Adopt the position: an eight-month inquiry has found that stressed public servants may be better off if they are given meditation training. Photograph: Dougal Waters/Getty Images

Stressed out teachers, prison officers and nurses should be trained in ancient techniques of mindfulness meditation, a cross-party group of MPs and peers said on Wednesday.

An eight-month inquiry by the all party group on mindfulness found frontline public servants could be less likely to fall ill with stress, or quit altogether, if they engage in the increasingly popular meditation practice which involves increasing awareness of the present moment to help control anxiety and depression.

A rash of small pilot studies about mindfulness meditations potential impact in the public sector is already underway. One hundred frontline health workers in Surrey were given mindfulness training last year and showed a fall in sickness absence, according to the Department of Health. Several prisons are running pilots to see how the practice can help convicted criminals avoid reoffending while 300 teachers in a network of academy schools in the north west have also been trained.

It could be rolled out to prison staff, GPs and in key professions where there is big burn out, said Chris Ruane MP, co-chair of the group at the launch of its interim report on Wednesday. If we prove conclusively that mindfulness can stabilise those individuals it would be a great benefit to society.

Absenteeism costs the public sector a lot and giving people mindfulness training could save money in the short and long term, added Tracey Crouch MP, also co-chair. She added that interest in the practice is growing in Westminster and that she knew of two cabinet ministers who use mindfulness techniques. Sixty MPs and 55 peers have also had training. Lord ODonnell, the former cabinet secretary, attended the launch and said mindfulness can play a huge role in prevention of poor mental health. However, he called for more data to back up the claims.

The report represents the most significant political pressure yet to bring mindfulness into the mainstream and comes amid a boom in public interest in the practice, rooted in a 2,400-year-old Buddhist tradition.

More than 1,000 mindfulness courses are being offered in the UK. Headspace, a meditation software for smart phones, has registered more than half a million users, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is even growing in popularity in parliament.

But there is also growing concern that there are too few qualified teachers to meet burgeoning demand, and that inexperienced teachers could struggle to cope with potentially upsetting thoughts thrown up for people suffering from mental health problems.

The report voiced concerns about the variability of the quality of the teaching and said registration of teachers is only embryonic, leaving people struggling to assess their credentials. It also warned the effectiveness of hundreds of thousands of courses delivered online and through books has not been proven.

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Meditation may prevent absenteeism by stressed public servants, MPs claim