Mindfulness, Attentional Networks, and Executive Functioning: a Review of Interventions and Long-Term Meditation Practice

The booming research into mindfulness and associated practices have facilitated our understanding of its components, mechanisms, and outcomes. This review re-examines the current evidence regarding the effects of mindfulness on cognitive functions, especially attention and executive functions, in healthy individuals. Forty-three intervention studies and twelve studies of long-term meditation practice of mindfulness that measured the three attentional networks (alerting, orienting, executive control) and three executive functions (inhibition, updating, and shifting) were included. According to the findings, mindfulness interventions and long-term meditation practices lead to substantial improvements in the inhibition facet of executive functioning. The findings for the three attentional networks and other executive functions are limited and inconsistent. Long-term experience in meditation does not offer additional gains in any function than the relatively shorter mindfulness interventions. The review assisted in establishing the specific effects of mindfulness on the attentional networks and executive functioning and determining the impact of duration of training and practice in mindfulness on these functions. Based on the findings, the implications of mindfulness for non-clinical populations are discussed, and recommendations for future research in this domain of active investigation are provided.