Doctor of Nursing Practice students often move between demanding coursework, clinical responsibilities and the pressures of preparing for advanced leadership roles. A new University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing study suggests that mindfulness does not necessarily need to occupy a large block of time to become part of that routine.
Published September 22, 2026, in Nurse Educator, the study examined an embedded mindfulness curriculum for Doctor of Nursing Practice, or DNP, students. The program placed brief, asynchronous mindfulness activities directly inside course learning systems, with individual practices lasting between one and five minutes. More than 90% of participating students rated the curriculum as acceptable, appropriate and feasible.
The research team included Miranda V. McPhillips, Misol Kwon, Alexa J. Watach, Mara Wai, Christina Salemo, Amy M. Sawyer and Nancy P. Blumenthal. McPhillips is now affiliated with Villanova University’s M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing, while Kwon is now at the University at Buffalo. Watach, Wai, Salemo, Sawyer and Blumenthal were affiliated with Penn Nursing when the project was conducted.
The findings are particularly relevant for people interested in mindfulness routines because the intervention focused on a practical question: Can mindfulness become part of an already crowded schedule without requiring a separate class or lengthy meditation session?
Why Penn Researchers Focused On Brief Mindfulness
DNP programs prepare experienced nurses for advanced clinical practice, organizational leadership, quality improvement and other responsibilities within health care. That combination can create a demanding academic and professional environment.
Rather than asking students to add another substantial activity to their schedules, the Penn Nursing project integrated mindfulness into coursework. The activities were asynchronous, meaning students could access and complete them through their course learning-management systems rather than attending a scheduled live session.
The study’s authors approached mindfulness as part of professional development and self-care rather than as an isolated wellness activity. Nurses frequently occupy leadership positions in settings where decisions must be made under pressure. Developing habits that encourage reflection and emotional regulation during training could therefore have implications beyond the students’ own well-being.
Nancy P. Blumenthal, DNP, ACNP-BC, ISHLTF, served as the study’s senior author. Penn Nursing reported that the project was built around the idea that DNP students should be able to incorporate self-care into their preparation for leadership rather than treating it as something separate from professional education.
This approach also reflects a broader shift in how mindfulness can be delivered. Instead of requiring a dedicated meditation room, instructor or lengthy session, a student can encounter a short exercise within an existing educational environment.
The significance is less about the exact number of minutes than about reducing the practical barrier to participation.
What The Study Actually Measured
The research was not a large randomized clinical trial measuring cortisol, blood pressure or another physiological marker. It was a curricular quality-improvement project designed to examine DNP students’ perceptions of the mindfulness curriculum and their experiences applying mindfulness in academic and professional settings.
Researchers used post-exposure surveys and semistructured focus groups. Survey data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, while researchers used directed content analysis to examine the focus-group discussions.
The primary finding was strong acceptance of the curriculum. More than 90% of students rated the embedded mindfulness curriculum as acceptable, appropriate and feasible. The researchers also identified two broad themes in the focus-group material.
The first involved mindfulness supporting personal and professional development, leadership and stress management. The second concerned the ease of accessing the curriculum materials.
That distinction matters. Students reported that mindfulness was useful in areas connected with stress and leadership, but the study does not establish that the one-to-five-minute exercises caused a measurable reduction in stress or prevented burnout.
The findings instead show that students considered the approach practical and described ways they believed mindfulness could support their academic and professional lives.
Students Connected Mindfulness With Leadership And Stress Management
One of the more interesting elements of the research is that the reported benefits extended beyond feeling calmer.
According to Penn Nursing, qualitative responses linked mindfulness with cognitive flexibility, emotional intelligence and proactive leadership, particularly in high-stress clinical and professional situations.
Cognitive flexibility refers broadly to the ability to shift perspectives or adjust one’s thinking when circumstances change. In clinical environments, that can be relevant when new information changes the situation or when competing demands require a different response.
Emotional intelligence has a similarly practical dimension. Nurses work with patients, families, physicians, other nurses and administrators, often during periods of uncertainty or distress. The ability to recognize emotional reactions and respond deliberately can influence communication and decision-making.
The students’ comments therefore point to mindfulness as a potential professional skill rather than simply a relaxation technique.
This is consistent with the study’s conclusion that the curriculum supported DNP students’ development of self-care and resilience while also strengthening their potential for leadership.
The connection between mindfulness and leadership was also reflected in the curriculum’s alignment with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s 2021 Essentials. Those national standards include competencies related to person-centered care and leadership development.
Why One To Five Minutes May Matter
A common obstacle to meditation is the perception that meaningful practice requires a long uninterrupted session.
The Penn project takes a different approach. By embedding activities lasting only one to five minutes into coursework, the curriculum places mindfulness inside an activity students are already expected to complete.
That difference can affect adherence.
A student with several hours of clinical work, assignments and professional obligations may find it difficult to schedule a separate 30-minute meditation session. A five-minute exercise inside an existing course environment presents a much smaller time commitment.
The Penn findings do not establish that shorter mindfulness practices are universally more effective than longer sessions. They do, however, provide evidence that a brief format can be viewed as feasible by students preparing for advanced nursing roles. More than 90% rated the curriculum positively on acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility.
Penn Nursing also reported a Net Promoter Score of 69.2 for the curriculum, another indication that students viewed the experience favorably and were willing to recommend it to peers.
For mindfulness educators, that finding may be as useful as the specific exercises themselves. A practice that people can realistically fit into their schedules has a better opportunity to become a recurring habit.
The Study Has Important Limits
The positive findings should be interpreted within the study’s design.
The researchers did not conduct a randomized comparison between DNP students who received the mindfulness curriculum and a control group that did not. There was also no reported physiological measurement demonstrating that the exercises changed cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure or another biological marker of stress.
Instead, the research relied on student surveys and focus groups after exposure to the curriculum.
That makes the findings useful for evaluating acceptability, feasibility and perceived value, but less suitable for determining whether one-to-five-minute mindfulness exercises directly reduce stress or burnout.
This distinction is particularly relevant because the study’s public-facing descriptions sometimes use stronger language about reducing stress and combating burnout than the underlying abstract supports. The peer-reviewed paper itself describes the curriculum as supporting self-care, resilience, leadership and stress management based on students’ reported experiences.
Future research could strengthen the evidence by comparing different mindfulness formats, following students over longer periods and measuring objective outcomes alongside self-reported experiences.
From Nursing School To High-Pressure Workplaces
The Penn project has implications beyond DNP education because the same scheduling problem exists in many workplaces.
Health care professionals may recognize the difficulty of adding another appointment or structured wellness session to an already demanding day. A short mindfulness exercise that can be completed before a class, between responsibilities or during a planned transition may be easier to maintain.
For DNP students, the potential benefit also extends into leadership preparation. Their future roles can involve supervising teams, coordinating care, implementing quality improvements and making decisions under pressure.
The Penn researchers argue that preparing future nurse leaders to model self-care can influence the broader workplace culture.
That idea gives the study a wider significance. Mindfulness in this setting is not being presented simply as a personal relaxation strategy. It is being considered as one component of professional preparation.
A nurse leader who has developed a habit of pausing, observing a reaction and choosing a response may bring that same approach into interactions with colleagues and patients. The Penn study does not prove that this sequence improves patient outcomes or organizational performance, but the students’ experiences suggest that they saw value in applying mindfulness beyond the classroom.
What A Five-Minute Mindfulness Practice Can Look Like
The study’s strength is its accessibility. A brief practice does not have to involve an elaborate setting or specialized equipment.
A five-minute routine could involve sitting comfortably, noticing the natural rhythm of breathing, identifying physical sensations and bringing attention back whenever the mind wanders. Another approach could involve briefly checking emotional state before an important task and identifying what is happening without immediately reacting to it.
For someone working in health care, the timing may matter as much as the technique. A short practice before entering a demanding clinical environment could serve as a transition between activities. Another person might use several minutes after a stressful interaction to regain attention before moving to the next responsibility.
These examples should not be presented as treatments for anxiety, burnout or other medical conditions. The Penn study evaluated an educational curriculum and student experiences rather than a clinical treatment protocol.
Still, the research offers a useful principle: mindfulness does not have to be separated from daily responsibilities to become part of a person’s routine.
What Penn’s Findings Add To Mindfulness Research
The September 2026 study adds a practical dimension to a larger body of mindfulness research.
Much of the public conversation around meditation focuses on dedicated programs that require scheduled sessions and sustained participation. Penn’s project asks a different question: what happens when mindfulness is placed directly inside the environment where people already spend their time?
For DNP students, that environment is advanced nursing education.
The answer from this project is encouraging but measured. Students overwhelmingly considered the curriculum acceptable, appropriate and feasible. Focus groups associated the practices with personal and professional development, leadership and stress management. They also valued the ease of accessing the materials.
Those results make the study particularly relevant for institutions trying to integrate well-being into professional education without creating another major obligation for students.
The next step is determining whether perceived usefulness translates into measurable long-term outcomes. Larger controlled studies could examine whether brief embedded mindfulness changes stress scores, burnout, sleep, emotional regulation, academic performance or leadership behaviors over time.
For now, the Penn Nursing research offers a more modest but practical message: a mindfulness practice lasting one to five minutes can be incorporated into demanding professional education, and students may see it as a useful tool for self-care, stress management and leadership development.
The study by Miranda V. McPhillips and colleagues was published September 22, 2026, in Nurse Educator under the title Cultivating Resilient Doctor of Nursing Practice Leaders: Student Experiences With an Embedded Mindfulness Curriculum. The paper is available through PubMed, while Penn Nursing’s October 2026 report provides additional context about the curriculum and its implementation.