Youth IAM Meditation Leads to Better Academic Performance

Test Prep Tutor and Integrated Amrita Meditation (IAM) instructor Michael Romano, from northern California, shares his observations of the benefits of students practicing the Youth IAM meditation. His main area of focus is preparing high school students for college entrance exams, such as the SAT:

“Students can relate to the phenomenon of knowing something but not being able to find it. For example, a student once told me, ‘I know all this math, though when I took the test, I couldn’t remember any of it.’ Well, how is that possible? It is because he was not in the right frame of mind. So, what can we do? I told him that if you wish to ace these tests, you need two wings: the skills you need for the test and then the ability to show up with the skills. Meditation helps you to focus better and show up with your skills.

“The first student I ever decided to teach Youth IAM meditation to was someone who went on to become a professional MLB baseball player. He had a full ride to college and was just built for it—he was 240 pounds and 6.3 feet tall, and he had what it took to do the test. He was scoring 1200 on practice tests and only needed 1000, but he was scoring around 800 on the actual test.

“It became apparent that he had the ability to do well on the test, but basically, he was not present, not in the zone. Let's put it this way: he was in the ‘anti-zone’. I said to him, ‘Hey dude, you don't need to get any better at the test. You're already 200 points better at the test. You just need to be able to show up better.’

“The first time I taught him IAM, I was sitting on the floor with this huge kid and had a slight concern that he might think that what we were doing was nuts, but he was going right with it and said, ‘Oh man, this is kind of cool. I like this.’ So, he started to do the IAM and without further studying for the final test he went ahead and aced it.

“Soon after that, I started teaching IAM to more of my students. Initially, I would only offer it to those I felt would be receptive. For a while, I had a group practicing the IAM and a group that wasn’t, and I noticed that the group that was meditating was doing significantly better in their tests.

“Seeing this, I gained more conviction about the positive impact of IAM on the students’ performances and eventually taught IAM to all my test prep students. I have been telling them, ‘Look, from now on here's your homework. You need to come to this meditation course, then meditate the night before your test prep session, as well as every night the week before you take the SAT, and then we will meditate together online the night before the test.’

“What I also tell my students often is, ‘Think about acing the SAT as winning a raffle. You want to put in as many raffle tickets as possible to increase the odds. Every time you meditate, it's a raffle ticket. If you want to put in more meditation raffle tickets than my test prep program requires, then go right ahead.’  Not surprisingly, many students go on to make IAM a daily practice. Who doesn’t want better odds at the game of life?"

As can be seen from this testimonial, practicing IAM regularly has practical benefits that can be applied to people of all ages. Whether it is optimizing test taking, improving sleep, reducing stress, or improving relationships, just to name a few benefits, IAM has been shown to help.

Youth IAM meditation courses are offered for ages 10-14 and 15-18 years. Parents are encouraged to attend and Youth IAM is a meditation that may be practiced together by parents and children. CLICK HERE for the schedule of Youth IAM Courses available online via Zoom. For more information contact YouthIAM@ammagroups.org