Mindfulness
Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, emotions, bodily sensation, and surrounding environment with openness and curiosity.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness can be thought of as a “state”, a “trait”, or a “practice.” You can have a moment of mindfulness, which is the state of your mind. You can also have a sustained experience that is more like a habit or strong tendency to be mindful, a trait. Or you can engage in a more intentional practice of mindfulness by using different forms, postures and activities, such as seated mindfulness meditation, mindful walking, and mindful eating.
"Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us." ~ Mindful.org
Why practice mindfulness?
Mindfulness can support and sustain you, by helping you manage the stress of today’s world. Mindfulness has been shown to have a positive impact on stress, attention, and even relationships. The American Psychological Association shares research on a range of benefits of mindfulness, including: stress reduction, boosts working memory, focus, less emotional reactivity, more cognitive flexibility, etc. Yet the benefits of mindfulness can take us beyond the terrain of managing symptoms to a place where we are developing our deeper human capacities for awareness, attention, empathy, kindness and compassion.
Benefits for Students
Wellbeing and Mental Health
As well as helping them to recognise worry, manage difficulties and cope with exams, developing a more mindful awareness also helps children and young people to appreciate what is going well and to flourish.
Concentration and Cognition
Mindfulness trains us to understand and direct our attention with greater awareness and skill. This may improve the capacity of children to concentrate and be less distracted, as well as their working memory and ability to plan.
Social and Emotional Learning
Mindfulness helps to develop a greater awareness of relationships and how to manage them (including difficult ones at home), as well as offering a richer understanding of things like self-esteem and optimism.
Behavior
Mindfulness may help students to self-regulate more effectively, manage impulsivity and reduce conflict and oppositional behavior. It should not, however, be used as a disciplinary tool.
Schoolwide Mindfulness Practices
The experience of mindfulness is something that is available to all students and staff in every moment of the day. But it is very helpful to set aside a specific time to practice mindful meditation, mindful walking, or body scan. When mindfulness becomes a “practice,” mindful moments begin to occur more frequently throughout the day - like taking a moment to pause and breathe before rushing into class to begin work.
Virtual Mindfulness Room
Forest Oak Middle School has a Mindfulness Room, where students and staff can explore strategies to deal with life challenges and find new ways to manage life and emotions. When you are learning at home, or out in the world, and there is no physical room available, you visit our Virtual Mindfulness Room.