Being Mindful: A Pilot Study on Brief Online Mindfulness Training and its Effect on Students

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown had created unprecedented disruption to everyone’s  life. Student’s life had also been affected immensely by this pandemic, lockdown and new-normal situation. Researches prove that mindfulness training enhances mental and physical well-being of a person. In this backdrop present pilot study aims to understand whether web-based mindfulness training is effective and feasible in dealing with such problems that students face during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. This is a qualitative study and phenomenological approach is adopted in this study. Total 30 participants (post-graduate students), age (20-25 years) were selected from the students population of Salesian College, Siliguri Campus, West Bengal, India. Purposive sampling techniques were utilized in this study. In online mode students were trained in mindfulness meditation techniques for a period of one month. By transcribing the feedback from participants and finding emerging and recurring themes analysis was performed. The results were divided into two key areas, themes and sub-themes. Two key areas were main effect of training and mechanism of action. The results reflect that students were feeling more focused and concentrated after undergoing the training. Participants also reported reduction of anxiety, feeling relieved during stressful situation. Training enhanced the feelings of positivity within the students. This web-based mindfulness training helped the participants to enhance the physical and mental well-being even in this disruptive and uncertain pandemic situation.