Stress and Learning in Pupils: Neuroscience Evidence and its Relevance for Teachers

Abstract

Our understanding of how stress affects primary school children's attention and learning has developed rapidly. We know that children experience differing levels of stressors (factors that cause stress) in their environments, and that this can influence how they respond to new stressors when they occur in educational contexts. Here, we review evidence showing that stress can increase children's attention and learning capacities in some circumstances but hinder them in others. We show how children differ in their attention and learning styles, dependent on stress levels: for example, more highly stressed children may be more distracted by superficial features and may find it harder to engage in planning and voluntary control. We review intervention research on stress management techniques in children, concentrating on psychological techniques (such as mindfulness and stress reappraisal), physiological techniques (such as breathing exercises) and environmental factors (such as reducing noise). At the current time, raising teachers' awareness of pupils' differing stress responses will be an important step in accommodating the differing needs of children in their classrooms. Our understanding of how stress affects primary school children's attention and learning has developed rapidly. In this review, we consider how children's different experience of stress in their environment can influence how they respond to further stress experienced at school; we show how stress can increase attention and learning in some circumstances but hinder them in others; and how children differ in their attention and learning styles depending on stress levels. Finally, we consider the effectiveness of interventions intended to improve children's resilience.

Full text

MIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION
Stress and Learning in Pupils:
Neuroscience Evidence and its
Relevance for Teachers
Sue B. Whiting1,SamV.Wass
2,SimonGreen
1, and Michael S. C. omas1,3
ABSTRACT— Our understanding of how stress affects pri-
mary school children’s attention and learning has devel-
oped rapidly. We know that children experience differing
levels of stressors (factors that cause stress) in their environ-
ments, and that this can influence how they respond to new
stressors when they occur in educational contexts. Here, we
review evidence showing that stress can increase children’s
attention and learning capacities in some circumstances but
hinder them in others. We show how children differ in their
attention and learning styles, dependent on stress levels:
for example, more highly stressed children may be more
distracted by superficial features and may find it harder
to engage in planning and voluntary control. We review
intervention research on stress management techniques in
children, concentrating on psychological techniques (such
as mindfulness and stress reappraisal), physiological tech-
niques (such as breathing exercises) and environmental fac-
tors (such as reducing noise). At the current time, raising
teachers’ awareness of pupils’ differing stress responses will
be an important step in accommodating the differing needs
of children in their classrooms.
Almost everyone has experienced common symptoms
of stress, such as a raised heart rate, excessive sweating
and a dry mouth. But not everyone appreciates that these
are part of the body’s ‘fight or flight response’ – a sys-
tem that has evolved to maximize our body’s capacity to
1Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of
London, London, UK
2School of Psychology, University of East London, London, UK,
3Centre for Educational Neuroscience, Birkbeck, University of London,
London, UK
Address correspondence to Prof. Michael S. C. omas, Centre for
Educational Neuroscience, Department of Psychological Sciences Birk-
beck, University of London, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E
7HX, UK; e-mail: m.thomas@bbk.ac.uk.
respond to actual physical danger (Cacioppo, Tassinary, &
Berntson, 2000). We now know that, in addition to these
bodily changes, stress also associates with other, more subtle
mental changes – it influences, for example, how we decide
what to pay attention to in our environment (Arnsten, 2009);
and we know that children are as affected by stress – if not
even more so – than are adults (Koss & Gunnar, 2018).
eamountofstressthatweareexposedtohasa
long-term influence on multiple aspects of our neural and
physical development (Dufford, Kim, & Evans, 2020). For
example, adverse life events (such as changing parental
figures in the home, frequently moving house, domestic
violence or abuse) can lead to long-term effects (Felitti
et al., 1998), particularly if children are exposed to them
during early life (Gunnar & Quevedo, 2007; Koss & Gun-
nar, 2018). Evidence suggests that individuals are sensitive
to environmental influences in different ways (Pluess
et al., 2018), and, as some degree of resilience or vulnerabil-
ity runs in families, genetic inheritance may also be involved
(Keers et al., 2016; Kuijper et al., 2019).
We also know that the effects of stress exposure are
detectable both immediately, and over longer timescales
(Schwabe & Wolf, 2014). Because of this, a cumulative effect
of stressors may occur within an individual who is already
in a stressful state when encountering a subsequent stres-
sor (Joëls, Fernandez, & Roozendaal, 2011). Finally, we are
starting to understand how an individual’s stress level affects
how they pay attention and learn. In educational settings, an
individual’s level of stress response in a given situation influ-
ences their learning capacities in complex ways (Schwabe &
Wolf, 2014).
Many of the initial neuroscience findings on the effects
of stress that stemmed from rodent studies are now being
reflected in human studies (Heim, Entringer, & Buss, 2019;
Romens, McDonald, Svaren, & Pollak, 2015; Zannas &
West, 2014). However, there are ethical considerations and
other added complexities when dealing with humans, as
opposed to groups of genetically identical rodents where it
© 2021 e Authors. Mind, Brain, and Education published by International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals LLC. 1
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original work is properly cited.

Stress and Learning
is possible to deliberately manipulate the carefully controlled
laboratory conditions. Moreover, the majority of the human
literature on the relationship between stress and learning
stems from adult studies. Nevertheless, there is little rea-
son to suspect that the relationships shown in adults should
not also be present in children (Quas, Castro, Bryce, &
Granger, 2018; Quas, Yim, Edelstein, Cahill, & Rush, 2011;
Quas, Yim, Rush, & Sumaroka, 2012). In this review arti-
cle, we focus where the research exists on a consideration of
stress as it pertains to learning in primary age children. We
argue that it is important to understand, and take account of,
theeffectsofstressonchildren’slearningintheeducation
system, while acknowledging that research has yet to fully
characterize this relationship.
is review is structured in four parts. In Part (a), we
beginbydescribingwhatstressisandhowourbrainsand
bodies respond to stress at different timescales. In Part (b),
we explain what determines how much of a stress response is
elicited in a particular situation. In Part (c), we describe how
an individual’s stress response may influence their learning.
Finally, in Part (d), we review classroom interventions that
use this knowledge in different ways with the goal of using
our understanding of stress to improve learning outcomes.
(A) WHAT IS STRESS – AND HOW DOES OUR
BRAIN/BODY RESPOND TO STRESS AT SHORT/LONG
TIMESCALES?
e term ‘stress’ is used with a variety of different meanings
by researchers in different fields (Epel et al., 2018). In psy-
chology and neuroscience, a distinction is commonly made
between short-term (or ‘acute’) stress arising from factors
that have a clear start and end point (e.g., a child being fright-
ened by a dog in the park) and long-term (or ‘chronic’) stress
arising from factors that have no clear end or recovery phase
(e.g., poverty, parental neglect) (Epel et al., 2018).
Our brains and bodies respond to different sorts of stress
in a multitude of different ways. Animal research initially
demonstrated how the stress response actually consists of a
number of different types of response, occurring over dif-
ferent timescales (Joëls & Baram, 2009). Immediately on
encounteringsomethingthatcausesstress(knownasa
‘stressor’), changes are triggered in different signaling chem-
icals in the brain (Joëls & Baram, 2009). As a result, there is
a change in activity in brain areas involved in arousal, alert-
ness, and attention (particularly sustained attention) (Joëls
et al., 2011). ese changes alter the way that we pay atten-
tion and learn in complex ways (see Part (c)).
In addition, various physiological changes occur in the
body, aimed at maximizing the body’s capacity to respond
to an anticipated physical challenge (Cacioppo et al., 2000;
Ulrich-Lai & Herman, 2009). ese changes include elevated
heart rate (to maximize blood supply to the muscles), sweat-
ing (to cool the body in anticipation of exertion), expan-
sion of the bronchial tubes in the lungs, and the release
of short-term energy stores. Together, these responses are
known as the fast-acting sympathetic nervous system (‘fight
or flight’) response. ere are also reductions in activity
in the parasympathetic nervous system, which is involved
in the more slow-acting and response-dampening (‘rest
or digest’) responses, e.g., decreased reproductive func-
tion, and decreased saliva production and digestive func-
tion (Cacioppo et al., 2000). A well-studied marker of the
parasympathetic nervous system is heart rate variability, a
measure of beat-to-beat variations in our heart rate. High
heart rate variability is associated with low stress.
More slow-acting chemical responses are also triggered
over a range of timescales from minutes to hours. e most
well-known of these is called cortisol. e changes induced
by these chemicals operate using different modes of action
(Vogel & Schwabe, 2016) and alter brain and bodily func-
tion in a range of different ways (Engel & Gunnar, 2020) (see
Part (c)). One of these effects is that cortisol temporarily
suppresses the immune system response, in order to max-
imize the resources available for immediate, short-term sur-
vival, an effect initially demonstrated in animals (e.g., Westly
& Kelley, 1984). is effect has been attributed as the rea-
son why students so often report infections, such as a cold
sore, during the exam season (McGregor, Murphy, Albano,
& Ceballos, 2016).
Swift recovery from a fast stress response is considered to
be adaptive (Del Giudice, Ellis, & Shirtcliff, 2011; McEwen
& Wingfield, 2003), the threat being speedily dealt with
through additional energy resources so the individual may
return to normal. e process through which our body is
able to achieve stability through change – consisting of active
processes by which an organism responds to daily events
in order to maintain its normal balance or equilibrium – is
known as allostasis (McEwen & Wingfield, 2003). However,
the process of disrupting and restoring equilibrium carries
with it a cost. e term ‘allostatic load’ (McEwen & Stel-
lar, 1993) refers to the long-term ‘wear and tear’ which accu-
mulates when an individual is exposed repeatedly to stressful
situations. Long-term effects of repeated exposure to stres-
sors have been documented extensively throughout the brain
and body (McEwen, 2017). As a result of these changes, the
total amount of stress to which someone has been exposed
over their lifespan also influences how they respond to new
stressors when they occur (see Part (b)).
Stress may also be considered as a relationship between
an individual and the environment that involves an appraisal
of the stressor’s significance and whether extra resources
are required (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). e appraisal
is the individual’s evaluative judgment of the situation or
event – i.e., whether it presents a threat or a challenge.
2

Sue B. Whiting et al.
is will be shaped both by personal and environmental
factors (Epel et al., 2018). erefore, an individual’s stress
response is largely determined by his or her interpretation
of an event, rather than the event itself (Dickerson &
Kemeny, 2004). Although unpredictability and novelty are
such psychological factors (Mason, 1968), stronger deter-
minants, particularly during motivated performance tasks,
are an out-of-control feeling and a social-evaluative threat
(e.g., negative judgment by others) (Dickerson & Kemeny,
2004).
‘Resilience’ is the ‘capacity to prepare for, recover from
and adapt in the face of stress, adversity, trauma or tragedy’
(Heartmath, 2020). e word ‘capacity’ implies the possibil-
ity of increasing one’s capability to deal with stress by using
the analogy of an inner battery (Heartmath, 2020), and sug-
gests not only bouncing-back and recouping faster but also
neutralizing or even preventing some of the negative conse-
quences.
(B) WHAT LONG-TERM FACTORS DETERMINE AN
INDIVIDUAL’S LEVEL OF STRESS RESPONDING IN A
GIVEN SITUATION?
Sixty-one percent of adults, in a survey spanning 23 USA
states, reported that they had suffered an adverse child-
hood experience (such as physical, emotional or sexual
abuse, incarcerated household member, parental separation
or divorce) between the ages of 0–17 years (Merrick, Ford,
Ports, & Guinn, 2018). Regrettably, considerable evidence
now suggests that early-life stress is associated with lifelong
effects, including elevated risk of physical disease (Danese &
McEwen, 2012), higher lifelong incidence of all types of men-
tal health problems (Conway, Raposa, Hammen, & Bren-
nan, 2018), and cognitive impairments in older adult humans
(Lupien, Maheu, Tu, Fiocco, & Schramek, 2007).
Evidence suggests that some individuals are more sensi-
tive than others to environmental influences, and some of
these differences may be due to genetic inheritance i.e., some
degree of resilience or vulnerability runs in families (Keers
et al., 2016; Kuijper et al., 2019). For example, hair cortisol
concentration can be used as a marker of long-term stress
response activity. One twin study involving adolescents and
young adults estimated the heritability of hair cortisol con-
centration at 72% (Rietschel, Streit, Zhu, et al., 2017). Dif-
ferences in stress response may also be transmitted between
generations by environmental pathways. For example, epi-
genetic research has suggested that a mother experiencing
stress might condition her offspring either to a metabolism
that is more alert to danger, i.e., a more easily triggered stress
response ready for fight or flight (Babenko, Kovalchuk, &
Metz, 2015), or one with a blunted stress response, i.e., insuf-
ficient arousal (Shakiba, Ellis, Bush, & Boyce, 2019).
Perhaps surprisingly, children who are more sensi-
tive to environmental influences have been argued to
respond differently not only to adversity (e.g., poverty and
maltreatment) but also to positive experiences (e.g., sen-
sitive parenting and social support) (Boyce, 2016; Pluess
et al., 2018; Wass, 2018). According the Orchid-Dandelion
model, children are either environmentally sensitive,
‘orchid’ children (Ellis & Boyce, 2008), who suffer most
in adverse conditions but also benefit most from opti-
mum conditions; or less sensitive, ‘dandelion’ children,
who are able to thrive anywhere (Ellis, Boyce, Belsky, &
Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2011). ese groups have been
consistently noted across many samples of children, adoles-
cents and adults, although younger children may be more
environmentally sensitive than the other age groups (Pluess
et al., 2018). An alternative model, Diathesis-Stress, offers
no upside of greater sensitivity, instead arguing that genetics
or early life events serve to make children more vulnerable
to the effects of later environmental stressors, as risk factors
accumulate (e.g., Grasso, Ford, & Briggs-Gowan, 2013; see
Slagt, Dubas, Dekovic, & van Aken, 2016 for an appraisal of
these competing models).
Emotional neglect during childhood has been associated
with long-term changes in parts of the brain involved in
memory and learning, which appear to be most severe in the
brain regions involved in processing emotional information
(Bogdan, Williamson, & Hariri, 2012; Chattarji, Tomar,
Suvrathan, Ghosh, & Rahman, 2015; Goodman et al., 2018;
McGowan et al., 2009; Quesada, Wiemers, Schoofs, &
Wolf, 2012; Romens et al., 2015; Turecki & Meaney, 2016).
In addition, exposure to early life stress is thought to dis-
rupt the body’s feedback systems that help re-establish
stability after we are exposed to stress (de Kloet, Joëls, &
Holsboer, 2005; Denver, 2009).
Increased long-term stress is also most commonly asso-
ciated with an increased response to new stressors when
they occur, along with an inability to recover from the effects
of stress exposure (Gunnar & Quevedo, 2007). However,
a competing proposal is that children’s exposure to small
amounts of long-term stress can act as a ‘stress inoculation’,
improving the ability to cope with new stressors when they
occur – demonstrated by rodent models and then extended
to humans (Chaby et al., 2015; Parker, Buckmaster, Hyde,
Schatzberg, & Lyons, 2019; Russo, Murrough, Han, Char-
ney, & Nestler, 2012). One way to reconcile these findings
is to suggest that children who show the biggest response to
new stressors are those who have either the highest, or the
lowest levels of life-long stress exposure. Children who show
the lowest response to new stressors are those who have
experienced intermediate levels of life-long stress (Ellis &
Boyce, 2008). Alternatively, a history of successfully navigat-
ing (perhaps more modest) stress-inducing situations may
furnish individuals with a greater sense of agency, thereby
3

Stress and Learning
reducing out-of-control feelings, and attenuating the cogni-
tive appraisal component of future stress responses.
(C) HOW DOES AN INDIVIDUAL’S LEVEL OF STRESS
RESPONDING AT A GIVEN MOMENT IN TIME
INFLUENCE THEIR LEARNING CAPACITIES AT THAT
MOMENT?
A useful heuristic, characterizing broad patterns of respond-
ing to stress, is known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law (see
Figure 1) (Diamond et al., 2007; Yerkes & Dodson, 1908).
A converging picture has emerged from animal research,
research with human adults and research with develop-
mental populations. Changes in physiological arousal affect
how individuals allocate their attention due to changes
in anticipatory awareness (Murphy, Robertson, Balsters,
& O’Connell, 2011; Wass, 2018). According to this con-
cept, best attention and learning is observed in children at
intermediate levels between under-aroused (dropping off to
sleep) and over-aroused (hyperactive and agitated). Using
tasks where participants have to look out for a particu-
lar sought-for object among multiple distractors, findings
suggest that under-aroused children fail to respond to the
sought-for object when it appears; by contrast, over-aroused
children respond indiscriminately, to both the sought-for
object and distractors. Only the group at intermediate lev-
els of arousal responded to the sought-for target, but not
the distractors (Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005; Wass, Daub-
ney, Golan, Logan, & Kushnerenko, 2019). Evidence con-
sistent with this view has been shown using manipulations
that induce temporary high-stress states in adults (Arn-
sten, 2009), and in studies that examine naturally vary-
ingstressstatesinchildrenandinfants(Wass,Daubney,
et al., 2019).
e term ‘arousal’ corresponds to levels of activity within
the autonomic nervous system, the system responsible for
control of the bodily functions that are not consciously
directed, such as breathing and heart rate. Higher levels
of activity within this system indicate temporarily elevated
physiological stress. Individual differences in vulnerability,
stress responsiveness and psychological perception of events
(see above) potentially affect the shape (height, width or
symmetry) of the inverted-U function that links arousal and
performance (Sapolsky, 2015). As a result, along with evi-
dence that different children may show different levels of
stress responding in a given situation (as described in Part
(b)), the differing stress responses to learning tasks conceiv-
ably impact learning in a variety of different ways, and may
also depend on the demands of the task.
Elevated short-term stress is associated with immedi-
ate decreases in activity in brain regions associated with
response planning and inhibition (Liston, McEwen, &
Casey, 2009), along with increased activity in brain areas
associated with maintaining vigilance (Arnsten, 2009).
Research examining how behavior is affected by short-term
stress suggests that working memory, planning and response
inhibition are impaired by temporarily elevated stress, while
other cognitive functions such as rapid learning are actu-
ally improved (Arnsten, 2009). Although this research has
mainly been conducted with adults, recent research has
shown consistent results in children (de Barbaro, Clackson,
& Wass, 2016). For example, young children being raised in
more densely populated urban environments show elevated
physiological stress in home settings. When tested in the
laboratory, the same children showed reduced sustained
attention but faster speeds of learning (Wass, Smith, Stubbs,
Clackson, & Mirza, 2019). is ties in with the ‘hidden
talents’ model of adaptive intelligence, in which although
early-life adversity can undermine healthy development,
children growing up in harsh environments may also
develop typical, or even enhanced skills for solving prob-
lems in high-adversity contexts (the hidden talents) (Ellis
et al., 2020). ese talents may include increased creativ-
ity, and superior skills in switching and novel information
tracking in similar stressed environments (see Section titled
‘Interventions’).
However, the fact that stress is involved with a cascade of
different types of chemical response means that the effects
of stress on attention and learning may differ at longer
time intervals between the stress exposure and learning. For
example, whereas stress during or just before learning may
strengthen memory, stress experienced some time before the
learning event can impair memory (see Figure 2 in Vogel
& Schwabe, 2016). Vogel and Schwabe (2016) proposes that
stress alters the balance of the different learning and mem-
ory systems, thus critically shaping the quality and quan-
tity of memories (see Figure 5 in Vogel & Schwabe, 2016).
A study with university students, using several measures of
stress, demonstrated this effect (Zoladz et al., 2011). Positive
emotional content learned at the time of the stressful event
was better retained (demonstrating a significant positive
correlation with heart rate during stress manipulation) but
negative emotional content learned 30 minutes afterwards
was more poorly retained (demonstrating a significant neg-
ative correlation with their blood pressure and salivary cor-
tisol level changes during the stress manipulation). Zoladz
and colleagues suggested that different biological mecha-
nisms potentially contribute to differential timing effects
that prior stress exerts on learning. e rationale behind
these time-dependent effects on learning and memory may
be understood by taking an adaptive perspective and consid-
ering selective pressures on primitive survival mechanisms.
Vogel and Schwabe speculate that the different waves of
chemical changes in the brain have evolved both to improve
our learning capacity at the time of stressful events – because
4

Sue B. Whiting et al.
Fig 1. (a) e Yerkes and Dodson Law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). Diamond, Campbell, Park, Halonen, and Zoladz (2007) describe this
version of the Law as that found in five decades of publications and books on memory, such as in Hebb (1955), Loftus (1980), and
Radvansky (2006). (b) Diamond et al.’s (2007) depiction of the original version of the Law, based on the actual findings of Yerkes and
Dodson on fear conditioning in mice. e original version captures the observation that strong emotionality can enhance performance
under simple learning conditions. Under more difficult learning conditions, strong emotionality attenuates performance. Simple learning
conditions would involve, for example, focused attention on a restricted range of cues, while complex or difficult learning conditions
would involve, for example, divided attention, multi-tasking, or greater working memory demands. Figure is adapted from Diamond
et al. (2007, Figure 2).
remembering these types of events will be helpful for our
future survival – and to reduce neural excitability afterward,
so the body may return to normal. To appraise a poten-
tially stressful event, existing memories would need to be
quickly drawn upon to compare the current incident with
previous similar ones. Future survival would be enhanced
by avoidance of similar life-threatening encounters, imply-
ing that strong memories of the event would be essential.
Suppressing memories unrelated to the stressor immediately
subsequent to the event would minimize memory interfer-
ence, thus further strengthening the already strong memory
of the relevant event (Schwabe & Wolf, 2014).
(D) CLASSROOM INTERVENTIONS TO OPTIMISE
CHILDREN’S STRESS RESPONSE
We have seen how some stress (demonstrated by an increase
in children’s arousal and attention) is required for success-
ful learning; however, too much or too little stress asso-
ciates with less successful learning. Children will respond
to stressors differently because of certain long-term factors
(e.g., genetics, environment) and short-term factors (e.g.,
recent stress exposure before arriving at school). Because
of these individual differences, a positive challenge for one
child may under or over-stimulate another child, thus poten-
tially reducing effective learning. A child’s response may vary
from day to day, or even during the same school day, depend-
ing on their appraisal of the situation and their available cop-
ing strategies. At high stress, children are more distracted by
superficial features of the environment, will find it harder to
engage in planning and voluntary control of their attention,
and are more likely to engage in habitual behaviors due to
reduced efficiency of executive functions such as inhibitory
control.
In the discussion which follows, we focus on three types
of intervention to alleviate the negative impact of stress:
first, those that focus on psychological factors underlying
the stress response; second, physiological interventions to
reduce stress in children; third, those that focus on environ-
mental factors. While the majority focus on stress reduc-
tion as the main goal of the intervention, some studies are
concerned with the subsequent impact on test performance
and attention (e.g., Khng, 2017).
Psychological Factors
Reappraising Stress
e notion of psychological stress has often been per-
ceived as too vague and wider-ranging to measure accurately
(Crosswell & Lockwood, 2020). However, there are several
well-established ways to measure stress levels, including
behavioral coding, self-report measures, and using physio-
logical measurements such as cortisol and heart rate vari-
ability; the reader is referred to Crosswell and Lockwood
(2020) for a review of the different methods. e main psy-
chological factors behind the stress response (Dickerson
& Kemeny, 2004; Mason, 1968) are unpredictability, nov-
elty, out-of-control feeling and a social-evaluative threat.
Of these, the last two produce the strongest effect during
motivated performance tasks (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004;
Mason, 1968). us, the degree of stress responding that a
child shows in a given situation can be influenced by whether
a child knows that he/she will be judged by his teacher
5

Stress and Learning
and possibly others in his class (social-evaluative threat)
and whether he/she understands how to complete a task
(out-of-control feeling). A key point is that although a child’s
perceived stress may not even constitute a valid stress from
the teacher’s viewpoint (Sotardi, 2016), it could potentially
affect their receptivity to learning.
Yeager and Dweck (2012) proposed that subtle messages
from adults influence pupils’ belief systems – for example,
adding the word ‘yet’ to what would be a negative sentence
‘You haven’t done it,yet’ effectively diffuses the negativity by
suggesting that the child will accomplish it at a later date
(Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016). Dweck’s ‘Growth Mind-Set’
model proposes two mind-sets that influence motivation
and learning very differently. e limiting Fixed Mind-Set
assumes that abilities are fixed throughout life and cannot
be changed by individual effort, and gives no recognition of
personal growth: the failure-is-debilitating mindset. In con-
trast, the Growth Mind-Set focuses more on the malleabil-
ity of intelligence and so a difficult task is more likely to be
viewed as a healthy challenge: the failure-is-enhancing mind
set. Despite the plausibility of the model, nearly half the stud-
ies attempting to change mind-sets which also verified the
subsequent impact on mind-set (some did not!) found that
the manipulations did not produce a measurable change on
pupils’ mind-sets (Sisk, Burgoyne, Sun, Butler, & Macna-
mara, 2018). However, grade improvements through such
manipulations have been noted for the lowest achieving stu-
dents, so the intervention may work better for some chil-
dren than others (Yeager et al., 2016, 2019). e apparent low
malleability of mind-sets may be because parents’ mind-sets
influence children more strongly in this regard than those of
teachers (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016).
In the context of stress, Crum and colleagues proposed
that two different mind-sets, the ‘stress-is-enhancing’
mind-set (embracing-the-challenge) versus the ‘stress-
is-debilitating’ mind-set (worrying-about-the-challenge)
can affect an individual’s stress response (Crum, Salovey, &
Achor, 2013). e stress-is-enhancing mindset may lead to
more positive outcomes than the stress-is-debilitating
mind-set. is proposal can be tested by reappraisal
interventions. Brooks (2014) defines reappraisal as ’a
form of cognitive change that involves construing an
emotion-eliciting situation in such a way that changes
its emotional impact’ – for example, by using the simple
self-statement ‘Iamexcited’ to reappraise anxiety as the
arousal-congruent emotion of excitement (Brooks, 2014).
ere is some evidence that these types of reappraisal
techniques can lead to short-term changes – for example,
university and high-school students exhibited superior
performance when a maths test was reframed as a chal-
lenge, rather than a threat (Brooks, 2014) (see also Crum,
Jamieson, & Akinola, 2020) – but evidence for longer-term
effects is lacking. In addition, evidence that these types of
reappraisal techniques can directly influence an individual’s
level of physiological stress responding has also not, to our
knowledge, been shown.
Reappraising Learning
A more recent approach suggests a different route: that,
for children from stressful environments, we should instead
be reappraising how we present learning tasks to play to
their strengths. is is along the lines recommended by
Vogel and Schwabe (2016): it is important to understand
pupils’ inter-individual differences to help develop more per-
sonalized training programs with a view to helping pre-
vent pupils’ stress–induced impairments. Children grow-
ing up in harsh environments may develop typical, or even
enhanced, skills for solving problems in high-adversity con-
texts (Ellis et al., 2020). Learning that is tailored to play
to their strengths may be more effective. is approach
may be considered as an extension of resilience science, the
study of individuals exhibiting positive developmental out-
comes despite exposure to adversities. In this way, the hid-
den talents model treats stress-adapted skills, such as flexible
switching between tasks or mental states or tracking novel
information in the environment, as a form of adaptive intel-
ligence that needs to be harnessed for individuals to achieve
their full potential. e approach recommends restructur-
ing school environments so that individuals with impaired
sustained attention skills, who find it demanding to com-
plete a lengthy task, are instead given tasks that utilize and
build upon their hidden talents and strengths. At present,
however, there are to our knowledge no intervention studies
that have explicitly tested the effectiveness of this approach,
and they would be predicated on being able to identify each
child’s individual profile of stress response.
Mindfulness
e notion of mindfulness introduced to the West, as
used in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, was oper-
ationally defined by Kabat-Zinn as ‘paying attention in
a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment,
and nonjudgmentally’ (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, as reported by
Purser & Milillo, 2016). Nowadays, a plethora of differ-
ent versions of mindfulness have been developed, leading
to criticism that the concept has been diluted (Purser
& Milillo, 2016). An increasing number of schools have
adopted mindfulness-based interventions as a way of
attempting to improve children’s behavioral, cognitive and
mental health outcomes. A key proposed role of mindfulness
training is the reduction of stress.
e only meta-analysis (N=33 studies) to date of
randomized controlled trials across a wide age group of chil-
dren and adolescents (4-year-olds to 17-year-olds; Dunning
et al., 2019) found support for small but significant effects of
6

Sue B. Whiting et al.
mindfulness-based interventions, relative to all comparison
conditions combined (including passive control groups),
for the following outcomes: mindfulness, executive func-
tioning, attention, depression, anxiety/stress and negative
behaviors. Across the 17 randomized controlled trials that
featured comparison to active control interventions (such
as relaxation training), support for significant benefits of
mindfulness-based interventions was restricted to mindful-
ness, depression and anxiety/stress (Dunning et al., 2019).
However, surprisingly, the outcomes were not significantly
affected by the number of hours of training. Despite these
positive findings, the meta-analysis noted a lack of stan-
dardized interventions (22 different mindfulness protocols
across the 33 studies) with many researchers developing and
implementing their own personal mindfulness interventions
instead of replicating results from previous studies using
established mindfulness protocols. Publication bias was
noted towards studies with positive results, and Dunning
et al. suggested that further biases may have occurred from
different methodologies and uncertainty over crucial design
characteristics. ey noted how the outcomes were typically
measured by self-report and recommended that future stud-
ies would be strengthened if observer-rated measures were
used along with direct physiological or behavioral measures;
as mindfulness was developed to improve mental health,
future studies should also include active control groups
employing psychosocial and psychological interventions
targeting the same outcome. Another meta-analysis sug-
gested that late adolescents (15-year-olds to 18-year-olds)
may gain more benefits from mindfulness interventions than
primary school children (Carsley, Khoury, & Heath, 2018).
However, this study was not a randomized controlled trial
and did not analyze effects on stress; moreover, Dunning
et al.’s (2019) analysis yielded a mixed picture on age effects.
In sum, small but significant effects of reductions in
depression and anxiety/stress have been found following
mindfulness interventions with children and adolescents,
potentially operating in part through reduction of stress,
although there is currently a lack in the quantity and quality
of evidence (Saunders & Kober, 2020).
Physiological Factors
Breathing Techniques
Breathing, like other aspects of our autonomic nervous sys-
tem, is under automatic control: we automatically start to
breathe faster when we are doing exercise, or are anxious.
But, unlike other aspects of our autonomic function (such
as heart rate, or sweating), breathing is something that we
can also voluntarily control when we want to. Because of
this, and building on traditional techniques from the East-
ern tradition such as pranayama, a number of authors have
investigated whether slowing breathing by controlling the
pace of in- and out-breaths can alter physiological stress
responses (Lehrer & Gevirtz, 2014; Noble & Hochman, 2019;
Russo, Santarelli, & O’Rourke, 2017). Research on adults has
established that nasal slow-paced breathing (i.e., at around
6 breaths a minute compared with the typical 9–24 breaths
per minute) can immediately alter stress-related physiology,
by shifting it toward increased activity within the parasym-
pathetic nervous system – thus, for example, maximizing
heart rate variability, associated with lower stress (Noble
& Hochman, 2019). Optimization of several physiologi-
cal variables has also been noted, for example maximizing
oxygen absorption (through activating various receptors in
the lungs) and beneficial cardiorespiratory effects (Russo
et al., 2017). Breathing exercises have considerable practical
potential: the advantage of using a specific breathing tech-
nique is that, once learned, it can be performed anywhere at
any time and be easily included as an alternative ‘attention
grabber’ for teachers to use.
However, research is still in its early stages, with only a
few small exploratory studies conducted with adults and
even fewer conducted with children. Heart rate variability
and standardized anxiety scale measurements demonstrated
significant improvements in a randomized controlled trial
with a class of 8-year-olds after a 4-month 10-minute daily
intervention that included deep breathing; the children
reported that they were better able to cope with everyday
stressors (Bothe, Grignon, & Olness, 2014). Heart rate vari-
ability measurements demonstrated improvements 1 year
later. After a slow paced breathing intervention, a group of
14 adolescents with intellectual disabilities demonstrated
improved stress management compared with the control
group who had an audiobook session (Laborde, Allen,
Göhring, & Dosseville, 2017). Khng (2017) used a deep
breathing intervention just before a timed mathematics
test in 122 10-to-11-year-old children, and reported that
taking deep breaths before the test significantly reduced
self-reported feelings of anxiety and improved test per-
formance compared to the control group. Nevertheless,
compared to the research into mindfulness, there is an
absence of randomized controlled trials looking at breathing
interventions in adults as well as children. Even for adults, as
Russo et al. (2017) point out, research into controlled, slow
breathing should be extended into investigating long-term
effects rather than the short-term effects that have been the
focus of research to date.
In sum, although a few preliminary studies are suggesting
that deep breathing may help primary school children to be
more resilient when under stress, more robust research in
the form of randomized controlled trials is required.
Recovery Time
e research reviewed in Part (c) suggests that stress
can affect learning and memory over longer time scales,
including impairing memory and learning minutes to hours
7

Stress and Learning
after a stressful event. For children experiencing stressful
home environments, breakfast clubs may help in deliver-
ing safe, nurturing school environments and nutritional
support. In principle, they could also improve learning
outcomes during the first two lessons for those vulnerable
children who have experienced stress before arriving at
school, by providing more time for delayed chemicals that
suppress learning to dissipate, and therefore offer a buffer
between home environment and learning activities. How-
ever, systematic evaluation of this possibility has yet to be
carried out.
Physical Exercise
It has been proposed that physical exercise may benefit
children’s cognitive function by altering their stress-related
physiology (Álvarez-Bueno et al., 2017; Wegner, Koutsan-
dréou, Müller-alcazar, Lautenbach, & Budde, 2019), with
associated changes in activity levels of various signaling
molecules in the brain (Strasser & Fuchs, 2015). In addi-
tion to direct effects of physical activity on stress responses
(Puterman et al., 2018; Strasser & Fuchs, 2015), there are
also various indirect routes through which physical activ-
ity is associated with reduced stress, such as exposure to
fresh air, natural light, social interaction, and taking a break
from work. Playing in team sports may also provide social
support and reduce psychosocial stress (Keefe, Keefe, &
Lavie, 2019). For example, a child struggling in a classroom
maybeakeymemberofsocialhierarchieswithinaschool
team, which potentially would reduce his or her psychosocial
stress (Sapolsky, 2005).
However, whereas links between exercise and aspects of
child development such as executive functions are well doc-
umented in meta-analyses based on multiple randomized
controlled trials (Chang, Labban, Gapin, & Etnier, 2012;
Xue, Yang, & Huang, 2019), relatively fewer studies to date
have examined the short- and long-term effects of exercise
on stress in children (Rasmussen & Laumann, 2013). Some
correlational evidence has linked increased exercise with
a reduced stress response in adults (Zschucke, Renneberg,
Dimeo, Wüstenberg, & Ströhle, 2015) and exercise has been
shown to reduce anxiety in children with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (Cerrillo-Urbina et al., 2015). More
robust research, identifying cause-and-effect, is required to
establish the most effective exercise for specifically reducing
stress in primary school children.
Environmental Factors
Noisy and chaotic environments adversely affect multiple
aspects of child development (Marsh, Dobson, & Maddison,
2020). Increased stress is an important factor that may
explain this relationship. For example, exposure to audi-
tory noise is associated with physiological stress in children
(Wass et al., 2019). erefore, reducing noise and clutter
within a learning environment (for example, through the use
of noise-dampening material to attenuate auditory noise)
may be an effective stress management technique for some
children.
While an environment can cause stress in children, it is
also important to understand how stress can then influence
how children interact with their environment. is is par-
ticularlyimportantbecauseaswehaveseen,elevatedstress
reduces children’s ability to deploy focused attentional in
a noisy, chaotic environment (Diamond et al., 2007; Liston
et al., 2009). Reducing visual distractions and clutter within
a classroom can help children maintain attentional focus
and improve performance on learning tasks (Fisher, God-
win, & Seltman, 2014). It is likely – though it remains to
be shown – that the challenge of maintaining attentional
focus in a highly stimulating classroom would be great-
est for children experiencing higher levels of stress (Dia-
mond et al., 2007). However, because stress simultaneously
increases vigilance, teachers can be aware that ‘attention
grabbers’, such as clapping hands when children become
distracted, should be more effective at eliciting attention in
these same children.
CONCLUSION
Some stress, manifested in changes to arousal and atten-
tion, is required for learning. Too much stress or stress at
the wrong time may inhibit learning. is complex rela-
tionship, heuristically illustrated by an inverted-U curve,
is likely to differ between pupils depending on a multi-
tude of long-term and short-term factors. Some children
may be more sensitive to the environment than others. A
classroom challenge providing optimal learning outcomes
for one pupil may provide too much, or too little, arousal
for another. Present-day research as yet provides only a
fragmentary framework for the development and testing of
innovative top-down psychotherapeutic and physiological
interventions to regulate the physiological and neural stress
response. We have described potential classroom strate-
gies for addressing this issue, and explored the impact of
environmental factors; however, at the current time, rais-
ing teachers’ awareness of the inter-individual differences
in their pupils’ stress responses will be an important step
in accommodating the differing needs of children in their
classrooms. Developing personalized approaches and train-
ing programs may prove to be the ultimate goal, to not only
prevent stress-induced impairments but also enable all chil-
dren to achieve their full potential.
Acknowledgments—MSCT’s contribution to this paper
was supported by UK Medical Research Council grant
8

Sue B. Whiting et al.
MR/R00322X/1. SVW’s contribution was supported
by ESRC grant ES/N017560/1, Leverhulme Trust grant
RPG-2018-281, and ERC grant ONACSA 853251.
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