You wouldn’t expect to learn to ride a bike by reading about it. You have to wobble, fall, and try again until balance becomes natural. Training your mind to stay balanced under stress may work in a similar way. At first, it feels awkward – you’re paying attention to every little thought and feeling, but with practice, it becomes automatic. In a world of constant notifications, exams, and looming deadlines, students are often told to “just practice mindfulness” to protect their mental health. But how much time does it really take for these practices to work? And if mindfulness is a skill like any other, could a short series of online training sessions do the job? A study by Dr. Norman Farb and his team in the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM)’s Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences set out to find the answer.

Why Mindfulness Works: The Science Behind It

When it came to searching for answers, the team’s approach was guided by the Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory (MMT), a two-stage framework explaining how mindful awareness leads to better mental health.

The first stage, called decentering, is the ability to step back, look at the bigger picture, and observe your automatic thoughts and feelings without getting swept away. Here, you start to step back enough to notice when you’re leaning too far one way or the other.

From that calm distance, you can then engage in positive reappraisal, which involves reframing stressful experiences as opportunities for growth and empowerment. Now, you’re pedaling forward, learning to navigate and find your rhythm.

Previous studies had shown this pathway over long-term mindfulness programs. Now, Dr. Farb’s team wanted to know if the same mental transformation could happen faster – within just a few weeks rather than over several years – using short online sessions designed for busy students. Then, a second research question emerged:

“Could you just work on one of those steps at a time?” Dr. Farb asks. “And if you do so, do you get the same results? Could you just skip the stepping-back step and just focus on meaning-making? Or do you need to formally train in both steps?”

Putting Mindfulness vs Meaning to the Test

To figure out the ideal amount of training and to find out whether people could benefit from working on one step or both, Dr. Farb’s team compared mindfulness training (which targets decentering) with stress-mindset training, which teaches people to reframe stress as a sign of growth.

Over three weeks, more than 150 UTM students completed a series of short weekly online activities. Each version focused on a different skill: stepping back from stress, reframing it, or a blend of both. A fourth version consisted of writing about causes of stress and playing Tetris – a comparison that helped the researchers see whether the mental health practices were truly driving any changes.

Breaking News: Mindfulness Works Better and Longer!

Results showed that mindfulness training produced the most consistent improvements in well-being, often in just a matter of days. However, these effects were modest. They weren’t a transformation from misery to euphoria. The practices didn’t suddenly make overwhelmed students radiate joy. Instead, they produced small but dependable improvements that can be built up over time. These students not only felt calmer, but also became better at reappraising stress, even without being directly taught to do so. Imagine a student feeling overwhelmed by multiple assignments, pausing to observe their stress, recognizing it as a normal response, and then approaching each task one step at a time.

Stress-mindset training, on the other hand, showed weaker and shorter-lived effects. Dr. Farb explained that it isn’t always helpful to force a positive spin on stress, especially when the situation is genuinely overwhelming or harmful. For instance, a student facing a family emergency who tries to “look on the bright side” may actually experience increased anxiety, therefore making it harder to focus on practical solutions.

In other words, decentering may be a necessary first step before trying to reinterpret stress. Without that awareness, attempts to reframe can become “just sort of gaslighting yourself,” as Dr. Farb puts it.

From the Lab to Everyday Life

When asked how these insights could shape wellness programs and apps, Dr. Farb emphasized giving people a roadmap for emotional growth. A lot of the time when you go to a mindfulness program, they just tell you to “trust the process”. He stressed that no explanation can replace actually engaging with the practice, yet people are more motivated when they understand the reasoning behind it. Recognizing that emotional growth unfolds in clear stages gives them a way to pinpoint where they can make the most progress. This roadmap (decentering first, reappraisal second, improved well-being third) can help students identify where their “mental vehicle” is breaking down, and choose the right tools to get back on track.

One Skill You Can Try Today

When asked for one concrete takeaway, Dr. Farb offered:

“Give yourself permission and set an intention to be curious about what your habits are for responding to stress… to accept that it’s okay that you might not really know… that curiosity will reveal whether the best thing right now is relief or reflection.”

Like riding a bike, the key is consistency. A few minutes a day – even online – helps strengthen your mental “balance”. With enough practice, that curiosity and openness become second nature, making it easier to stay upright when life swerves.

Reimagining Mindfulness for the Digital Age

Running the online trials wasn’t easy. There were definitely challenges to moving things online, such as the large amount of work that was required to match the conditions so that only the content differed.

Yet the project fits into a larger mission for his lab: exploring ways to make mindfulness engaging and accessible:

“We’re really taking that question seriously: what would make any of this inviting and possibly even fun for a student to do, given that they’re already kind of busy and stressed, and it could just look like another assignment? … Can we build game-like experiences that help people notice their breath or heartbeat, so instead of a chore, it becomes play?”

It’s a fitting next step for a theory about turning awareness into meaning. If mindfulness is like learning to ride a bike, Dr. Farb’s lab is figuring out how to make more people want to hop on, and keep pedaling toward mobility, confidence, and well-being.