It seems intuitive that students require periodic breaks during their school day. We’ve long recognized the importance of recess, especially in the elementary grades, as it offers students a chance for physical activity and mental reset. However, our understanding of the impact of short breaks within regular lessons and how these breaks influence student learning is less clear.

In a recent study published in the Trends in Neuroscience and Educationjournal, Müller and colleagues delved into this subject.  They employed an intervention-control group design to examine the effects of both physical activity and mindfulness interventions on student performance.  The physical activity intervention included daily 10-minute physical activity breaks for 162 fourth grade students for two weeks that included a warmup, exercises, and a cool-down. The mindfulness intervention called for 10-minute mindfulness breaks for 79 fifth grade students over the same two-week time period and included exercises such as breathing and guided attention.

In both interventions, control group counterparts received ten 10-minute breaks either without instruction or while listening to a children’s podcast. The researchers conducted baseline assessments  to ensure that intervention and control groups were comparable in terms of  age, gender, cognitive ability, and clinical social emotional screening responses.

The study found several positive effects. The physical activity intervention showed improvements on children’s attention, as measured by  attention-processing speed and attention-performance (ES = +0.08). In the mindfulness intervention, students demonstrated improved reading comprehension compared to control students (ES = +0.40, p < 0.012). In addition, researchers found moderating effects of self-esteem, meaning that high self-esteem closed the effects of the different interventions. That is, the positive effects of the physical activity intervention were primarily present in those participants with low or medium levels of self-esteem.

While these results were not from randomized interventions, they do hold promise. They suggest that with regular breaks of just 10 minutes, students can experience improved attention and  reading comprehension. Moreover,  these effects may be most beneficial for students with lower self-esteem.