Mindfulness Thursdays
January 2018
Mindfulness for Staff and Students
Thursday, January 10th
Staff
Students
Thursday, January 17th
Staff
All About the Breath, Mind with Heart Video
This is a cute youtube video explaining the benefits of mindfulness meditation. What are some breathing techniques that you use in the classroom?
Students
- Students can stand or sit for this activity.
- Ask students to put both hands on their belly.
- Students should close their eyes, or look down to their hands.
- Guide students in taking three slow deep breaths in and out to see if they can feel their hands being moved.
- You may like to count “1, 2, 3” for each breath in and “1, 2, 3” for each breath out, pausing slightly at the end of each exhale.
- Encourage students to think about how the breath feels, answering the following questions silently, in their mind.
– What is moving your hands? Is it the air filling your lungs?
– Can you feel the air moving in through your nose?
– Can you feel it moving out through your nose?
– Does the air feel a little colder on the way in and warmer on the way out?
– Can you hear your breath?
– What does it sound like?
Thursday, January 24th
Staff
Counting Sounds: A Mindful Walking Practice
Go for a walk and mentally count or list all the different sounds that you hear.
It’s essential to turn off your electronics or leave them at home. And No Talking, although you can certainly smile and say hi to anyone you happen to pass.
You’ll probably be surprised how many sounds you do notice when you stop focusing on everything else.
Students
Rainbow Walk: A Mindfulness Activity to Move the Body and Rest the Mind
Take a walk, and look for something red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Keep going through the colors, in order, until the end of your walk.
Click here for a rainbow worksheet.
After the walk, discuss what different members of the group noticed--were different people focused on different things? (For example, one person may have noticed mostly flowers, while another person may have noticed mostly cars or clothing)
Thursday, January 31st
Staff
Mindful Cell Phone Use for Teachers
- How much time do I spend on my phone, computer, and social media?
- Who do I prioritize: the person standing before me, or the one on the phone?
- How are our staff meetings? What percentage of the staff spends meetings with their attention on their phones or computers instead of on the people in the room with them?
When you feel an impulse to turn to any social media platform, take 2 calming breaths and then ask yourself: 'Why do I want to do this now? Is it simply habit?' This way you create a gap between impulse and response. You decrease automatic behavior and increase insight and your ability to exercise choice.
If you’re on a social media platform and you notice yourself getting angry or feeling hurt:
1) Close your eyes, take a few breaths, and imagine the person who triggered your feelings. What exactly was said that set you off?
2) Go back to the message and think about what the person meant. What might he or she have been feeling when she said it? What might she have been thinking? Why might she have said this?
3) Then shift your focus. If you know this person outside of social media, is what you imagine this person meant by her text or tweet consistent with what you experienced with this person in the past? What might have led her to write what she did? If she was angry, imagine the pain she might have been feeling. In your imagination, wish for her a sense of calm or peace, an easing of her pain.
4) Then shift to your breath. Feel what you now feel as you breath in and out. Feel how your body expands as you inhale—and let’s go, relaxes, settles down as you exhale. Maybe feel your shoulders expand, even raise up a little as you inhale. And as you exhale, notice your shoulders drop, let go, and relax. Just sit for a second with that sense of relaxation and letting go.
Students
Have students watch this video on mindful messaging and answer these questions with the class.
• What is tone? What does the girl in the video mean when she says that people might take the tone of your message the wrong way when you’re texting?
• What did the girl in the video hope to communicate with her text messages? How did her friends interpret her messages?
• Have you ever gotten a text message that made you think your friend was mad at you? What did you do?
• What is the lesson at the end of the video?
• Are there any topics that are better to discuss in person instead of over text message?