Mindfulness took off in recent years as a way to draw your attention away from the anxieties of the future and all the various doom spirals therein, and to firmly plant your brain in the present. It’s pitched as a wellness trend, but for college students, especially those panicking about their futures, it’s become a practical survival tool.
A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that even a short burst of mindfulness training can significantly reduce stress in one very specific group of college students studying a field that fills me with anxiety just hearing about it: introductory physics.
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that about half of students in these courses experience what psychologists call “psychological threat, which is a state where the demands of the class feel bigger than the student’s ability to handle them.
Mindfulness Is the Best Remedy for Stress, Scientists Say
Students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in physics reported higher levels of psychological threat, which stemmed from their issues with belonging and their confidence in STEM courses.
After nailing down the problem, the researchers tested a possible fix by giving a group of students five days of 20-minute mindfulness sessions. In the training, they used a technique called R.A.I.N., which stands for Recognize, Accept, Investigate, and Non-Identify. It teaches students to recognize stress factors in their lives, but not let them define them. Meanwhile, another group listened to audiobooks as a control.
The researchers found that the students who practiced mindfulness didn’t suddenly find their physics lessons easier to work through or understand. What they did walk away with was feeling more capable of handling it all, a shift in mindset that may allow them to eventually figure it all out, to better handle the stresses of their field. The sense of psychological threat decreased during the training and remained lower for up to three months. They also reported less anxiety and greater confidence, and this was paired with a stronger sense of belonging in their challenging courses.
Mindfulness doesn’t provide answers to all of your problems. It’s all about shifting your response to stress so you can better focus on getting stuff done without doom spiraling. It’s a mental reset that simply helps you stay on task, assuming you stick with it long enough to feel its effects.
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