MindUP - Lesson 3

Focused Awareness

Core Practice -

Pause. Listen. Breath. Helps us quiet our mind and get ready to learn.

Day 1 - Linking to Brain Research

Focusing our breathing helps to calm the body by slowing heat rate, lowering blood pressure and sharpening focus. Controlled breathing lessens anxiety (worrying) by overriding the "flight, flight, or freeze" response. This helps the brain to think first and then plan a response - mindful behavior! How does it work?

Neuroplasticity: when the brain makes and strengthens nerve cell(called a neuron) connections when you do something over and over.

The more a body does something, the more and bigger (stronger) the dendrites become which makes it easier for messages to pass to other nerve cells in the brain.

so...

The more you practice breathing and relaxing, the easier it will be to do when you really need to do it because the connections to the right nerve cells (neurons) will be strong and ready to act.

Let's pretend to be a neuron (nerve cell)

Try this....

- Hold your hand out with your fingers spread.
- Your palm is the nucleus - cell's control center
- Your fingers are dendrites - information receivers
- Your elbow is the axon - information senders
- Touch your fingers to someone's elbow

Imagine a message passing from the end of your axon (elbow) to and through your neighbor's dendrites (fingers) to their nucleus (palm).

The more this happens, the faster it will happen because the dendrites become bigger and stronger with practice.

Day 2 - Engage, Explore, Reflect

Focused Awareness - the Core Practice - time to practice

List and example picture

What Mindfulness Looks Like

Our bodies are as still as they can be.
Our eyes are closed or focused downward.
Our faces look relaxed.

What Mindfulness Sounds Like

Our voices are silent.
There are no loud noises in the room.
our breathing is quiet, slow, and relaxed.

What to do:

Sit in a comfortable position - feet flat on the floor, hands on lap. Close your eyes or look down.
Listen for the chime - listen as long as you can hear it - when it stops start...
Paying close attention to your breathing. Feel air come in through your nose, then fill your chest and your belly. Calmly and slowly, let the breath leave your belly, then your chest, and finally your nose.
Keep your shoulders dropped and relaxed. Think about the air coming into your body and the air going out.
Bring your attention back to your breath, if your mind tries to think about other things.
Notice your stomach rising and falling. Let your belly be soft and relaxed.
When you hear the chime again - listen to it as long as you can then....
Open your eyes slowly and take a slow, deep breath and remain still and quiet

Discuss:

How did it feel to control your breathing?
What did you notice?
How did you keep your mind focused on breathing?
What do you think is happening right now in your brain?
What are some other times when it would be good to focus on your breath to stay calm and make good decisions?

Day 3 - Career Connection

Wildlife photographer - must listen, aim, focus, breath and shoot.

Depends on mindful breathing and listening.

John Marriott, Wildlife Photographer - YouTube 4:46

What are some other jobs that require stillness and complete focus to be done well?

Day 4 - Journal Writing: Mindful Breathing Cartoon

Print out this empty comic strip and have the students fill in the boxes using word bubbles for the characters to explain how they are feeling.

- - 1st box: a situation that is causing stress
  - 2nd box: using mindful breathing to regain a clear, steady mind
  - 3rd box: what the character is doing or looking like after regaining mindfulness

Day 5 - Deep Belly Breathing

Materials: small items with flat bottom such as dominoes, dice, bottle caps, etc. - one per student

What to do:

- - Give each student a small object and have them lie down on their back.
  - They should place the object carefully on their belly.
  - They should concentrate on their breathing while watching / feeling the object gently rise and fall with each breath.

Say:

- - A great way to relax our bodies and minds is to lie on our backs and breath deeply.
  - While you concentrate on the object on your belly, focus on filling your body with air.
  - Watch the object rise and fall with your breathing.
  - Try to make it go up and down evenly - rising up for 5 slow counts and down for 5 slow counts.
  - Breath through your nose if you can.

Why it's important:

- - This requires a great deal of concentration to keep the object moving at an even pace.
  - See who can do this the longest without it falling off - call out the time as they are breathing.

Day 6 - Breath Counting

On a whiteboard write down a prediction of how many breaths you take in one minute.
When the teacher says "go" begin counting the number of regular, resting breaths you take in one minute. You can keep tally marks on your whiteboard to keep track.

Use this on-line stopwatch to keep track of how long you've gone.

Were you close to your prediction?
How many breaths did everyone in the class take together?
Now predict how many breaths you will take in 10 seconds.
Was your prediction close? Why or why not?
If you add your "10 second" breaths 6 times does it equal your "1 minute" breaths?
We'll have more fun with our breathing later in the week!

Day 7 - Healthy Lungs

Did you know that your lungs are more like air sponges than like balloons?

Let's discover how breathing, or respiration, works and how to keep our lungs healthy.

Some LUNG facts:

- When removed for transplant, the lungs can survive outside the body longer than any other organ.
- The left lung is smaller than the right lung to make room for the heart.
- About 10,000 quarts (9,464 liters) of air go through your lungs every day.
- The total surface area of the alveoli is around the size of a tennis court.
- New babies at rest breathe between 40 and 50 times per minute but by the time they're five years old, their breathing rate decreases to around 25 times per minute.

Respiratory System video - by KidsHealth.org YouTube 5:20

Discuss:

- - Why is it so important to take care of your lungs?'
  - How can you take good care of your lungs?
  - How do your lungs help you?
  - What is one thing you learned about your lungs today that you didn't know yesterday?

Day 8 - Graphing Breathing

Earlier in the week you counted the number of resting breaths you took in 10 seconds.

Let's try the same thing today 3 different ways and then graph the results to see how they compare.

On-line stopwatch to keep track of the time.

PDF Graph

Regular breathing

Without doing anything different count how many breaths you take in 10 seconds. You can keep track on a piece of paper or whiteboard.

Mindful breathing

Now REALLY think about your breathing while slowing it down. Count how many deep breaths you take in 10 seconds. You can keep track on a piece of paper or whiteboard.

Fast breathing

Now stand up with space around you. As a class decide what type of action you can do for about a minute (jogging in place, jumping jacks, toe touches, etc.). After being active for one minute stop and immediately count the number of breaths you take in 10 seconds. You can keep track on a piece of paper or whiteboard.

Discuss the results you see in the graphs.

How is each graph different and why?

Day 9 - Journal Writing: Mindful Location

Think about practicing mindful listening and breathing at home. Draw a picture and describe the best place you would practice being mindful at home. Include the instrument you would use to make the starting and ending sounds.

Print out this sheet and have the students draw their special place and describe where it it.

Day 10 - Literature Link

The Busy Body Book

by Lizzy Rockwell

A healthy body and mind are key to focusing awareness. You'll find many ways to dip into this amazing book to share the ways in which the brain, respiration and other body systems work. This book also emphasizes the importance of keeping active, eating well, and getting rest for good health.

Youtube Reading 5:30