By now, there is a large amount of scientific data  establishing the healthy benefits of meditation. For example, this peer-reviewed summary [https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-of-meditation/]  Benefits include the slowing of brain aging, improved  attention, increased innovation and better problem-solving -  all of which are key areas for students and professors alike.

A lot of this research is on meditation (or yoga or  breathing techniques) in general - for example meta  studies that pool the results of many individual studies, sometimes decades worth of research. This is obviously  of great benefit as larger amounts of data more firmly  establish results, but can be at a cost of key differences  in the kinds of meditation.

Now new research at YALE university in the US has been  carried out comparing: Emotional Intelligence  training (based on psychology), Mindfulness training,  SKY Meditation (Sudarshan Kriya Yoga Meditation) and  a control group - in a randomised control trial.

SKY is a short term for the set of practices taught at  Art of Living Basic Programs - beginning with  Yoga, then breathing exercises culminating in  Sudarshan Kriya and Meditation.

Watch this short film to find out the results - what  happened to the state of well being of students from  each of the four groups tested.

The American Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has come out with a new book, "The Anxious Generation" developing his concerns about today's youth. His previous work, like "The Coddling of the American Mind" tentatively identified two main reasons why there has been a sharp rise in mental health issues among the younger generation, especially girls in the USA. The first reason was the "coddling" of the title - overprotective parents. In a period when the US objectively became much safer, parents at the same time became much more nervous - paranoid? - about leaving their kids alone. Haidt and his co-authors argue that children need time without parents so they can take moderate risks, enter into conflicts, face problems and deal with them. He uses a word from economics that people are "anti-fragile" - they need negative experiences to develop their full potential. 

The second cause is mobile phones and social media. Haidt argued that social media like Instagram for example have a particularly bad effect on girls - they are encouraged to seek ideals of physical beauty and judge themselves constantly in terms of how many "likes" they receive. We could say they are being encouraged to be a "football of others' opinions".

Haidt's New Book, "The Anxious Generation", develops his analysis of the negative effects of overuse of mobile phones and other devices among young people. Gen Z has been growing up with “continuous access to social media, online video games, and other internet-based activities”. Haidt breaks down the negative effects into these four categories: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction.

How do these findings compare with what we see among participants in Art Excel and YES courses in Poland? Trainers have certainly reported a rise in mental health issues among young people - addiction to devices, self-harm, emotional outbursts being common ones. Concentration levels seem to be going down. Many of us have also seen a growing number of problems with children and teens from middle-class comfortable homes. Mental health issues are not at all limited to children from orphanages or foster homes.

However, we still observe some marked differences between children who don't have regular contact with their biological parents and others. They are extremely affectionate, loving, for example caring for younger members of the group. BUT this affection also reveals their strong need for affection themselves.

Thankfully, breathing techniques, Sudarshan Kriya (in its youth versions), meditation and the "educational games" we do during courses are so effective. Unfortunately, they are needed more than ever.