Promoting mental health and building resilience in adolescence: Investigating mindfulness and attentional control.

Adolescents who struggle to control their attention in moments of emotional distress are more likely to develop depression, and a large-scale trial in UK schools will test whether mindfulness training can change that. Depression most often begins in adolescence and carries the highest burden of any mental health problem in terms of years lived with disability. Current prevention strategies are limited. This research tests a specific hypothesis: that depression and co-occurring behavioural problems stem partly from a failure of top-down executive control—the brain’s ability to override emotional impulses and recruit problem-solving skills. Mindfulness training has shown strong results in adults, but its effectiveness in adolescents remains unproven. The project has three linked strands. First, experimental studies will measure how mindfulness training (versus control interventions) affects adolescents’ ability to exert executive control under distraction. Second, researchers will determine how best to train teachers to deliver a mindfulness curriculum competently in schools. Third, a large cluster-randomised controlled trial will assess the intervention’s effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and underlying mechanisms. If successful, the research could provide schools with an evidence-based, scalable tool to reduce depression risk in vulnerable adolescents and enhance well-being in others—potentially shifting the trajectory of mental health for an entire generation.