Mindfulness supports academic performance in classrooms

Research shows that mindfulness practices can enhance academic performance for school children. This backs up what Pause Breathe Smile sees in schools around the motu.

By Janel Atlas

Over the past decade, Pause Breathe Smile has been teaching mind health to educators, who then pass it onto their students. The difference it makes in Aotearoa’s classrooms is measurable: Pause Breathe Smile’s evidence-based practices increase calmness in the classroom, improve focus and attention in tamariki, reduce anxiety and relieve teacher stress too.

A study by Xiaolin Li published in Nature in March 2025 validates this, too, finding that mindfulness practices can also enhance academic achievement. The research looked at different modes of teaching methods, including those that only focus on academic performance and others that integrate holistic practices such as mindful breathing practices. The participants in the study, 115 children aged 11 to 16, were observed in their learning environments and the researchers then surveyed exam results, attendance, learning ability, classroom performance, progress, and level of learning interest. The double-blind study found that a more humanistic approach in the classroom, one that integrated holistic practices like mindfulness, “not only significantly increases students’ classroom participation and interest in learning but also greatly enhances their self-confidence, sense of responsibility, teamwork, and creativity.”

A 2023 study by Maha Salem and Nancy Karlin found that mindfulness education could significantly improve college students’ attention, emotional adjustment ability and learning efficiency. At Pause Breathe Smile, facilitators observe that students’ interest in engaging with new concepts and activities is typically higher when they are practicing mindfulness regularly. We know that tamariki are overwhelmed: the Southern Cross 2024 Healthy Futures report found that 60% of Kiwi parents are concerned about how their children are coping with the pressures of life. But this new research suggests that when we treat our tamariki and rangatahi as holistic beings, when we integrate small, simple breathing practices and exercises that make them more self aware, it creates an eco-system that has exponential impacts and helps them to cope better with school, and life in general.

How does it work? When children (and adults) are dysregulated — stressed, anxious, overwhelmed — they can’t focus and are not in the optimal state of mind to learn. Once our children are regulated, however, they can engage and manage a lot more information, and teachers see more positive outcomes to their efforts. It only takes three to five minutes of breathing practices, moving meditation, perhaps a gratitude circle in the classroom each day, for better results for students.

“Seventy percent of children did their best scores on a basic facts test after we practiced mindfulness ahead of the test,” reported a teacher at a school in 2019, after Pause Breathe Smile was implemented in their classroom. And we hear similar feedback from schools around the motu every week, on everything from truancy, disengagement, classroom disruption and academic achievement.

In 2025, with the added pressures of new curriculums and assessments, adding one more thing to the teaching day can seem impossible to manage. Pause Breathe Smile is here to help you to support your learners’ wellbeing. Mindfulness has a positive impact on teachers and senior leaders in schools too: according to our November 2024 impact evaluation, practising Pause Breathe Smile with students improves job satisfaction in classroom staff and leads to more enjoyment at work.

*Pause Breathe Smile Charitable Trust makes mindfulness free for all primary and intermediate school children, thanks to the support of Southern Cross.