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At the same time that the legal profession is experiencing great upheaval, mindfulness is being embraced as an important vehicle for assisting both the individual and the larger collective in responding to the many challenges posed by a rapidly changing world. A secular practice with roots reaching back thousands of years, mindfulness is commonly regarded as a tool for reducing stress, achieving greater focus and concentration, and working with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, pain, and a host of other physical and emotionalchallenges. Whereas five years ago there was little mention of mindfulness in the law, today it is a widely recognized term. Furthermore, a growing number of law schools are offering mindfulness programs, legal conferences are organizing mindfulness presentations and workshops, and legal organizations are introducing mindfulness to their members.
Mindfulness training (MT) is a form of mental training in which individuals engage in exercises to cultivate an attentive, present centered, and non-reactive mental mode. The present study examines the putative benefits of MT in University students for whom mind wandering can interfere with learning and academic success. We tested the hypothesis that short-form MT (7 h over 7 weeks) contextualized for the challenges and concerns of University students may reduce mind wandering and improve working memory. Performance on the sustained attention to response task (SART) and two working memory tasks (operation span, delayed-recognition with distracters) was indexed in participants assigned to a waitlist control group or the MT course. Results demonstrated MT-related benefits in SART performance. Relative to the control group, MT participants had higher task accuracy and self-reported being more “on-task” after the 7-week training period. MT did not significantly benefit the operation span task or accuracy on the delayed-recognition task. Together these results suggest that while short-form MT did not bolster working memory task performance, it may help curb mind wandering and should, therefore, be further investigated for its use in academic contexts.