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).

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation can actually be combined to be called as “Mindfulness Meditation”. It is a mental training that you can practice every day. The aim of this is to bring you in a state of awareness where you let go of the unwanted thoughts and just focus yourself on what you are currently doing. It helps slow down your racing thoughts by letting go of the negativity and focus on your mind and body. Mindfulness techniques varies but almost all involves breathing practice and awareness of body and mind.

The practice of mindfulness meditation actually gives us an opportunity to become more present with ourselves. We focus on the present and we let go of the wary past and the uncertain future. We are able to have a glimpse of our wisdom through meditating and we are also taught on how to stop perpetuating the unnecessary suffering that was a result of us trying to escape from the discomfort and pain we felt by experiencing living.

Guided Meditation

I bet you are curious, out of the many types of meditation, about guided meditation. What is unique in this that can’t be achieved through practicing the other types of meditation?

Guided meditation may just be another type of meditation, but it somehow requires you to be led especially when it is your first time to try it. Guided meditation is a process by which the participants meditate through the guidance provided by a trained person or a teacher. This can be done via sound recording, videos or through the use of audiovisual media where the music or verbal instructions is incorporated.

Where to Experience Guided Meditation

Internet

Since a lot of people are at home and are consistently worrying due to the coronavirus, many websites and applications now offer guided meditation services. This is helpful especially if you are having anxiety attacks and would want for your mind to momentarily drift away from your worries. It is also easily accessible at your fingertips.

Local Meditation Classes

Try looking for available meditation classes in your area. There are many meditation classes done online nowadays. You just need to pay for a minimal fee. What’s a little expense if it can ease your mind and body? Just choose which instructor you think will best guide you in meditating as each one of them has their own different styles that they use to teach their students.

Benefits of Guided Meditation

1. Guided meditation improves your overall cognitive abilities and helps you to focus more. You will also notice that you are able to concentrate more, develop your skills quicker and increase your memory powers.

2. It also gives you a magical experience through guided meditation where your mind goes through a journey that is not stressful and you will enjoy more.

3. Guided meditation helps clear your mind of your worrisome thoughts and feelings. Hence, you will have a clearer mind and be able to declutter whatever it is that might be causing the anxiousness that you feel.

4. Guided meditation was also found to be helpful in improving the mental well-being for people who are suffering from depression, anxiety and other mental disorders. It has an ability to slow down the brain waves of the brain, lessening the stressors that triggers the hyperactivity of the brain causing anxiety attacks.

5. Meditation, as a form of relaxation, allows your body to rest and restore the balance in it.

6. There are also remarkable researches which shows that guided meditation improves sleep quality of people who are having sleeping difficulties. Meditation helps quiet your thoughts which is a good way of having a good night sleep.

7. Meditation was also found to decrease the inflammatory processes at the cellular level by neutralizing acidosis and lessening the pain that one is experiencing.

8. Meditation, as a relaxation technique, is able to modestly lower the blood pressure. The reduction of stress has been significant in lowering the systolic and diastolic blood pressure of people who are known to be suffering from hypertension.

9. Guided meditation also stimulates the right side of the brain, improving the visualization skills of a person. It also strengthens the connection between the right and left side of the brain as it works together.

10. Lastly, Meditation was proven to improve the physical health of a person by decreasing the metabolism and improving the heart rate, breathing and brain waves of a person. The release of the muscular tension also relaxes the body.

How to do Guided Meditation?

If you are not a fan of phone applications or group classes, you may try to meditate on your own by watching or listening to guided meditation videos that you can find online. Here’s what you should prepare and do during guided meditation:

• Remove all the possible distractions by turning of your phone, television or anything that might possibly let your mind drift away.
• Find a comfortable place where you can sit or lie down. Some may prefer to sit on the bed (just make sure that you are not going to sleep!).
• Close your eyes and breathe naturally. Take some time on breathing and let the guide take it from there.
• Allow the guide to bring you to a state of meditation. Focus on what you are feeling throughout the whole process.

Let us know what if you were able to try Guided Meditation! Is it good?