Mindfulness means paying attention to your breathing and to this moment. Many schools now teach it. But does it help students' mental health?

In Britain, more than 8,000 students aged 11 to 14 in 84 schools took part in a big study. Some classes had ten mindfulness lessons. Other classes had their usual lessons. One year later, there was almost no difference between the groups.

Mindfulness, which involves focusing on your breathing and the present moment, has become popular in schools around the world. To test whether it improves teenagers' mental health, researchers at Oxford ran the MYRIAD trial. They divided 84 British secondary schools, with 8,376 students aged 11 to 14, into two groups by lottery.

One group received ten mindfulness lessons, and the other continued its usual lessons about mental health and relationships. After one year, there was almost no difference in depression risk, behavior problems or well-being. A further analysis found that students at higher risk of mental health problems did slightly worse after the mindfulness lessons. Many students also did not learn mindfulness skills well enough.

Mindfulness training has spread rapidly into schools as a way to protect young people's mental health. The MYRIAD trial, led by Kuyken and colleagues, put this promise to a rigorous test. In a cluster randomized controlled trial, 84 UK secondary schools with 8,376 students aged 11 to 14 were assigned either to ten lessons combining psychoeducation and mindfulness practice or to their existing social and emotional learning.

One year later, the mindfulness group was no better off in terms of depression risk, social-emotional-behavioral functioning or well-being; the differences were close to zero. A follow-up analysis was more sobering: among students already at higher risk of mental health problems, the mindfulness group showed slightly worse scores, although the differences were not clinically meaningful.

Many students also failed to acquire mindfulness skills to a meaningful level, so delivery may have been a problem. These findings do not mean mindfulness is useless. A 2019 meta-analysis of 33 randomized trials found small benefits for depression, anxiety and stress, but when only trials with active comparison groups were counted, benefits remained for fewer outcomes. MYRIAD compared mindfulness with schools' usual lessons, not with no support at all, which may partly explain the null result.