Daily Breath-Based Mindfulness Exercises Improve Primary School Children’s Performance in Arithmetic: A Randomized Controlled Trial

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Abstract
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been shown to improve children’s academic achievements. Because MBIs include different exercises (with different effects), the teacher-led Breathing Break Intervention (BBI) with daily breath-based mindfulness practices was developed and evaluated in terms of its effects on children’s performance in mathematics. In a randomized controlled trial, N = 140 third and fourth graders (49% female) either received BBI (IG, n = 81) or participated in an active control group (ACG, n = 59). Students took a standardized arithmetic test and teachers rated their mathematics performance before (T1) and after (T2) the ten weeks of BBI, and in a follow-up five months later (T3). A mixed multilevel model with a quadratic term of time indicated a significant interaction effect between group and time on the arithmetic test after controlling for working memory updating and socioeconomic status. IG children differed significantly from ACG children in their trajectory of arithmetic performance and outperformed them at T3. A multilevel ordinal logistic regression of teachers’ ratings of students’ mathematics performance revealed no significant differences between IG and ACG. Daily breathing exercises in primary school classrooms seem to be effective in enhancing children's performance in arithmetic. Preregistration: The study was preregistered at aspredicted.org (#44925)

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