Ilaria Rosella Pagliaro A Stanford study reveals that mindfulness improves children's sleep, increasing nightly rest by 74 minutes and promoting emotional balance and learning
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A deep breath, a brief moment of silence, a few concentration exercises. It may seem like little, but science says otherwise. A team led by Stanford University School of Medicine has demonstrated that mindfulness, practiced consistently, can significantly improve children’s sleep, helping them not only rest better but also manage emotions and learning with greater balance.
The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, involved 115 third and fifth-grade students in two schools in Northern California. Researchers followed them for two years, comparing the results of those who participated in a mindfulness and movement program with those of a control group.
Two years of conscious breathing and movement
Half of the children participated in a health and awareness education program twice a week. The lessons included guided breathing, body awareness exercises, and gentle yoga-inspired movements, all adapted to the language and rhythms of childhood.
At the end of the project, the results surprised even the researchers: children who practiced mindfulness slept an average of 74 minutes more each night. Not only that: REM sleep, which promotes memory and emotional stability, increased by 24 minutes compared to the beginning.
Meanwhile, the control group – those who hadn’t followed the program – lost sleep time during the same period.
And there’s an even more interesting detail: the program didn’t mention “sleep hygiene” at all. No rules about schedules, lights, or technology before bedtime. The beneficial effect, researchers explain, seems to have come from stress reduction and activation of the parasympathetic system, the physiological mechanism that calms body and mind.
The power of silence
Today’s children live immersed in constant stimulation: screens, noise, frenzy. This constant level of activation can make it difficult to truly relax, even during sleep.
Mindfulness – understood as training attention and mental presence – seems to offer a simple and accessible way to regulate emotions, reduce anxiety, and improve sleep quality.
“We didn’t teach children how to sleep,” explained the study’s lead author, Ruth O’Hara, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford. “We taught them how to relax mind and body. The result is that they started sleeping better on their own.”
The message is clear: it doesn’t take grand strategies or sophisticated technologies to improve children’s wellbeing. Sometimes all it takes is a few minutes of conscious breathing and a little gentle attention to oneself.
Why teaching mindfulness in schools can make a difference
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the study is its simplicity: no devices, no medications, just awareness and movement.
Yet the results show a concrete and measurable effect on children’s health. Sleeping more and better means being more attentive at school, more emotionally stable, and less irritable throughout the day.
For this reason, more and more schools worldwide are integrating brief mindfulness sessions into their daily routines. Just 10 minutes of calm is enough to learn to recognize how you feel, breathe, and face stress with a more serene attitude.
Source: Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine
