Start with Yourself

Mindfulness Starts With You First

The first step to bringing mindfulness into the classroom is to start with our own personal practice. This section will provide you with references for exploring and building your own mindfulness lifestyle.

Before bringing any mindfulness meditations to your class, it is essential to first start with a daily practice of your own.

We suggest 8-20 minutes per day practice of the following practices for at least a month before attempting to do this with your students.

Foundational Practices:

The Breath

"The Breath" is at the core of powerful practice. The breath is what centers the practitioner and provides life giving energy and focus. When we practice mindfulness, we always start with the breath.

"The breath" comes through the nostril, creating a whirlpool of life giving oxygen, and fill the stomach completely. After a moments pause, the breath is released as carbon dioxide to nourish other parts the living world.

When we meditate and are distracted by thoughts, after noticing without judgement, we return our mind to the breath to clear our thoughts.

With breath practice, controlling our exhale for a longer count than our inhale actually takes us from the fight-or-flight area of our brain (amygdala) and into the pre-frontol cortex, the calmer more rational part of our brain. For example, inhaling for the count of 5, and exhaling for the count of 7, repeatedly, automatically has a calming effect. The benefit of this in the classroom is to help with transitions and help them be ready to learn.

Body Scan

Body Scan meditation asks the practitioner to sit quietly and practice focusing attention. It results in a calmer mind and body.

During this meditation, a guide will instruct the practitioner to focus on specific parts of their body. The goal is to assess our well being bodily, mentally, and emotionally.

This video is created by Anny Carr, and is currently used in Platt High School classrooms.

Counting/"Mantra" Practice

A wonderful beginner's meditation is to focus the mind on counting. Begin counting backwards at 100. Every time you notice a thought pop in, like "I need to get milk on the way home", or "why did she do that to me?" etc, just notice that a thought happened (without judgement), and start counting over again at 100. It may be that you only get to 97 for several sessions. That is to be expected. The more frequently you practice, the longer you will be able to count without noticing a thought.

Advanced Techniques

Focused Attention Meditation

Sustained attention is the ability to focus on an activity or stimulus over a long period of time. It is what makes it possible to concentrate on an activity for as long as it takes to finish, even if there are other distracting stimuli present. Focused attention meditation involves choosing an "anchor" (something to focus your attention on), like the sensation of breathe in your nostril, gazing at a candle, or focusing on sound.

See this site for further guidance: https://www.iqmindware.com/focused-attention-meditation

Open Monitoring

Open monitoring meditation focuses the meditator's awareness on the feelings, thoughts or sensations that are currently present in one's body, and there are two types: internal and external. Here, the practitioner is encouraged to observe and be present. It is a resting inawareness itself without boundary or guidance. Open-awareness meditation is often associated with the metaphor of the mind being an open sky. The practitioner is to observe the clouds (thoughts) that pass along their field of awareness.

Gratitude

"Gratitude meditation is a type of meditation that focuses on expressing gratitude for the things in your life. It is important to note that gratitude is not just about being thankful for the good things in your life, but it is about being thankful for everything in your life. There are things in your life which might initially seem bad, but upon further reflection actually, give you an opportunity to learn and grow. Part of gratitude is recognizing these blessings in all things" ~Positive Psychology Program

For a more in depth exploration:https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/gratitude-meditation-happiness/#what-gratitude

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