, focused attention is rarely if ever systematically trained or cultivated in most educational settings. And yet, attentional training has been the hallmark of meditative disciplines for centuries, and thus the incorporation of these practices into higher education could be of great benefit. Practitioners of concentrative meditations first set and attempt to retain focus on a particular object (such as the sensation of breathing or a word), notice when the intended focus is lost, discontinue the unintended focus (e.g., worrying about some impending task) once it is noticed, and then restore the intended focus .
The applications of meditation in higher education are potentially broad, affecting cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal domains. Research reviewed here suggests that meditation can have a positive impact on academic performance, psychological well-being, and interpersonal experience for students in college, medical school, and other higher education settings.
may help to foster important cognitive skills of attention and information processing, as well as help to build stress resilience and adaptive interpersonal capacities.
Meditation Benefits
• Mindfulness meditation may improve ability to maintain preparedness and orient
attention.
• Mindfulness meditation may improve ability to process information quickly and
accurately.
• Concentration-based meditation, practiced over a long-term, may have a positive impact
on academic achievement.
• Mindfulness meditation may decrease stress, anxiety, and depression.
• Mindfulness meditation supports better regulation of emotional reactions and the
cultivation of positive psychological states.
• Meditation can support the development of creativity.
• Meditation supports and enhances the development of skills needed for interpersonal
relationships.
• Empathetic responses are increased with meditation and mindfulness practices.
• Meditation may help to cultivate self-compassion.
Despite its importance to learning, focused attention is rarely if ever systematically trained or cultivated in most educational settings. And yet, attentional training has been the hallmark of meditative disciplines for centuries, and thus the incorporation of these practices into higher education could be of great benefit. Practitioners of concentrative meditations first set and attempt to retain focus on a particular object (such as the sensation of breathing or a word), notice when the intended focus is lost, discontinue the unintended focus (e.g., worrying about some impending task) once it is noticed, and then restore the intended focus .
The applications of meditation in higher education are potentially broad, affecting cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal domains. Research reviewed here suggests that meditation can have a positive impact on academic performance, psychological well-being, and interpersonal experience for students in college, medical school, and other higher education settings.
