Meditation can help improve test scores

Mindfulness training has been found to help test scores according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara found that teaching mindfulness through meditation helped improve the GRE scores of students.

"Despite the wide recognition that mind wandering is a pervasive and often disruptive influence in our lives, almost no research has established effective strategies for reducing mind wandering," said co-author Michael Mrazek.

"We set out to find ways to reduce mind wandering and thereby improve performance within educational contexts."

The study recruited 48 college students and assigned half to a meditation class and the other to a nutrition class.

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The classes convened four times per week for 45 minutes each.

The sessions lasted for two weeks.

The mindfulness classes focused on breathing and paying attention to their senses in order to not let their thoughts wander.

Tests were given before and after for reading comprehension and memory.

The students who took the mindfulness class showed significant improvements in their scores compared to those in the nutrition class.