Browsing by Author "Hartikainen, Sari"

Objective. The aim of this literature review was to research whether mindfulness-based methods are related to stress reduction among students. Mindfulness, in other words the ability to be fully present in the moment, has been found to have many neurobiological, psychological and physiological effects on human health. Stress is linked to students' health in many ways and it is important to find effective ways to manage stress already while studying to prevent the negative sides of stress. In previous studies, stress has been reduced with mindfulness training. Methods. Research on mindfulness and students’ stress was searched in PubMed and Google Scholar with the keywords mindfulness, student and stress. Recent studies were searched between the years 2018 and 2019. Articles were also manually searched through the bibliographies of already selected articles. A total of six research articles were selected for the review, three of them using a mindfulness-based phone application and three of them using a traditional mindfulness course. Results and conclusions. The results between students’ stress and mindfulness exercises were ambiguous. In half of the studies, those who practiced mindfulness were less stressed after the intervention than those who were non-practitioners, and the results remained in follow-up. In half of the studies, mindfulness practitioners were as stressed after the intervention as non-practitioners. However, the latter studies give some hope for the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions among students. They found, among other results, that an improvement on the aspects of mindfulness was associated with less stress and stress decreased after mindfulness intervention in women but not in men. In one study they also found a slight decrease in stress among mindfulness practitioners. Mindfulness is a potential tool for students’ stress management, especially for students who are motivated to learn mindfulness and are ready to engage in regular practice.