Benefits of Being Mindful During Exercise

You’ll have a stronger mind and body connection. As you focus on your exercise, your muscle works with your mind. Workouts or exercises brings a better outcome when you are being conscious of the workout that you are doing. Being mindful during an exercise gets more out of each exercise and workout making your body and mind stronger.

You’ll have better workout or exercise outcomes. Whenever you focus on a task given to you, you tend to have much better output, right? It is the same with working out or exercising. As you focus more on each muscles and the quality of movement, you get the most out of each movement bringing you a great quality exercise.

You’ll be even more satisfied with your mind and body. We workout and exercise because we want to be healthy and fit. Adding mindfulness to your daily exercise is just an add-on. A good workout and exercise satisfies not only your body muscles but your mind as well.

How To Be More Mindful During Exercise

1. Know your purpose for your Workout

Most people workout or exercise mainly because they want to shed some weight. But let’s be real, no one will immediately burn a lot of calories from just working out once. If you have a goal or purpose on working out, you’ll have something to look forward to or expect at the end of the sessions. Achieving these goals will definitely make you feel better and confident about yourself. Here are some examples of your workout purpose:

• To finish a cycle of workout
• To strengthen some body muscles which you think needs improvement
• To challenge yourself and achieve greater goals
• To work out on a certain period of time and to burn a specific number of calories
• To focus on a specific area of fitness such as endurance, cardio and others.

2. Keep in mind the reason why you are started the Workout

There is no rush in achieving your dream weight or body. Everything takes time and you must take your time exercising by keeping yourself focused on your goals. Always remember why started the plans and stick to it until you have reached a milestone. Pat yourself on the back after a good workout session. Don’t forget to reflect why you exercise and how the workouts and exercises will help you. Here are some examples:

• Workouts in the morning will help me get through the day with a much better energy
• It really feels fulfilling finishing a workout session
• I’ll have a better sleep if I exercise during the day
• My body deserves better and so I will keep exercising
• Workouts and exercises relieves my stress

3. Take your Time, No Rush

Remember that workouts work better when you are focused on what you are doing and the muscles that you are targeting. Take each step, exercise and movement with such caution and focus. Focus on your form, posture and holding your core muscles. Enjoy the feeling of your muscles contraction and just enjoy the sweats and pain that comes out from it.

4. Breathe

Breathing is not only essential in mindfulness but also when working out. As you work out, you need more air to fill in your lungs to be able to do the next movements. If you are on a few minutes quick rest in between workouts, you may try mindful breathing by closing your eyes and feel each breath. You’ll see how good it can clear your mind and brings your focus back on whatever you are doing.

Mindfulness Benefits for Kids

Many schools have incorporated mindfulness in their teaching strategies as many studies support this. The positive impact on mindfulness in classroom are the following:

• Mindfulness helps student’s attention and focus leading to improvement in their grades and school performance.
• It leads to a more effective emotion regulation and better behavior in school.
• Frequent mindfulness practice also improves one’s health by lowering down blood pressure protecting the heart.
• Mindfulness affects communication and listening skills of students, improving it as they practice it regularly.
• Many studies reported that being in a state of mindfulness can decrease the stress, anxiety and depression of a person. It greatly improves a person’s mental health.
• Research suggests that mindfulness was proven to improve cognitive performance of students at school as evidenced by their exam results.
• It also increases their self-awareness and self-regulation as mindfulness promotes focusing on the present moment.
• Enhances memory and concentration and reduces mind-wandering or daydreaming.
• It mitigates or reduces symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder for children who suffers from it.

Mindfulness at School

Mindfulness education’s goal is not only to improve the student’s academic performance but also teach students to be more empathic, increase self-awareness, learn techniques on how to calm and focus the mind, improve communication skills and application of mindfulness to everyday life.

In order for it to be effective, mindfulness programs at school should ensure that the support comes from the top-down management with teachers and staffs willing to be trained by professional instructors. Also, teachers should show their full support for the program to better encourage students to participate in the activities. The parents have a great role too, as they can incorporate the teachings from school at home to improve their relationship with their children and achieve their own state of mindfulness too.

The participation of the students is a must for the mindfulness program to become successful. The exercises and lessons should be flexible and should utilize the resources available at school or inside the classroom.

Mindful Activities

Mindful Breathing

This activity is one of the most classic forms of mindfulness. It can be done almost everywhere. Mindful breathing brings a calming effect to the person practicing it. It is a good activity for students at school as they deserve to have a break too. Here’s how you should implement the activity:

• Ask the students to sit down on their chair for this activity.
• Let them put their hands on their belly.
• Ask them to slowly close their eyes and bring their focus to you by telling them to block other noises and focus on your instructions.
• Guide them in taking 3 slow deep breaths in and out and let them feel appreciate the sensation in their body.
• You may count from 1-3 for each breath and another for breathing out, pausing a little at the end for each exhale.
• Encourage them to think about what they are currently feeling and ask them questions that they could answer in their mind like:
  • Did you feel your hands moving?
  • How was the feeling of your lungs being filled with air?
  • Does the air feel a little bit colder on its way and a little warmer upon breathing out?
  • Did you hear your breathing? What does it sound like?
• Give them take a few second to answer these questions and focus on the activity.

Mindful Steps

This activity requires you and the students to go outdoors like in the field where there is enough space for everyone. The students have an option of whether they want to go barefoot or not.

• Assign the students at least 2 arm’s length apart to give them enough space to move around and lessen the chances that they might bump with each other.
• Begin the activity by doing a few mindfulness breathing exercises just to prepare them for the incoming activity.
• Let them take at least 5 to 6 steps in one direction, turn slowly then take another 5 to 6 steps to the area where you started.
• While walking, guide the students and bring them to a sense of awareness by asking these questions:
  • What does it feel to walk on the ground?
  • Which part of your foot touched the ground first after you took a step?
  • Did your body feel light or heavy while walking?
  • Did you slouch while you walk?
  • Were you able to maintain your posture while walking?
• Give them a few minutes to walk around on their own for them to enjoy the mindful experience.

Mindfulness Benefits for Kids

Numerous studies have shown how beneficial mindfulness is, not only with adults but for kids too. Listed below are the benefits that your child will get from practicing mindfulness:

Stress Reduction

Adults are not the only one that gets stressed – kids do too! Mindfulness has the ability of shifting your child’s focus from one thing to another. Mindfulness can remove the present worries of your child at home or at school and bring their focus on practicing mindfulness. It redirects and trains them on how their minds should react during unexpected situations.

Emotional Regulation

Children are very expressive of their emotions and they have no problems doing it so. A study that focused on the different attention and behavioral issues found out that mindfulness is an effective therapy for kids who are known to have these issues. Aside from that, mindfulness help train them to focus their mind and reduces the anxiety that they are feeling. Lastly, mindfulness can regulate the different emotions that they experience making them understand these emotions.

Cognitive Improvement

Children continuously develops as time goes by. They learn a new set of skills on each step that allows them to focus on the tasks given by following the instructions or directions set. This set of skill is a must especially when they start schooling. They will be able to adapt at school and learn without any problems. Mindfulness has the ability to better improve these set of skills leading to a better adaptability when at school.

Strengthens Self–Control

Children often do tantrums whenever they did not get what they want or as a form of expressing their disappointments. One of mindfulness’ focus is on a person’s attention on their body and feelings – including their emotions. Mindfulness, when practiced by a child, not only shifts their attention but it also helps control their body and themselves too.

Improves Mood

Accepting the present moment is a vital part of mindfulness meditation. During this time, one should accept the emotions and experiences while meditating. This teaches your child to accept the pleasant and unpleasant emotions and eventually makes their emotional health good.

Good Social and Communication Skills

Kids are social beings. They can’t stop talking and playing with each other. Mindfulness improves their social and communication skills even at a young age. It increases their awareness of their emotions and other’s too. They are going to be good listeners and talker when they grow up, indeed!

Mindfulness Games for Children

1. Mindful Posing

Kids are very observant and often times mimic whatever the adult is doing. Mindful posing will definitely make your kids excited as it involves doing fun poses that will make them feel strong, brave and happy. They wouldn’t realize that by doing this, they are already practicing mindfulness!

Bring your child/children on the part of the house that is somewhere quiet. Next, let them try one of the following poses:

• The Superman – let them stand up with their feet wider than their hips, fists clenched and arms up in the sky. Let them reach the sky and stretch their body as tall as possible.
• The Wonder Woman – are you familiar with wonder woman’s pose? Stand tall with legs wider than hip and place the hands on the hips.

If you are familiar with other poses, you can let them try it. Ask the kids how they feel afterwards, and you will be surprised by their answers.

2. Spidey-Sense

Superheroes is just one of the kid’s favorite topic! Doing something related to this will guarantee that your child will be interested and will have a lot of fun too!

Spidey- senses is done by instructing your child to turn on their senses such as the sense of smell, sight, hearing, taste and touch. Tell them that these are what spiderman used to know when someone needs help. This will make them focus on the activity and open their awareness on these bodily sensations. This is just one of the classic practices of mindfulness made fun for children to do!

3. The Mindful Jar

The mindful jar is a good activity to teach your children how emotions (strong ones) can overwhelm a person and how to eventually find peace after.

First, prepare an empty jar, glitters and water for this activity. Then, fill the jar with water and put a big spoonful of glitter inside the jar. Close the lid and shake it to make the glitter swirl. Lastly, use the following script as a mini lesson:

“Imagine that the glitter is like your thoughts when you’re stressed, mad or upset. See how they whirl around and make it really hard to see clearly? That’s why it’s so easy to make silly decisions when you’re upset – because you’re not thinking clearly. Don’t worry this is normal and it happens in all of us (yep, grownups too).

(Now put the jar down in front of them.)

Now watch what happens when you’re still for a couple of moments. Keep watching. See how the glitter starts to settle and the water clears? Your mind works the same way. When you’re calm for a little while, your thoughts start to settle and you start to see things much clearer. Deep breaths during this calming process can help us settle when we feel a lot of emotions” (Karen Young, 2017).