A large-scale trial in the UK will assess whether mindfulness training for teenagers can improve their mental health.

The £6.4m (US$10m, €9.2m) research programme, conducted by Wellcome Trust, will involve nearly 6,000 students age 11 to 14 and will be carried out over seven years.

The programme is based on the theory that just as physical training is associated with improved physical health, psychological resilience training is associated with better mental health. With most mental disorders developing before the age of 24, researchers hope that promoting good mental health early can build young people’s resilience to those disorders.

“Mindfulness is a form of ‘mind exercise,’ as it’s a way that we can improve our mental health,” said Professor Willem Kuyken, a principal investigator from the University of Oxford. “Just as brushing your teeth or going for a run are well-known ways of protecting general physical health, mindfulness exercises develop mental fitness and resilience.”

Mindfulness training is designed to be of benefit across a wide spectrum of mental health – including those who are at low risk of developing mental disorders – and the goal of the study is to evaluate its effect across a whole population, looking not just at things like risk of depression, but also at social and behavioural skills and well-being.

Mindfulness is increasingly accepted as a useful mental training tool. As previously reported by Spa Opportunities, UK healthcare organisation Nuffield Health recently teamed up with Mindlab to develop a new corporate mindfulness training programme for businesses to optimise employee performance and build emotional resilience.