Abstract:

College students are under considerable stress due to high workload and anxiety that comes from achieving good test results. Mindfulness is the ability to focus perception on the here and now and has been shown to increase students' attention during learning, reading comprehension, and knowledge retention. The objective of the project was to make the practice of the Mindfulness technique known to university students, in order to improve academic performance, and provide them with a useful tool to face future work life. A total of 35 students of different degrees from the University of Seville and the Pablo de Olavide University participated. Short weekly sessions of Mindfulness training were held with the students to assess performance improvement. Tests of visual attention, auditory attention, and text memorization were performed. The tests carried out to evaluate the improvement of attention in students have only allowed us to observe an improvement in the visual attention tests, probably due to the need for a greater number of sessions. However, a high percentage of the students stated that they had managed to improve stress control, their academic performance and their life in general thanks to the practice of Mindfulness.

Keywords:

Mindfulness, academic performance, academic stress.