December 2020 The Calm Mind

What Is ‘Mindfulness’?

By Shelby Chollet

Disclaimer: I began skeptically studying mindfulness in 2017 after I had given my initial proposal for my doctoral research on teacher motivation and sustainability. An admired professor and former superintendent said she believed that what I was looking for was within the practice of mindfulness, not something as arbitrary and saturated as motivation. Taken aback, I begrudgingly looked into mindfulness, a hippy-like practice that seemed too benign to make a difference in teacher stress or motivation. But of course, the deeper I went, the more it made sense to me. From the simplicity to the science of it all, the acquisition and practice of mindfulness became quite clear and necessary. By the time I published my work, I realized that in order for the education system to support mindfulness, there had to be an understanding of what it is and the implications it has.

I broke it down by definition, outcomes, achievement, and practice:

Mindfulness and the Brain

“...evidence has linked practising mindfulness to changes in many parts of the brain. Some research suggests that mindfulness can affect the production of chemicals that change our mood. Other evidence shows that connections between different regions of the brain change when we are mindful” (Joshi, 2017).

What we have found:

• Cortisol levels decrease as mindfulness increases

• Grey matter in the brain’s stress-center decreases in size

• The grey matter in the planning, problem-solving, emotional part of the brain becomes thicker, showing more activity

• The area of the brain that assists in learning and memory thickens