'Mindfulness' in schools

Great article in The Guardian online today .. "Could meditation be the answer to exam nerves?' Mindfulness' is the latest big thing in schools. What is it and why is it so popular?"

Reporting on the growing interest in ‘mindfulness’ practices in the UK school system .. with results of recent studies due to be presented at a conference in London later this month (I will be watching with interest).

The Guardian article looks at the impact and growth in 'mindfulness' within the UK school system .. as teenagers battle with increasing levels of stress and anxiety, technology (weapons of mass distraction) and demanding performance expectations .. and the popularity of these 2500 year old (I would suggest well tried and tested) practices also being bouyed by backing from the scientific community.

I call these simple practices Meditative Exercises and the ones mentioned in the article include the "7/11" breathing exercise (matching the count of 7/11 to your breath .. breathing in for the count of 7 and breathing out for a count of 11) and ‘meditation’ (having teenagers lying down for some mindfulness meditation).

'The "7/11" and "meditation" techniques are being taught in schools through a programme called ".b" (Stop, Breathe and Be) designed by two teachers, Richard Burnett and Chris Cullen, who together formed the Mindfulness in Schools Project in 2007.

"We were both finding great benefits from mindfulness ourselves," says Cullen, "and had started introducing simple mindfulness practices to classes in the schools where we taught. The response from students was striking and inspired us to create a programme that they would find fun, accessible and of genuine use in their lives." The course is now being taught in 12 countries'.

From my own experience (inhouse with a teenager and through meditation classes specifically for children/teenagers) I have found they are often eager uptakers of practices when they have an opportunity to try and test them for themselves.

Teenagers can be highly experiential and if you actually get them to a class and give them the knowledge and the experience .. they usually 'get it'.

While they might not tell you .. in my experience, they often implement these simple practices into their life straight away.

The number of times I have heard my daughter telling a friend how to do one of our Meditative Exercises ..
“mum whats that one where you count the breath?”