A recent study conducted by the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology has found that just 30 days of guided mindfulness meditation can significantly improve important aspects of attentional control — particularly how quickly and accurately individuals direct their focus — across all age groups.
The study is among the first to use eye-tracking technology — an objective and powerful measure of attention — to assess the impact of mindfulness training on young, middle-aged, and older adults. The results show that even short-term meditation can lead to measurable cognitive benefits, said first author Andy Jeesu Kim, a postdoctoral researcher at the USC Leonard Davis School.
As people grow older, they often experience slower reaction times and greater difficulty filtering out distractions. These changes are linked to the locus coeruleus–noradrenaline (LC-NA) system in the brain, which plays a key role in attention, alertness, and memory. Previous research, including work led by USC Leonard Davis Professor and senior author Mara Mather, has connected age-related decline in this system to early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Earlier studies have also suggested that mindfulness meditation can strengthen brain regions involved in attention and potentially boost activity in the LC-NA system. However, this is the first research to explore how mindfulness affects attention using precise eye-tracking data, and to test whether the benefits differ by age group, Kim explained.
The study enrolled 69 adults, divided into three age categories: young adults (18–30 years), middle-aged adults (50–65 years), and older adults (65–80 years). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two activities:
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Daily mindfulness meditation using the Headspace app for 10–15 minutes over 30 days
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Listening to an audiobook for the same duration as a control group
Each participant attended three in-person lab sessions and completed two eye-tracking visual search tasks designed to measure how quickly and accurately they could focus attention and ignore distractions.
Following the mindfulness training, participants demonstrated improvements in several core measures of attention:
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Quicker reaction times: Participants were faster to shift their gaze toward target shapes, indicating more efficient visual processing.
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Better goal-directed focus: Eye movements were more direct and accurate, showing an increased ability to stay focused on relevant targets.
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Less distractibility: Participants were less likely to be sidetracked by irrelevant but visually striking items.
Notably, these benefits were observed across all age groups.
“We initially expected older adults to gain the most, but we found that mindfulness enhanced attention similarly for young, middle-aged, and older participants,” Kim said. “This shows that mindfulness can be a practical tool for improving attention at any stage of life.”
Interestingly, these gains did not appear in self-reported mindfulness questionnaires, highlighting the importance of using objective measures like eye-tracking.
