Do Mindful Breathing Exercises Benefit Reading Comprehension? A Brief Report

Abstract

phone 1 (701) 777-3920, and fax 1 (701) 777-3454. Orcid identifier is orcid.org/0000-0002-4705-2217 and follow on Twitter at @v_e_clinton.We thank Alex Karie, Lisa Swiontek, Kristina Syverson, and Newzaira Khan for their assistance with data collection and entry.MINDFUL READING 2 Please cite as the following: Abstract A brief breathing exercise designed to induce a mindful state could benefit reading comprehension performance, but has not been previously examined. Furthermore, the mechanisms of how an induced mindful state benefits cognition are not well understood. The purposes of this study are to test the effectiveness of a brief mindful breathing exercise on reading comprehension performance and examine two potential mechanisms (mind wandering and stress reduction). Undergraduate students (N = 104) engaged in either a mindful breathing exercise or control sham exercise, indicated their stress levels, and completed a reading comprehension assessment during which they self-reported their mind wandering. The mindful breathing exercise benefited performance, but the mechanisms for this benefit were not mind wandering or stress reduction.

Brief Mindfulness Breathing Exercises and Working Memory Capacity: Findings from Two Experimental Approaches

“…Similarly worthwhile would be for future studies to explore the effects of mindfulness practices on other domains of cognitive functions such as task-switching, inhibitory control, and episodic memory [ 46 , 47 , 48 ], which were not examined here. Second, the manipulation check adapted from Clinton et al [ 21 ] is a single-item self-report measure and may have contributed to an overestimation of the effect of manipulation. Future studies may want to consider engaging other methods of manipulation checking that could more objectively determine the state of mindfulness in participants.…”

“…Besides evidence from intensive mindfulness training, studies examining the benefits of brief, single-session mindfulness training on cognitive performance have been optimistic [ 20 ]. Supporting this notion was a study that found that undergraduate students who were engaged in a 15-min mindful breathing exercise performed better on a reading comprehension task than their counterparts who were assigned to a mind-wandering exercise [ 21 ]. Furthermore, Mrazek and colleagues [ 22 ] observed in a study using an 8-min mindful breathing exercise, that compared to students in a relaxation and reading control group, students in the treatment condition displayed reduced mind-wandering during a sustained attention task.…”

“…To test the effect of brief mindfulness on working memory, we conducted two pre-registered experimental studies employing two recordings: a mindful breathing exercise or a mind-wandering exercise spanning 15 min each (developed by Hafenbrack et al, adapted from Clinton et al and Arch and Craske [ 21 , 23 , 24 ]). Experimental manipulation was performed by randomly assigning participants to listen to either 15 min of mindful breathing instructions or 15 min of mind-wandering instructions (i.e., control).…”

Investigating the Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Motivation

“…Single-session mindfulness inductions have been found to lead to cognitive, emotional, social, and health-related benefits (see Heppner & Shirk, 2018 for a review). For example, previous research has found that a brief, single-session mindfulness induction can improve reading comprehension (Clinton, Swenseth, & Carlson, 2018), increase empathy (Winning & Boag, 2015), bolster self-esteem (Pepping, O'Donovan, & Davis, 2013), reduce aggressive behaviour (Heppner et al, 2008;Yusainy & Lawrence, 2015), promote healthier eating (Jordan et al, 2014), improve executive attention (Kuo & Yeh, 2015;Gorman & Green, 2016), reduce the sunk cost bias (Hafenbrack, Kinias, & Barsade, 2014), reduce implicit race and age bias (Lueke & Gibson, 2015), decrease mind-wandering (Mrazek, Smallwood, & Schooler, 2012), reduce thought suppression (Brunyé et al, 2013), counteract self-control depletion (Friese, Messner, & Schaffner, 2012), and promote emotional resilience when faced with distressing images (Arch & Craske, 2006) and affectively-mixed film clips (Erisman & Roemer, 2010). These findings appear to produce a robust picture of the positive effects of inducing state mindfulness.…”

“…Although Hafenbrack and Vohs (2018) investigated motivation immediately after their manipulation, the actual effect of mindfulness meditation on motivation may increase or decrease, or simply persist, over time. For example, other research has reported that inducing state mindfulness led to improvements in reading comprehension on a task that participants had up to 20 minutes to complete (Clinton et al, 2018), suggesting that certain effects of meditation may continue for a given amount of time after meditating. In the event that mindfulness meditation impairs or enhances motivation, it is possible that the impairment or enhancement is only temporary and that motivation levels return to baseline shortly after meditating.…”