Last Updated On: September 4th, 2025
With standardized test preparation starting earlier and earlier, increased emphasis on honors classes, APs and “getting ahead”, all while extracurricular activities haven’t slowed down at all, students can feel under a lot of pressure. There are a number of things students can do to reduce stress, such as planning ahead and getting help in academic areas as needed or regular exercise. However, one strategy that we at LA Tutors feel deserves more attention is practicing mindfulness.
We’ll go into the specifics of mindfulness in more detail below, but at its core mindfulness is a deliberate attempt to foster an awareness of bodily sensations and feelings in the present. There is significant evidence mindfulness can reduce stress, improve focus, and help with general wellbeing. While mindfulness can be a lifelong practice and study, so we can’t cover all the details, but we will introduce a few quick tips and strategies that can help you start you on the path towards practicing mindfulness and experiencing some of the benefits.
Why Mindfulness Matters for Students
While mindfulness didn’t evolve as a practice specifically to improve academic performance, it can have real benefits for students. From our time working with students we have seen time and again how stress can impede academic performance. Stress causes poor decision-making, can make academic study feel overwhelming, and can make students less eager to participate in class. In our experience, external stress or unhappiness can have a significant impact on a student’s ability to do well in school.
Mindfulness helps in two ways:
1. Awareness of triggers. When you can name what tends to spike your stress—tight timelines, high-stakes tests, group projects—you can anticipate those moments and apply a simple practice (e.g., a 60-second breathing reset) before stress snowballs.
2. Space to choose a response. Mindfulness won’t teach you chemistry, but it will reduce the unhelpful anxiety that blocks effective study. That clearer headspace makes it easier to create a plan (study schedule, office hours, or tutoring) and then follow it.
How Mindfulness Works
Your mind and body are connected. Stressful thoughts often show up in the body as a faster heart rate, shallow breathing, or tense muscles. The good news: the connection works both ways. When you calm the body, you send a signal that reduces the brain’s stress response. That’s why even brief, physical practices—slow breathing, relaxing muscle groups—can help you think more clearly, stay on task, and even sleep better (which strongly supports learning).
Daily Mindfulness Practices for Students
You don’t need long sessions or special equipment. Start small—just a few minutes—and be consistent. Here are four easy ways to begin.
1. Mindful Breathing for Quick Stress Relief
One easy way to practice mindfulness is through short breathing exercises. These can be helpful as a daily practice, but also as a “destresser” before tests or during study breaks. Focus on the pattern of your breathing. Notice how your inhale and exhale vary. Try to keep your mind from wandering to any problems or stressors. Just focus on the sound and feeling of your breath. You can also try the 4-7-8 breathing method: inhale for four counts, hold your breath for seven, then exhale for eight. Try to keep up the exercise for three to five minutes.
2. Body Scan for Relaxation
Another exercise you can try is a body scan. A body scan is a great exercise for releasing tension that can also be helpful for winding down before bed, especially if anxiety has been impacting your sleep cycle. Begin by finding a comfortable sitting or reclining position. Then, step by step, working up from your feet, focus on the sensations of each part of your body. What are your feet feeling? Wriggle your toes a bit. Then move onto your ankles. Then to your shins. And so on. If you’d like, an excellent script to guide you through your first attempt can be found here.
3. Mindful Study Sessions
You can also aim to incorporate mindfulness into your study sessions. This might mean using a breathing exercise to start or end a session, focusing on single tasks at a time by incorporating a mindful understanding of your limits, or using the Pomodoro Technique, where you work for 25 minutes followed by a 5 minute break, setting a timer to remind you to take your scheduled breaks.
4. Gratitude Journaling
One final technique for incorporating mindfulness is gratitude journaling. A gratitude journal is a diary where you keep track of things you are grateful for, both large and small. You can use prompts from an outside source or come up with your own. Finding just three small things every day to be grateful for can help you stay mindful and present in even the most trying situations.
Tips for Making Mindfulness a Habit
When you first get started, it can be hard to make mindfulness a regular habit. However, regular practice is essential for reaping the benefits of mindfulness. With that in mind, we recommend starting small, with just a few minutes per day, but making an effort to practice regularly. We’ve presented a number of options you can incorporate into your mindfulness practice, but you certainly shouldn’t feel the need to try all of them right away. Pick the methods that seem most appealing to you or that work best with your existing routines, then add to your practice as you feel is needed over time.
If you’re having trouble keeping a regular schedule, one easy way to keep track of your mindfulness goals is by adding mindfulness exercises into your regular routine. For example, if you make mindful breathing a regular part of your morning bus ride, then it’ll be easy to remember and schedule. Or, if every time you go to the library at school to study with friends you build in breaks using the Pomodoro Technique, it’ll become a regular habit. There are also apps such as Headspace or Insight Timer that our students have often found helpful as ways to incorporate mindfulness into their daily lives.
Overcoming Common Challenges
Now, there are some challenges many students have while trying to incorporate mindfulness. As we’ve mentioned from the outset, many students already struggle for free time. As we’ve mentioned previously, we firmly believe that mindfulness exercises can, in the long run, save you time as you become more focused and efficient in your studies, but, starting out, if you are struggling for time you can shorten your commitments to mindfulness. Even a 60 second exercise a few times a week can have a real impact, and you can work up to a more regular practice over time.
You also might find you get distracted and your mind wanders when you are supposed to be focusing on your breathing or body scan. That’s ok! You’re not going to become an expert overnight. Focus on the progress you are making and don’t worry if mindfulness feels unnatural or difficult at first. Similarly, don’t get frustrated if you don’t see immediate benefits. While mindfulness can and will help with school performance, it is obviously just one part of a successful academic practice. It is NOT a substitute for studying or learning material, but it can facilitate your learning process. Mindfulness also takes time, so don’t abandon your practice if you don’t notice results within the first week.
Conclusion
To wrap up, mindfulness has been repeatedly shown to have substantial benefits by reducing stress, improving academic performance, and having a positive impact on overall health. We encourage you to give these simple mindfulness exercises a try. Even a few short exercises a week, or just 3-5 minutes a day, can create major results.
For more helpful tips and student success strategies, check out our academic coaching and tutoring services.
