Notifications, noise, thoughts drifting elsewhere: staying focused on a lesson or a summary takes real effort. Meditation is often presented as a solution. What can you expect from it for concentration and academic success? Here is what research says, and how to try it simply.
Meditation and concentration: what are we talking about?
Meditating means training your attention. You choose an anchor (your breath, a sound, a bodily sensation) and bring your mind back to it each time it wanders off.
The form most studied in young people is mindfulness. It consists of observing what is happening, thoughts included, without judging it and without holding on to it.
The core move is very close to studying itself: noticing that you have drifted, then returning to the task. That is why meditation appeals to so many pupils and students.
What research really says
There are many studies, and their results are more nuanced than what you often read. Three landmarks help make sense of them.
Real but modest effects
A meta-analysis published in 2019 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (Dunning et al.) pooled 33 controlled trials, covering more than 3,600 children and teenagers. It found positive effects on attention, executive functions, stress and mood.
These effects remain small. They shrink further when meditation is compared with another supervised activity rather than with no activity at all. On average, meditation helps a little, without transforming school results on its own.
At school, with the whole class: disappointing results
The largest trial to date, the British MYRIAD study (published in 2022), followed more than 8,000 pupils in the first years of secondary school across 84 schools. Mindfulness lessons given to the whole class did no better than usual teaching on wellbeing and mental health.
One finding of the study sheds light on this result: most pupils hardly ever practised outside the sessions. As with any skill, the effect depends on actual practice, and on wanting to do it.
The brain that “changes”: a lead to treat with caution
A frequently cited 2011 study observed changes in grey matter after eight weeks of meditation. It involved a small group of participants.
In 2022, a much larger study (218 adults, published in Science Advances) found no change in brain structure after the same eight-week programme. This kind of argument is therefore not enough to promise better concentration.
Why try it anyway?
A modest effect is still an effect, and meditation has practical advantages: it is free, safe for most people, and a few minutes are enough to test it.
It can be especially useful for pupils and students who:
- feel tense or scattered before a study session;
- ruminate before an exam and sleep badly the night before;
- struggle to get back to work after a break, a message or a video;
- want to learn to spot the moment their attention slips.
The right approach is to treat it as a personal test: try it for a few weeks, observe, then keep it or set it aside.
How to build meditation into your study routine
There is no need to meditate for long to get started. What matters is regularity.
- Start small: 5 minutes a day, seated, back straight, eyes closed or resting on a fixed point.
- Choose a fixed time: just before you start working, to mark the shift from the day to studying.
- Come back without judging yourself: the mind wanders constantly, that is normal. Each return to the breath is the exercise itself.
- Use a guide if you are a beginner: an audio guided meditation helps you keep going during the first weeks.
- Keep a small notebook: write one line on how the following study session went. After three or four weeks, you will know whether the practice helps you.
Before an exam, a short version can be enough: one to two minutes of slow breathing, counting your out-breaths, to ease the tension as you turn over the paper.
What meditation does not replace
Concentration depends first on very concrete conditions. Meditation comes as a complement, once these basics are in place:
- enough regular sleep;
- a phone kept away from the desk while working (see our article on the impact of social media on students’ lives);
- short, planned study sessions with real breaks;
- an active method: testing yourself, rephrasing, redoing exercises (our 5 tips to study and pass your exams explain this approach).
If concentration difficulties are severe, long-lasting or come with significant anxiety, it is best to talk to a doctor, a psychologist, the school’s PMS centre (psycho-medical-social centre) or your institution’s student support service.
Regaining concentration with support
Concentration often comes back once you know where to start and how to organise yourself. A My Sherpa coach helps the pupil or student structure their work, break the material down and stay on course until the exams, in study skills as in every subject.
Lessons take place at home anywhere in Belgium, or online. An educational advisor chooses the coach according to needs and level, from secondary school to higher education.
