Why is mindfulness important for adolescents?

• How mindfulness helps with the adolescent brain

  • Adolescent brain development has been well documented and indicates that adolescents often struggle with emotional stability. This is due to the maturation of the amygdala while the prefrontal cortex will not mature until around the age of 25.

    • The prefrontal cortex is the last area of the brain to mature in adolescents. This is the area where rational decisions are made. In short, adolescents feel huge emotions but have no way to reason through them or to make rational decisions about them. Adolescents benefit from learning skills that will help them to regulate, understand, and make better decisions in relation to the intense emotions that they feel.

    • Learning mindfulness practices allows adolescents to "slow things down". They can come back to the present moment where they can work with the emotions and activate the prefrontal cortex.

• The adolescent time period (ages 12-25) is a fantastic time to learn mindfulness. Due to the plasticity of the adolescent brain, adolescents are better able to learn mindfulness. They do so with greater results than adults.

• Several studies have documented the positive effects that mindfulness has on adolescents:

  • • Decreased depression, anxiety, and stress

    • Increased attentional control (focus)

• These benefits show up in the classroom in several ways:

  • • When adolescents have the tools to regulate their emotions, you will experience less disruptions and classroom behavior issues.

    • Increased focus during work periods

    • Students get along better and have stronger communication skills when they are in conflict.

• School curriculum that focuses on training adolescents in mindfulness techniques have a positive correlation with attentional tasks and high levels of enjoyment by the students.

Sources that support this information:

Armstrong, T. (2021). The power of the Adolescent Brain: Strategies for teaching Middle and high school students. ASCD.

Dumontheil, I., Lyons, K. E., Russell, T. A., & Zelazo, P. D. (2022). A preliminary neuroimaging investigation of the effects of mindfulness training on attention reorienting and amygdala reactivity to emotional faces in adolescent and adult females. Journal of Adolescence, 95(1), 181–189. https://doi.org/10.1002/jad.12107

Ma, Y., & Fang, S. (2019). Adolescents’ mindfulness and psychological distress: The mediating role of Emotion Regulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01358

Sanger, K. L., & Dorjee, D. (2016). Mindfulness training with adolescents enhances metacognition and the inhibition of irrelevant stimuli: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 5(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2016.01.001

Schussler, D. L., Oh, Y., Mahfouz, J., Levitan, J., Frank, J. L., Broderick, P. C., Mitra, J. L., Berrena, E., Kohler, K., & Greenberg, M. T. (2020). Stress and well-being: A systematic case study of adolescents’ experiences in a mindfulness-based program. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 30(2), 431–446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01864-5

Tang, D.-F., Mo, L.-Q., Zhou, X.-C., Shu, J.-H., Wu, L., Wang, D., & Dai, F. (2021). Effects of mindfulness-based intervention on adolescents emotional disorders. Medicine, 100(51). https://doi.org/10.1097/md.0000000000028295

White, A. M., & Swartzwelder, S. (2013). What are they thinking?! the straight facts about the risk-taking, social-networking, still-developing Teen Brain. W.W. Norton.