Marvellous Mindfulness in Schools

I recently had the absolute pleasure to be invited in to a local high school to talk to their Year 12 students about Mindfulness, specifically for stress and anxiety.

I had previously been to the school and spoken to a small group of Year 13s, which was a lovely experience and the students were all very responsive. This time it was to be an entire year group of approximately 200 students, albeit with the group split into two lots, so about 100 16/17 year olds in each assembly. 

First and foremost, I have to say that I utilised every one of the strategies I have in my toolkit on myself for this. I have been practising Mindfulness for a few years now and have done a lot of work on myself and my emotions and reactions. However, I am not a robot. I still feel fear, sadness, stress and anger just like anyone else. The difference now is that negative emotions are not given a welcome at my door, and I have learned strategies so that I can deal with them. My tool kit is well stocked and much used.

The first thing I asked of each group was that they use an open mind and just listen to what I had to say. I then said that I very much hoped that they would never be in a situation where they might need any strategies to cope with stress and anxiety, but if they did, they would soon have some coping mechanisms to use should that ever arise.

The truth is that anxiety and other mental health issues are a major concern and a recent study that was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, commissioned by NHS Digital, and carried out by the Office for National Statistics, the National Centre for Social Research, University of Cambridge and University of Exeter, showed some very interesting results.

• Rates of probable mental disorders have increased since 2017. In 2020, one in six (16.0%) children aged 5 to 16 years were identified as having a probable mental disorder, increasing from one in nine (10.8%) in 2017.  The increase was evident in both boys and girls 
• The likelihood of a probable mental disorder increased with age with a noticeable difference in gender for the older age group (17 to 22 years); 27.2% of young women and 13.3% of young men were identified as having a probable mental disorder
•  Among those aged 5 to 22 years, 58.9% with a probable mental disorder reported having sleep problems. Young people aged 17 to 22 years with a probable mental disorder were more likely to report sleep problems (69.6%), than those aged 11 to 16 (50.5%) and 5 to 10 (52.5%)
• Children and young people with a probable mental disorder were more likely to say that lockdown had made their life worse (54.1% of 11 to 16 year olds, and 59.0% of 17 to 22 year olds), than those unlikely to have a mental disorder (39.2% and 37.3% respectively)  
• About six in ten (62.6%) children aged 5 to 16 years with a probable mental disorder had regular support from their school or college, compared with 76.4% of children unlikely to have a mental disorder 

Read the report here:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2020-wave-1-follow-up

I was thrilled to be invited to the school and to be given an opportunity to support their students. I firmly believe that Mindfulness can be a great support to people of every age and that the earlier we start it the better. Mindfulness techniques can be used  both proactively and responsively and I wanted to be able to give these young people some techniques that they could use in any situation, at any time , without drawing attention to themselves.

Mindfulness Techniques

Stress is a given, but being stressed-out is optional. We all face stress-inducing moments throughout our day, whether it’s a presentation at work, an important match/performance, an interview or an exam. Stress is a normal reaction in the body that creates the necessary nervous system activation to handle a challenging task. It becomes a problem when we never allow that stress to be discharged (either through exercise, or relaxation techniques.) With Mindfulness, we come to understand that no emotion lasts forever. 

Here are some Mindfulness techniques that you can use, wherever you are, to help with challenging situations, and as a proactive way to look after your wellbeing. We can use these to stop the stress process, to interrupt a negative thought pattern. 

Breath Awareness  Breath awareness is the most fundamental Mindfulness that we can do. It’s basic, it requires no special equipment and it can be done anywhere and at anytime. We are all breathing all of the time anyway, so all we are doing is bringing our awareness to it. We are using the breath as a distraction for the mind, giving it a ‘job to do’. This allows the mind to rest and refocus, and to then allow the emotions to subside. With this technique don’t change how you are breathing, just bring awareness to the breath, in your mind. As you breathe in say to yourself ‘breath in’ and as you breathe out say to yourself ‘breath out’. If the mind still wanders just keep bringing it back to the breathing. Mindfulness is like many other things, the more we do it the better we get. 

Square Breathing This differs slightly from the breath awareness as we now take charge of the breathing. 

• Breathe in and count; 1, 2, 3, 4. Focus on your breath as it fills your lungs.
• Hold that breath for 1, 2, 3, 4
• Breathe out for 1, 2, 3, 4
• Hold for 1, 2, 3, 4

 And repeat. (repeat as many times as you feel you need to). To help to focus on this you could draw squares on a piece of paper or in your mind. Draw one side to represent the in breath, one as you hold that breath, the next on the out-breath and the final side on the hold . 

Feel your pulse Again, this can be done as a thought interruption technique, a circuit breaker. Use your fore finger and middle finger from one hand and on the inner wrist of the other hand find your pulse and bring your awareness to your pulse, maybe saying to yourself ‘that’s my pulse’. Count the beats and bring the awareness to the pulse until you can feel it slow down. The rhythm of the pulse is also very calming.

Counting Down From 5 If you find a bit of anxiety trying to rear it’s head; us this technique to ground yourself. This is a simple exercise that can be done anywhere. 

• What 5 things can you see? Count off 5 things that you can see, they don’t have to be major things, a chair, a light switch, a book; count them down on your hand.
• What 4  things can you hear? Listen for 4 different sounds around you and count them off one by one.
• What 3  things can you smell? Maybe a bit more random but if you struggle with this smell your palm, open a drawer, pop your head out of the window.
• What 2  things can you touch? What 2 things in your surroundings can you reach out and touch? Focus on one and then the other.
• Take 1  big deep breath, focus on filling your lungs and feeling calm.

Repeat if necessary.