Top 10 recent scientific studies on the value of mindfulness in education

— More and more stud­ies are show­ing the poten­tial ben­e­fits of mind­ful­ness prac­tices for stu­dents –to improve phys­i­cal health, psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being, social skills, even aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance in some cas­es– as well as for teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors –pri­mar­i­ly to reduce stress and burnout–. To give you an update on the land­scape of sci­en­tif­ic research about the role…

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ADHD @ high schools: Clear mismatch between the Evidence and the Practice

— Study: High School­ers with ADHD Receiv­ing Few Evi­­dence-Based Sup­ports (Edu­ca­tion Week): “A lit­tle over half of high school stu­dents with atten­tion deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der are receiv­ing some kind of ser­vices from their schools, such as addi­tion­al time on tests or extend­ed time to com­plete home­work assign­ments, a recent study finds. But those par­tic­u­lar sup­ports have…

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Misuse & Abuse of ADHD Meds among college students: Updated review of a growing concern

The mis­use and abuse of pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion is a grow­ing con­cern. I remem­ber speak­ing with col­leagues 15–20 years ago as reports about the non­med­ical use of stim­u­lant med­ica­tions used to treat ADHD (non­med­ical use is defined as use by indi­vid­u­als with­out a pre­scrip­tion) were first appear­ing in the media. At the time, these were generally…

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Who Says This is The Classroom of the Future?

The New York Times has recent­ly pub­lished sev­er­al very good and seem­ing­ly unre­lat­ed articles…let’s try and con­nect some dots. What if we ques­tioned the very premise behind nam­ing some class­rooms the “class­rooms of the future” sim­ply because they have been adding tech­nol­o­gy in lit­er­al­ly mind­less ways? What if the Edu­ca­tion of the Future (some­times also…

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Promoting Healthy, Meaningful Aging Through Social Involvement: Building an Experience Corps

(Editor’s note: Path­ways respon­si­ble for high­­er-order think­ing in the pre­frontal cor­tex (PFC), or exec­u­tive cen­ter of the brain, remain vul­ner­a­ble through­out life—during crit­i­cal ear­­ly-life devel­op­men­tal win­dows, when the PFC ful­ly matures in the ear­ly 20s, and final­ly from declines asso­ci­at­ed with old age. At all ages, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and PFC-nav­i­­gat­ed social con­nec­tions are essen­tial components…

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