There’s a crisis in teen mental health, and a study says that computer games might help make adolescents more resilient.

Based on data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there’s been a marked increase in mental illness, sadness, and teenage hopelessness, exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 during the last two years.

Schools in numerous countries are exploring alternative ways to assist young people. Nonetheless, a recent UK-based research project has suggested that the universal, one-size-fits-all approach to mindfulness training that schools are using doesn’t work.

The project suggested higher alternatives, like using sport, art, music, and even playing computer games.

Published within the journal Evidence-Based Mental Health, the study involved 28,500 children, 50 teachers, and 100 schools, and checked out the impact of mindfulness training over 8 years. The researchers found that the technique didn’t help the mental health and well-being of adolescents aged 11-14. The authors then suggested that other options must be tried to show mindfulness.

“Adolescence is a fully crucial time of development. The brain goes through essential and fundamental changes in adolescence that set the trajectory for people’s lives,” said Willem Kuyken, the Sir John Ritblat Family Foundation Professor of Mindfulness and Psychological Science on the University of Oxford and one among the lead researchers involved within the project.

Per the researchers, teaching mindfulness skills to adolescents can be a strategy to “nip mental health problems within the bud.” Nonetheless, the approach utilized by schools is just not feasible.

The researchers suggested peer-based approaches to teaching mindfulness and other vehicles more in tune with what adolescents are acquainted with today. They include music, arts, sports, and computer gaming — a medium that has made leaps and bounds in delivering lessons and concepts which are otherwise too hard to grasp on paper.

“We will not be saying that every one mindfulness training has to stop. But schools do must look and see the way it’s being received in your school. Students are sometimes the most effective experts on what works for them on this area. So do the young people in your school enjoy it?” said Mark Williams, a professor emeritus and founding director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre on the University of Oxford.