From Mindfulness to Student Success

Many students today experience extraordinary levels of stress (Mendelson et al.,2010), especially those coming from situations of poverty, loss, fear, danger, abuse, neglect, and even war—factors that inhibit their academic achievement and impair their emotional development. Students' circumstances often work against their abil­ity to learn and process new information that is unrelated to their own experiences. Technological devices (i.e., video games, computers, tablets, or smartphones) also vie for students' attention, creating a culture of distracted learners.