Why You May Need to Slow Down to Speed Up…

Can Meditation Improve Sustained Attention?

Most of us are trying to do the same thing:

Be focused.
Get the task done.
Be efficient.
Perform well.

Attention is required. Particularly, the ability to sustain it.

But even when we try to stay locked onto one task, our focus inevitably wanes. Sometimes it’s because of distractions (hello, phone notifications). Other times it’s simply because the mind wanders.

Meditation directly trains against this mental inertia.

One of the central aims of a contemplative practice is to sustain attention deliberately, often by repeatedly returning to a chosen target, such as the breath.

So… what does the evidence actually say?

Evidence from randomised controlled trials suggests that even brief interventions can produce measurable attentional benefits (Roy & Subramanya, 2025).

Axelsen et al., (2022) found that a daily 10-minute mindfulness meditation delivered via a smartphone application for 30 days resulted in an approximately 20% improvement in sustained attention. In this large-scale trial, 623 healthy volunteers from Danish workplaces were randomised to a mindfulness-app group, a music-listening active control, or a non-intervention control. Participants in the mindfulness group demonstrated significant improvements in sustained attention, working memory capacity, and perceived stress.

Although participant blinding was not possible due to the nature of the intervention, raising the possibility of expectancy or placebo bias. Despite this, the authors observed a dose–response relationship, where participants who practised more showed greater performance improvements. This strengthens the argument that attentional gains were linked to practice engagement rather than expectation alone.

That said, the generalisability of these findings remains unclear, as it is difficult to determine whether similar improvements would be observed in complete novices with no prior exposure to meditation, yoga, or mindfulness-based apps.

Supporting the idea that novices can benefit, Lusnig et al., (2023) reported that meditation-naïve undergraduates randomly assigned to a six-week mindfulness intervention exhibited significantly greater improvements in attentional capacity than an active control group.

Do the Benefits Last?

While both Lusnig et al., (2023) and Axelsen et al., (2022) demonstrate short-term improvements, they do not provide strong longitudinal evidence showing whether these attentional gains persist with or without continued practice.

However, Zanesco et al., (2018) reported maintained improvements in attentional performance up to seven years following meditation training, after participants completed an intensive three-month retreat. Importantly, continued meditation practice was associated with better maintenance of the attentional gains achieved during training, although attention did not continue improving indefinitely year after year.

Interestingly, older meditators who reported more consistent meditation practice in the years following the retreat showed less age-related decline in attention performance, suggesting a potential protective effect of continued practice on cognitive ageing.

Continued practise was associated with better maintenance of improvements gained from the retreat; notably attention did not keep improving year on year. Interestingly, older meditators who reported a more consistent meditation practise in the years after the retreat showed less age-related decline in attention performance. Showing the protective effects of this practise.

Conclusion

In summary, converging evidence from randomised controlled trials indicates that meditation training can reliably improve attentional performance, including faster reaction times and reduced error rates (Roy & Subramanya, 2025).

While heterogeneity in meditation styles and study design limits direct comparability across studies, the replication of attentional benefits across different age groups, delivery formats, and populations strengthens the conclusion that meditation may represent an effective form of attentional training (Ehmann et al., 2025).

Future research should prioritise more standardised methodologies and long-term follow-ups to strengthen causal evidence and clarify how long attentional improvements persist without continued practice.

Convinced?

If you’d like to start practising, I’ve shared both a Focused Attention meditation and an Open Monitoring meditation on my Instagram (@sophia_flows) and YouTube (@sophiaflows).

Thank you for reading.

Love,
Sophia

References

Axelsen, J. L., Meline, J. S. J., Staiano, W., & Kirk, U. (2022). Mindfulness and music interventions in the workplace: Assessment of sustained attention and working memory using a crowdsourcing approach. BMC Psychology, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00810-y

Ehmann, S., Sezer, I., Keller, A. S., Treves, I. N., & Sacchet, M. D. (2025). Attention and meditative development: A review and synthesis of long-term meditators and outlook for the study of advanced meditation. NeuroImage, 323, 121602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121602

Lusnig, L., Hofmann, M. J., & Radach, R. (2023). Mindful Text Comprehension: Meditation Training Improves Reading Comprehension of Meditation Novices. Mindfulness, 14(3), 708–719. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02079-7

Roy, A., & Subramanya, P. (2025). The impact of meditation on sustained attention in nonclinical population: An extensive review. Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, 16(2), 101057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaim.2024.101057

Zanesco, A. P., King, B. G., MacLean, K. A., & Saron, C. D. (2018). Cognitive Aging and Long-Term Maintenance of Attentional Improvements Following Meditation Training. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, 2(3), 259–275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-018-0068-1