At a time of growing concern about poor mental health in children and young people in the UK, researchers wanted to find out whether a universal mindfulness intervention in secondary schools could help build resilience and have a positive impact on wellbeing of the students. Mindfulness has become a popular meditation technique that aims to focus the mind on the present moment and involves learning how to pay attention and manage emotions and behavior, improving resilience to external stressors. While it has been found to help with symptoms of depression and anxiety in some studies, researchers from the My Resilience in Adolescence (Myriad) trial found that widely offering school-based mindfulness was no more effective than what schools were already doing to support students mental health with social-emotional learning. The research was based on a group of five studies, conducted over eight years by around 100 researchers working with 28,000 teenagers and 650 teachers in 100 schools. It usually involved teachers learning mindfulness themselves, followed by training in how to deliver it to their students in 10 30-50 minute lessons. While the evidence for the effectiveness of this approach among students was “weak”, the researchers found that it had a positive impact on the teachers involved, reducing burnout, as well as on the overall climate or culture of the school, although these positive effects were relatively short. he lived. The study, from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Exeter, King’s College London, University College London and Pennsylvania State in the US, was published in the journal Evidence-Based Mental Health. Professor Mark Williams, retired director of the Oxford Mindfulness Center and co-researcher at the University of Oxford, said the findings confirm the huge burden of mental health challenges young people face and the urgent need to find a way to help. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST “They also show that the idea of mindfulness doesn’t help – it’s the practice that counts.” Those students who participated improved, he said, but most did not. “On average they only practiced once in 10 weeks of the course. And that’s like going to the gym once and hoping you’ll be in shape. But why didn’t they practice? Well, because a lot of them found it boring.” He continued: “If today’s young people are excited enough to practice mindfulness, then updating education to meet different needs and giving them a say in their preferred approach are vital next steps.” Dr Elaine Lockhart, chair of the child and adolescent school at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which co-owns Evidence-Based Mental Health, said children and young people were suffering after the pandemic. “Mindfulness can be helpful in managing emotions, but it will not be enough for those children and young people who need support for their mental well-being, especially in the wake of the pandemic. “They will need a full range of services to meet their mental health needs and getting help early is absolutely key to preventing mental health problems from developing or escalating into adulthood.” Dr Dan O’Hare, co-vice chair of education and child psychology at the British Psychological Society, added: “The findings of this study certainly suggest that there is a need to consider whether the mental health support we provide to adolescents in schools is appropriate for the purpose. “While mindfulness sessions can be extremely beneficial, it is important to understand that this is not a surface-level intervention and that how children and adolescents respond to it will be influenced by the context in which it is taught and the school environment.”
