A combined study from the George Mason University and University of Illinois say students show some significant improvement in grades by practicing meditation before class, according to Science Daily.
Professor Robert Youmans from the George Mason University and doctoral student Jared Ramsburg of the University of Illinois conducted the study to examine if meditation could help students achieve better grades and gain focus in class. The experiments were conducted among random students from three classrooms at a California university. The students were asked to meditate before a lecture and their performance in a quiz was analyzed.
The students who meditated had a better score than those who did not. Another experiment showed that meditation helped in predicting if the students passed or failed in the quiz, the report said.
Researchers also noted that meditation had a stronger impact on the freshmen students.
"One difficulty for researchers who study meditation is that the supposed benefits of meditation do not always replicate across different studies or populations, and so we have been trying to figure out why," Youmans said. "This data from this study suggest that meditation may help students who might have trouble paying attention or focusing. Sadly, freshmen classes probably contain more of these types of students than senior courses because student populations who have difficulty self-regulating are also more likely to leave the university."
Youmans noted the study may help freshmen students gain more focus and reduce the attrition rates common among the freshmen pupils who lose focus and drop out of colleges. The study showed significant improvement with just six-minutes of written meditation.
Ramsburg, lead author of the study and a practicing Buddhist, said that meditation could help in "mental clarity, focus and self-discipline," which can be helpful in setting and achieving variety of goals, says the report.
Youmans concluded by suggesting various methods of meditating that could help students perform better and achieve better grades. Individuals can take a walk, indulge in prayers, and mindfully plan out the day in the morning; all this can also have an impact similar to meditation.
The findings of the study are published in an online journal Mindfulness.
