Mindfulness programs have become a staple in schools across the UK and beyond. The logic seems straightforward: teach young people to pay attention to their thoughts and feelings with curiosity and kindness, and you’ll give them tools to handle stress and build resilience. Thousands of schools have adopted these programs, often with genuine enthusiasm from staff and students.

Then the MYRIAD Trial happened. It was the largest, most rigorous study of school-based mindfulness ever conducted. And the results surprised a lot of people.

Key Takeaways

• The MYRIAD Trial studied 8,376 students across 84 UK schools and found mindfulness training was no more effective than standard social-emotional teaching for depression risk, behaviour, or well-being (Kuyken et al., 2022).
• Students rated the program a 4.7 out of 10 on average, and most did not practise the skills at home.
• On 5 of 28 measures, students in the mindfulness group showed slightly worse outcomes than those in regular classes.
• The program had a high probability of cost-effectiveness when measured by quality of life, but not on direct mental health outcomes.
• The researchers urge a shift from “does it work?” to “what works, for whom, and how?”

Does Mindfulness in Schools Work? The Question Behind the MYRIAD Trial

Rates of mental health problems among young people have been rising for years. Depression alone accounts for more years lost to disability during adolescence than any other health condition (WHO, 2011). Schools are where young people spend most of their waking hours, which makes them a natural place to try and help.

Earlier smaller studies on school-based mindfulness training (SBMT) showed promising results. A 2019 meta-analysis found small positive effects on mental health outcomes (Dunning et al., 2019). But those studies had limitations. They tended to be small, measured different things, and rarely followed students for more than a few weeks.

The MYRIAD Trial (My Resilience in Adolescence) was designed to address those gaps with a study large enough and long enough to produce reliable answers.

How Was the MYRIAD Trial Set Up?

The trial was a cluster randomised controlled trial. That means entire schools were randomly assigned to either deliver the mindfulness program or continue with their normal social-emotional teaching. This design is the gold standard for testing whether an intervention actually works.

The scale is worth pausing on. The trial involved 84 schools and 8,376 students aged 11 to 14 across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Schools were broadly representative of the UK population in terms of size, location, deprivation levels, and quality ratings (Kuyken et al., 2022).

The Two Groups

What they got	SBMT (Mindfulness) group	TAU (Normal teaching) group
Number of schools	42 schools	41 schools
Number of students	4,144 students	3,572 students
What was delivered	10 lessons of mindfulness and psychoeducation, taught by trained school teachers	Standard social-emotional learning (SEL) already provided by the school
Duration	One school term (typically 30-50 min per lesson)	Ongoing regular curriculum

The mindfulness program was adapted from mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to be suitable for young people across the full spectrum of mental health. Teachers received specialist training, and their lessons were recorded and independently rated for quality.

Three co-primary outcomes were measured at one year follow-up:

• Risk for depression using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale
• Social-emotional-behavioural functioning using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
• Well-being using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale

What Did the Results Actually Show?

This is where things get interesting. Despite the careful design and large scale, the results were clear: mindfulness training did not outperform normal teaching on any of the three primary outcomes.

The effect sizes tell the story. Researchers calculated the standardised mean difference between the two groups. In plain terms, this measures how much better (or worse) the mindfulness group did compared with the control group:

Outcome	Effect Size	What this means
Risk for depression	0.005	Essentially no difference
Social-emotional-behavioural functioning	0.02	Essentially no difference
Well-being	0.02	Essentially no difference

For context, an effect size of 0.2 is considered small. An effect size of 0.5 is medium. These results are so close to zero that they are statistically indistinguishable from no effect at all.

Some Measures Actually Got Worse

Of the 28 secondary outcomes measured, 5 showed statistically significant differences. But not in the direction you would hope. Students in the mindfulness group reported:

• Higher hyperactivity and inattention scores
• Higher panic disorder symptoms
• Higher obsessive-compulsive scores
• Lower mindfulness skills
• More emotional symptoms (as rated by teachers)

These differences were small, but they matter. When a well-intentioned program produces worse outcomes on any measure, we need to pay attention.

Why Didn’t Mindfulness Training Make a Difference?

The trial data points to several possible explanations.

Students did not engage with the program. The average acceptability rating from students was 4.7 out of 10. When asked how much they practised mindfulness skills at home, the average was 1.16 out of 5 immediately after the program, dropping to 0.83 out of 5 a year later (Kuyken et al., 2022). If students are not practising the skills, it is hard to expect meaningful change.

The one-size-fits-all approach may not work for this age group. The program was designed for all students, regardless of their mental health status. But the researchers suggest that universal mindfulness might work differently for different subgroups. Some students may benefit, while others may find that becoming more aware of difficult thoughts and feelings actually makes things harder.

School teachers may not be the ideal delivery agents. The skills required to teach mindfulness are quite different from standard classroom teaching. Teachers already have enormous demands on their time and attention. Even with good training, asking them to deliver a program that requires a fundamentally different pedagogical approach is a big ask.

The dose may have been too low. Ten lessons over one term might simply not be enough to build the attention and self-regulation skills that underpin resilience. Especially when students are not practising outside of class.

Was the Mindfulness Program Worth the Cost?

This is where the results get more nuanced. The mindfulness program costs approximately £70.73 per student to deliver (covering teacher training, materials, and support).

When the researchers looked at cost-effectiveness in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) – a measure that captures overall quality of life – the mindfulness program had an 83% probability of being cost-effective at the standard threshold used by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (Kuyken et al., 2022).

But this finding comes with a major caveat. When the same analysis was done using the primary mental health outcomes (depression risk, functioning, well-being), the probability of cost-effectiveness dropped below 40%. In other words, whether the program was “worth it” depends entirely on what you are measuring.

What This Means for Schools and Parents

The MYRIAD Trial is not an argument against mindfulness. It is an argument for being honest about what the evidence shows.

Schools have been under immense pressure to support student mental health. Mindfulness programs promised a solution that was relatively low-cost and easy to implement. The enthusiasm was understandable, and in many cases, genuine. But the data now suggests that implementing universal mindfulness training ahead of the evidence was premature.

The researchers make a few recommendations worth taking seriously:

Pause before adopting universal programs. If your school is considering a mindfulness program for all students, the evidence from this trial suggests you should be cautious. The program did not work on average, and for some students, it may have made things worse.

Ask the right questions. The study’s authors argue that we need to move from “does mindfulness work?” to “what works, for whom, and how?” Some students may benefit from mindfulness. Others may need a different approach. Understanding who falls into which group is the next big research challenge.

Involve young people in the design. Students did not love this program. The low acceptability ratings suggest that co-designing mental health support with young people – rather than for them – could make a meaningful difference.

Focus on implementation quality. When programs work, it is often because they are well-implemented. That means properly trained teachers, adequate time, and a school culture that supports the goals of the program.

The Bottom Line

The MYRIAD Trial is a landmark study because it asked a hard question and followed the evidence where it led. School-based mindfulness training, delivered universally by teachers, did not improve adolescent mental health more than the social-emotional teaching schools already provide.

This does not mean mindfulness has no place in schools. It means we need to be more thoughtful about how and when we use it. The evidence is clear that a one-size-fits-all approach is not the answer.

If you are a parent or educator, the most useful thing you can do is stay curious about what actually helps young people build resilience. Ask your school what evidence supports their mental health programs. Pay attention to what individual students need, rather than assuming one program fits everyone.

The researchers put it well: we need to understand what works, for whom, and how. That question is more useful than any simple yes or no about mindfulness.

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This article is based on the MYRIAD Trial, published in Evidence Based Mental Health (Kuyken W, Ball S, Crane C, et al., 2022). The trial was funded by the Wellcome Trust and involved researchers from the University of Oxford, University of Exeter, King’s College London, University of Cambridge, University College London, and Pennsylvania State University.