Stanway Fiveways Primary School

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a relaxation technique to help regulate our behaviours and emotions. It's a calming strategy that we use in school and felt you may benefit from using it with the children alongside your remote learning.

Mindfulness – the new superpower!

Being mindful helps people in just about every part of life. Learning how to be mindful when you are young gives you a chance to get good at it and use it always.

It means paying full attention to something and slowing down to really notice what you are doing. Being mindful is the opposite of rushing or multitasking. When you are mindful, you are taking your time. You are focusing in a relaxed, easy way.

Mindfulness helps you:

· pay attention better

· be less distractable

· learn more

· stay calm under stress

· avoid getting too upset about things

· slow down instead of rush

· listen better to others

· be more patient

· get along better

· feel happier and enjoy things more

You need to practice mindfulness to get good at it. Training the mind and your attention takes practice. The more you practice, the better you get. You will then find it comes naturally in your everyday life.

Research shows that practicing mindfulness can improve attention for just about everybody — including people who think they have trouble paying attention.

So how do I practice mindfulness?

Anyone can do it. It is easy, and it just takes a few minutes a day.

Here are the basic steps and an idea for you to try:

1. Sit in a relaxed, comfortable position. Pick something to focus your attention on, for example your breathing. Breathe normally and pay attention to each breath in and out.

2. Notice when your mind wanders away from paying attention to your breath. That's your mind wandering and getting distracted. It is natural; minds do that all the time!

3. Whenever you notice your attention has wandered, gently remind yourself to pay attention to breathing again. That is how you train your attention.

4. Keep breathing, keep relaxing, and keep paying easy attention to your breathing. Can you feel the place where the air tickles your nostrils? Do you notice how the breath gently moves your body? Can you pay attention to your belly or your chest moving as you breathe? Keep bringing your attention back to the breathing every time your mind wanders. Try to do this for 5 minutes.

That is it! There are many other ways to practice mindfulness, like eating mindfully or even mindful walking. Try picking different things to focus on to help you practice training your attention.

Below are some links to mindfulness colouring and music to listen to: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cosmic+kids+mindfulness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ_wdeog5Ek

There are many more clips on YouTube that are suitable for mindfulness, select one that is suitable for you. https://www.bestcoloringpagesforkids.com/mindfulness-coloring-pages.html