Derived from eastern traditions and Buddhist psychology, mindfulness can be defined as the as a state of “presence of mind”. It is the psychological capacity be willfully aware of one's inner and outer worlds in the present moment – including thoughts, sensations, emotions, actions or surroundings – characterized by a non-judgemental or accepting attitude, engendering a warm and friendly openness and curiosity (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, 2005). Mindfulness can be cultivated through various techniques. A promising one is the mindfulness-based training (Tang, Hölzel, & Posner, 2015), which combines body relaxation (e.g., conscious relaxation of muscle sets), mental imagery (e.g., imaging a calm sea), and mindfulness training (e.g., non-judgmental awareness of one’s thoughts).

 

Research using randomized controlled trials, showed that this type of training improved core EF across the lifespan and that these improvements were supported by brain (increased activity in the prefrontal cortex) and body changes (e.g., in the autonomic nervous system, indexed by heart rate variability; Tang et al., 2012 Tang et al., 2007; Tang et al., 2009). Research evidence on mindfulness effects is still scarce, mainly on behavioural dimensions associated to EF, such as writing, academic achievement, social skills, and health-related variables, such as sleep, associated to body functions’ regulation. However, mindfulness is considered to be a promising indirect way to promote executive functions (EF) and associated correlates. Indeed, despite the effectiveness of EF-focused interventions (e.g., targeting working memory through computerized exercises), meta-analyses barely found transfer effects to other skills as reading and maths (Melby-Lervag, & Hulme, 2013; Sala, & Gobet, 2017). It was suggested that these EF-focused interventions rely on network training, which exercises a specific brain network, rather than on state training, which develops a brain state that may has been proposed as an effective state-training intervention.

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Training the ability to stay willfully aware of one's inner and outer words

in the present moment (i.e., mindfulness) seems associated with improvements

in executive functions and academic achievement.