This piece from The Guardian (Here) recounts a study carried out at the University of Cambridge – contrasting student who were given a self-help mindfulness course with those who were not. The report says: “Researchers found the mindfulness participants were a third less likely to score above the threshold commonly regarded as meriting mental health support. Even during the most stressful period of the year, summer exams, distress scores for the mindfulness group fell below their baseline levels, as measured at the start of the study. The students without mindfulness training became increasingly stressed as the academic year progressed.”
It appears that the impact of the mindfulness course was persistent and the only thing missing was some analysis on the academic performance across the two groups – beside exam stress, it would seems likely that the more mindful students, suffering less stress, would learn more effectively through their courses.