Scalable Touchless Monitoring with Mindfulness Boosts Focus and Learning in Preadolescents

Here we show that brief, low-cost mindfulness training—paired with touchless physiological monitoring—can measurably boost focus, reduce stress, and improve academic performance in real-world classrooms. Educational systems worldwide face persistent barriers to sustaining attention, lowering stress, and raising achievement, especially in socioeconomically diverse schools. We addressed this by uniting affective computing, cognitive neuroscience, and educational practice in a two-year, staggered quasi-experimental study of 96 students aged 7–13, including a Title I cohort. The program—a developmentally tailored mindfulness and breathing intervention integrated with camera-based physiological monitoring and cognitive assessments—was delivered over 4–5 weeks in weekly 30-minute, facilitator-led sessions. Students showed reduced stress (p=0.012), improved sustained attention (reaction-time variability ↓39.8 ms, p<0.001), and standardized math and reading gains often surpassing national norms by 100–400+ points. Gains spanned high- and lower-performing learners, peaking in the fall–winter term. HRV trajectories indicated physiological stability in intervention groups. Under IRB Numbers: 20231480 and 20243759 (WCG IRB)