Mindfulness For Students

Mindfulness for Students

Mindfulness is a great resource for students, not only when doing exams but in life in general. Mindfulness doesn’t have to take long to do and it’s easy to learn.

Sportsmen and sportswomen, students and a whole range of other people practice mindfulness to help them stay calmly focused on what they are doing while they are doing it. Steve Jobs found mindfulness improved his creativity too – so if he hadn’t been practicing mindfulness, we might not have the iPhone.

Mindfulness can help you to focus and stay calm by encouraging you to return your attention again and again to what you are doing right now instead of getting lost in the stories your imagination tells you or in stressful emotions. To practice mindfulness, try these tips:

Label

When stressful thoughts come into your head, silently label them with the word “thinking” and return to what you are doing. Returning frequently from your imagination to what you are doing is the key to mindfulness.

Take an outbreath

Every now and then, notice one complete out-breath and notice also how the breath seems to go through your feet into the floor. This focus on the out-breath has been used successfully by Irish Olympic athletes.

7/11 breathing

Every time you notice an hour has passed, breathe in to a count of seven and out to a count of eleven. Giving more time to breathing out has a calming effect on the nervous system. If your mind drifts away when you are doing this, simply label it silently with the word “thinking” and return your attention to the breath.

Posture awareness

Now and then become aware of your posture. This works better for some people than mindfulness of breathing.

From mind to body

Whenever you feel anxious, move your attention away from what your mind is telling you and instead notice the physical sensation of anxiety in your body. Your mind can keep its stories going forever but physical sensations die down, sometimes quite quickly.

Mindful walking

If you are feeling agitated and you go for a walk, put your attention on the feeling of your feet on the ground and keep bringing your attention back to this until you are calm. Mindful walking is a very old mindfulness practice and is especially good if you are too agitated to use other mindfulness practices.

Planning vs fantasy

Remember that planning and fantasy are two different things. So when you are making a study plan or planning how to answer a question, keep bringing your attention back to your planning whenever you notice your mind has pulled you into a fantasy or into worries.

Do a body scan

If you lie awake worrying at night, try doing the body scan and you will increase your chances of getting back to sleep. This means becoming aware of your body from your toes to the top of your head in stages. For instance: Toes, feet, calves, thighs, lower back, upper back, chest, stomach, arms, hands, shoulders, neck, head, face, throat. You can pace yourself by counting two or three breaths between each stage. You’ll find a brief body scan in the audio section (see below) but you can make it last for as long as you like.

Listen to the short mindfulness practices

Tap on this line to find my mindfulness audios on Soundcloud.

Mindfulness Courses

Experience and learn about mindfulness –
suitable if you’re new to mindfulness,
if you already practise mindfulness
or if you are just curious about it.

Evidence for the Impact of Mindfulness on Young People

by Katherine Weare, Emeritus Professor, Universities of Exeter and Southampton

Two recent systematic reviews and twenty individual studies of mindfulness interventions with young people of school age, all with reasonable numbers of participants, have been published in reputable peer reviewed scientific journals. … The weight of evidence from these studies concludes that:

Mindfulness for young people is easy to carry out, fits into a wide range of contexts, is enjoyed by both students and teachers, and does no harm.
Well conducted mindfulness interventions can improve the mental, emotional, social and physical health and wellbeing of young people who take part. It has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, reactivity and bad behaviour, improve sleep and self-esteem, and bring about greater calmness, relaxation, the ability to manage behaviour and emotions, self-awareness and empathy.
Mindfulness can contribute directly to the development of cognitive and performance skills and executive function. It can help young people pay greater attention, be more focused, think in more innovative ways, use existing knowledge more effectively, improve working memory, and enhance planning, problem solving, and reasoning skills.
… adolescents who are mindful, either through their character or through learning, tend to experience greater well-being, and … being more mindful tends to accompany more positive emotion, greater popularity and having more friends, and less negative emotion and anxiety.
Mindfulness has also been shown to contribute directly to the development of cognitive and performance skills in the young. When children and young people pupils learn to be more ‘present’ and less anxious, they often find they can pay attention better and improve the quality of their performance, in the classroom, on the sports field, and in the performing arts for example. They often become more focused, more able to approach situations from a fresh perspective, use existing knowledge more effectively, and pay attention.

The pdf of Katherine Weare’s article is here.

For more information on mindfulness in schools see www.mindfulnessinschools.org