diff --git a/kernel/sched/fair.c b/kernel/sched/fair.c
index d6915a038d8a..f18ddb72fe88 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
@@ -1794,6 +1794,11 @@ static void task_numa_placement(struct task_struct *p)
 	u64 runtime, period;
 	spinlock_t *group_lock = NULL;
 
+	/*
+	 * The p->mm->numa_scan_seq field gets updated without
+	 * exclusive access. Use READ_ONCE() here to ensure
+	 * that the field is read in a single access:
+	 */
 	seq = READ_ONCE(p->mm->numa_scan_seq);
 	if (p->numa_scan_seq == seq)
 		return;
@@ -2107,6 +2112,14 @@ void task_numa_fault(int last_cpupid, int mem_node, int pages, int flags)
 
 static void reset_ptenuma_scan(struct task_struct *p)
 {
+	/*
+	 * We only did a read acquisition of the mmap sem, so
+	 * p->mm->numa_scan_seq is written to without exclusive access
+	 * and the update is not guaranteed to be atomic. That's not
+	 * much of an issue though, since this is just used for
+	 * statistical sampling. Use READ_ONCE/WRITE_ONCE, which are not
+	 * expensive, to avoid any form of compiler optimizations:
+	 */
 	WRITE_ONCE(p->mm->numa_scan_seq, READ_ONCE(p->mm->numa_scan_seq) + 1);
 	p->mm->numa_scan_offset = 0;
 }