Relax
Mindfulness is the capacity to pay attention to the present moment with curiosity and kindness (Kabat-Zinn 2003) .
With mindfulness, you can relax and breathe deeply to enhance your focus.
Kids explain mindfulness (3:06)
Everyday mindfulness (4:45)
What is mindfulness? (4:35)
Why Mindfulness Is a Superpower: An Animation (2:43)
How Mindfulness Empowers Us: An Animation Narrated by Sharon Salzberg (2:21)
Visual stimulus for Mindfulness (with audio)
MARC5MinuteBreathing ucla.mp3Other useful mindfulness-related resources
For the applet below put your mouse cursor in the circle when the circle grows bigger and breathe out as it shrinks and becomes smaller. Repeat a few times and relax!
Breathe in when the animation grows bigger and breathe out when it shrinks!
Below are some other resources that you may want to use to improve your students' mental wellbeing with positive education.
The following includes adapted content about Mindfulness from IBM's partnership with the University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre. The Oxford Mindfulness Centre defines mindfulness as "moment-to-moment awareness of one's experience, without judgement."
Why learn about mindfulness?
Mindfulness is simply a form of awareness. It is a direct, intuitive knowing of what you are doing while you are doing it. It's knowing what's going on inside your mind and body, and what's going on in the outside world. Mindfulness is a learned skill that we all have and we can enhance and develop it with practice (the power of breath, body scan, movement and kindfulness) to serve us in all aspects of our life.
Mindfulness is not just about relaxation, meditation, specific posture, religion or even about stopping thoughts. It is not just what you think, not about stress reduction, not a waste of time, not about escaping, not simply about attention, not about having a particular kind of experience, not about becoming someone else and mindful awareness practices are not difficult.
Let's take a 'mindful minute' with one of the following activities:
Practising mindfulness in the classroom can offset the effects of distractions such as smartphones. In the space of neuroscience, there is some evidence of thickening in the hippocampus (which plays a critical role in memory and learning). Mindfulness also helps students get more in touch with their thoughts and feelings.