Mental Stillness Learning Project
for Junior Schools, High Schools, Teachers

In association with Sydney University
and the Meditation Research Programme

The Mental Stillness Research Project is developing modules for teaching school students and teachers to enter the state of mental silence or stillness.

Live instructor-led pilot training programs in schools have produced significant evidence of improved mental health and well-being, as well as improved social skills. Our secular video training modules were developed to ascertain how well these results may be duplicated in remote learning situations, where a live mental stillness teacher can not be present.

The Meditation Research Program has evaluated both face to face and video-based meditation exercises for children. The Mental Stillness meditation was recently evaluated in a video-based meditation instruction program in a primary school.
A high quality instructional video teaching mental silence techniques was produced and its efficacy in promoting mental well being was compared to that of face-to-face instruction in the same technique, and a no-intervention control group. In a cohort of 132 primary school students a 3-arm study was conducted including a control group and a meditation intervention delivered as either face to-face instruction or video instruction.  The mental health risk of the students was evaluated and found  significant reductions in symptoms were observed within both the video group (76%) and the face-to-face condition (36%), but not the control group. The full study can be found on here.

This study is the first to assess the effects of recorded video meditation instruction on school students. This is an important mode of delivery to consider for population-wide implementation, due to resource constraints the vast majority of schools are unable to access live instructors to up-skill their students in these skills.

Training more instructors would not only be extremely time and resource intensive but would represent a serious challenge to maintain quality of their instruction ie “treatment fidelity”.

We concluded that the most reliable and cost effective option would be the production and dissemination of a simple, evidence based audio-visual resource. Over the past 4 years this resource has gone through multiple stages of development, reaching the current version available on this site and now freely available on the Mental Stillness App. The evidence indicates that the audio-visual resource is generally as effective as live instruction when used on a regular basis.

Teachers are invited to utilise this video based meditation module by downloading or streaming relevant video modules, and conducting a formal mental stillness program in their classroom, and then completing a short assessment. The Mental Stillness App can now be downloaded for free.  If using the resource feel free to provide us with feedback on your practical experience of the resource to assist further development.

Please use the form provided or email your feedback to us on Mental Stillness Feedback