Practicing mindfulness meditation for a month using a mobile application will help you process visual information and initiate local eye movements faster. The benefits of visual attention apply equally to young, middle-aged, and older adults, with no clear differences across age categories. These initial findings, published in the journal eNeuro, suggest that a short daily meditation can successfully change basic cognitive functions.
The human brain relies on a small region called the locus coeruleus to maintain mental focus and process incoming sensory information. This deep brain structure serves as the main source of norepinephrine. Noradrenaline acts as a chemical messenger that helps regulate general alertness, stress, and physical alertness.
Research in animal models provides clues about how this part of the brain works. When researchers artificially stimulated the monkeys’ locus coeruleus, their visual attention improved. Inhibiting the release of norepinephrine can have the opposite effect, making the animal more easily distracted. These findings support that this brain region directly determines attention span.
As people age, the locus coeruleus often undergoes structural deterioration and loses some of its connections with other attention networks in the brain. Such physiological changes are very common. Early signs of cognitive decline often first appear in this particular cell group.
These age-related physical changes can cause visible cognitive changes in daily life. In general, older adults respond more slowly to visual tasks and are more easily distracted by irrelevant objects than younger adults. Some researchers suspect that the aging brain attempts to compensate for structural breakdown by artificially keeping its remaining cells hyperactive.
Previous research has shown that certain spiritual practices may help restore some of our diminished attention. Mindfulness meditation aims to ground a person in the present physical body and lower arousal. Scientists believe that by reducing physical stress, this habit may calm an overactive noradrenaline system and improve alertness.
Andy Jeese Kim, a gerontology researcher at the University of Southern California, led a team investigating the potential cognitive benefits of mental training. Kim, in collaboration with colleagues Kellan Chen and Mara Mather, designed an in-depth study to test whether a short-term mindfulness program could improve visual attention. The researchers suspected that older people might experience greater improvements with targeted training than younger people.
To investigate this hypothesis, scientists recruited a diverse sample of adults from local communities and college campuses. This cohort included 28 young adults, 20 middle-aged adults, and 21 older adults. Participants were randomly divided into groups and completed three laboratory visits over consecutive months.
One group completed 30 days of guided mindfulness meditation using a popular mobile application. Participants were instructed to complete a 10- to 15-minute sitting audio session each day. Sessions are designed to teach basic breathing techniques and body awareness.
The other group listened to each chapter of the public domain audiobook version of the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio every day. This literary exercise served as a baseline for positive comparisons. This allowed the researchers to explain the general effects of setting aside a short quiet period each day to listen to audio recordings.
The researchers selected public domain audiobooks to provide a stable narrative without requiring active problem solving. Taking the time to just listen may slow your heart rate and calm you down. The researchers wanted to be sure that any effects seen in the meditation group were caused by the mental training itself.
The groups then swapped routines so researchers could measure visual attention before and after each type of audio intervention. The researchers measured attention using special high-speed eye-tracking technology during lab visits. Participants viewed a computer screen with an array of simple shapes such as circles and diamonds. The researchers required them to identify a specific target shape while ignoring distracting fancy shapes.
The experiment included two separate tasks to test different types of mental inhibition. In one task, participants knew exactly what shape to look for in advance, allowing them to actively block out distractions. In the second task, participants were required to search for a unique item among similar items and to reactively divert their attention when they noticed a brightly colored distractor.
Eye-tracking cameras monitored exactly where and how fast participants moved their eyes during these grueling tests. This method allows researchers to avoid physical reactions such as clicking buttons or pressing keys. Instead, the camera captures moment-to-moment cognitive decisions as the eye scans the local environment.
The scientists measured several aspects of attention, including how often the eyes darted to distracting shapes and how long participants looked at them before looking away. The results showed that daily mindfulness practice improved reaction speed. After the meditation month, participants were able to initiate eye movements toward their intended targets earlier than at the beginning of the study.
This specific improvement in eye recognition speed did not appear after the month of listening to the audiobook. These rapid eye movements are controlled by a specialized neural network that calculates the timing before the physical movement occurs. As older people age, they tend to process these types of early visual signals more slowly.
The research team was surprised to find that mindfulness training can accelerate this particular stage of mental processing. It showed that meditation changes perception at a very basic sensory level. My meditation practice also improved my goal-directed attention and reduced my overall distractibility. Participants became better at finding the correct shape and avoiding brightly colored distractions.
However, the researchers found that participants also improved in these important areas after the audiobook session. The common improvements suggest that participants likely improved by practicing the computer task multiple times. You may also reap psychological benefits by devoting a small portion of your day to relaxing activities.
Still, mindfulness practice independently improved the speed of eye movement initiation, separate from the general benefits of taking daily breaks. The researchers initially expected older people to benefit most from the intervention due to age-related changes in the brain. However, the data did not support this particular prediction.
Young, middle-aged, and older adults all experienced similar improvements in reaction speed after a month of meditation. The team also provided participants with a standard questionnaire designed to measure self-reported mindfulness traits. Older adults generally scored higher than younger adults in these studies, but their scores remained the same after practicing meditation.
Physical eye movements served as a more sensitive measure of cognitive progress than participants’ conscious thoughts. The month-long intervention produced one surprising result that contrasts with the study’s main assumptions. Although the study required participants to complete at least 15 meditation sessions, many completed more sessions out of pure curiosity.
Researchers found that increased use of meditation applications was actually associated with increased distraction from unrelated shapes on the screen. The researchers proposed that practicing “in-the-moment awareness” may inadvertently increase a person’s general sensitivity to their visual environment. Increased awareness can make it harder to intuitively ignore flashy sensory distractions.
Scientists originally hypothesized that quieting the mind would automatically lead to improved visual abilities. They thought that lower stress levels would help clear out clutter in the brain. Instead, I discovered that being hypervigilant can cause you to record everything in the room, even things you should ignore.
The researchers noted that the current study has several important limitations. Following an audio guide on a personal cell phone may have weaker cognitive effects than attending an instructor-led in-person mindfulness program. Thirty days was also a relatively short period of time for an intervention aimed at changing the brain’s basic connections.
Future studies may be able to track long-term cognitive adaptations due to meditation over several months or consecutively. Observing professional meditators back in the lab could help reveal the absolute limits of attentional improvement. Meanwhile, current research provides fundamental evidence that simply tuning into the present moment can tangibly change the way our eyes navigate the world.
The study, “Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Attentional Control Mechanisms in Young and Older Adults: A Preregistered Eye-Tracking Study,” was authored by Andy Jeesu Kim, Keran Chen, and Mara Mather.
Heading options
- Simple mindfulness practices can speed up visual processing in adults
- One month of mobile meditation reduces cognitive reaction time
- How mindfulness apps are changing the way we scan our eyes for clues
- Short-term meditation speeds up visual processing at all ages
- Practicing meditation daily improves the speed of eye movements on vision tests
- What eye tracking reveals about the cognitive benefits of mindfulness
- Mindfulness apps reduce reaction time, but can make you more easily distracted
- Does using a daily meditation app change the way you process visual details?
