Category Archives: Mindfulness Activities

Mindful Breathing Instructions Now Available

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I have had a number of requests for a concise description of how to practice mindfulness of breathing, the basic mindfulness practice that I do with students every time I give a class so I have added it to my website and you can access it here and read in this post below.  This practice is great for kids, teens, and adults and is something I do every day as well.  You can start with just a few minutes a day and see benefit.  Increased practice does lead to increased benefit.  For adults, 20 minutes a day is a good initial target to shoot for.  Indeed, this type of technique is the basic practice of many contemplative traditions as well as for medical applications (e.g.,  pain management, the treatment of stress, depression and ADD/ADHD), work productivity, and sports performance.  Give it a try yourself and notice how you feel afterwards.

Mindful Breathing Practice

Practicing mindful breathing helps us get better at all the techniques of mindfulness.  It is a great practice to do every day for a few minutes.  The more you do it, the better you will get at it.  It is similar to learning a physical skill such as running, bicycling, or sports: repetition improves your skill, strength, and stamina. In the case of mindfulness practice, things like your ability to stay focused, be present, and notice more of what goes on around you and inside you is what will increase the more often you do it.  In addition, you can use mindful breathing (and other mindfulness techniques) to calm down and relax such as when you are stressed, to help you go to sleep at night, or to help focus better for things like work, tests, sports, or homework.

Mindful Breathing Technique

  1. Decide how much time you will be practicing for today.  Two to five minutes is a good place to start.
  2. Put your Mindful Body on by finding a quiet place and sitting in a chair or cross-legged on the floor.   Sit up straight and put your hands on your thighs.  Imagine the top of your head is hanging from a string attached to the ceiling.
  3. Let your eyes close or, if it’s more comfortable, look gently downward in front of you.
  4. If you have a bell, ring it and listen to the sound.  When you can’t hear the sound anymore, raise your hand.
  5. Place your hand on your anchor spot, the place where you can feel your breath – your chest, your belly, maybe even your mouth.
  6. Feel the air going in and out.  Focus on that feeling.  If a sound or a thought comes up, notice it and gently return to the breath.  Try not to get involved in the distraction, try not to decide whether it was good or bad, just notice it.  Thoughts are normal, your job while practicing is just to notice that you’re thinking but not dwell on or judge them.  Often the thought will disappear on its own just by your act of noticing it.
  7. You can try saying “breathing in, breathing out” to yourself as a reminder if you get distracted.
  8. If you have a lot of thoughts or thoughts that keep replaying, try imagining placing the thought in a bubble and letting it float away, or imagine the thought is floating along in a stream and you are watching it go by.
  9. Be like a scientist or an artist: try to stay interested, engaged and curious.  Notice as many details in your breathing as you can.  Remember to breathe normally.
  10.  At the end of the time, ring the bell again and open your eyes.  If you don’t have a bell, just open your eyes.  Notice how you feel.

Ways to practice mindfulness of the breath can be found in many contemplative traditions, and, increasingly, in a variety of medical and educational applications.  As long as we are alive we are breathing so we will always have breath available to focus on.  It is always changing and we can always find more details in how our bodies feel and what our minds are up to while we are breathing so it is a rich environment in which to practice.  Finally, by focusing on the breath itself, it helps to ground us in something real and physical, calming racing thoughts, slowing the heart beat, and bringing equilibrium back to our body, mind and emotions.

 

Mind Jars

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Today in our mindfulness classes I showed the kids a Mind Jar.  This mindfulness tool is basically a homemade snow globe, using glitter glue and water.

Shake the Mind Jar.  Imagine the swirling glitter as the swirling thoughts in your mind.

The Mind Jar

Then watch the glitter slowly settle as you calm down and focus.

The Thoughts Settle

When the glitter settles at the bottom of the jar, the water is clear, like the clarity in our minds.  Now we are calm and can focus again.

The Mind is Clear

Mindfulness techniques can be used to help you calm down and focus: try mindful breathing, mindful listening, or simply mindfully looking at the glitter settling to the bottom of the jar.

The swirling thoughts can also represent the way our brain can feel when the amygdala has been triggered by stress or anger (take a look at the post, Your Brain on Mindfulness).  Watching the glitter settle can help us create the space needed for our rational mind (e.g., the prefrontal cortex) to start working better again.

To make a Mind Jar – add 2 cups of hot water to about 2 tablespoons glitter glue in a pint-sized mason jar.  Add an extra tablespoon or two of regular fine glitter.  Shake until the glue is dissolved and there are no glitter clumps.  Add food coloring if desired or leave it clear.  I used a pint sized mason jar but peanut butter, jam jars or other containers work well too.  You can also play around with the proportion of glitter glue to water if you’d like the glitter to settle more or less slowly.  Alternatively, you can make a small mind jar using a spice jar.

I have seen the mind jar described on a number of sites on the web and made my recipe using some of these ideas:

http://www.herewearetogether.com/2011/06/27/another-mind-jar/

http://brainchildblog.com/family-tip-friday-settle-your-glitter/

 

The Experience of Gratitude

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by Janine Bloomfield, Ph.D.

As parents, we try to remind our children to be grateful for what they have but it can sometimes be a hard sell.  Applying mindfulness to gratitude can help change the experience from one of ‘shoulds’ as in ‘I should feel grateful for what I have’ into a more direct experience of satisfaction and happiness.  By taking out the judgment aspect from our experience and simply noticing it we can more clearly feel the genuine happiness that comes from having good things in our lives.

Here is a way  to experience gratitude with your family more directly, through mindfulness.

  1. Categories.  Think about different categories that one can be grateful for. For example, people, things in nature, food, shelter, and little things.
  2. Examples. Make a list of examples from each category. Family members, friends, pets, sunshine, water, our teachers and even a smile are often mentioned.
  3. Visualize.  Now, take a minute to experience what gratefulness feels like by imagining something you or your child feel grateful for right now, in this very moment.  It is OK to share what you are feeling grateful for if you want to but it is not necessary.   Be sure to use all five senses to not only see but hear, touch, smell and feel the thing you are feeling grateful for.
  4. Mindfulness.   Close your eyes and sit with the image for at least a minute using the technique of mindfulness.  If thoughts, emotions, or distractions arise in your mind, observe them without judgment and then return to the focus on the visualization.  Try to notice any feelings that may arise in your body as you sit.
  5. Reflect. Sometimes we are able to feel a tingling, floating feeling or even warmth in our bodies in general or heart specifically.  If you or your child feel suddenly happy or just have to smile, notice it.  This can be a great motivator to remember to practice gratitude mindfulness again.
  6. Science.  There is physiological evidence that when we feel grateful, we literally feel better in our bodies due to release of neurochemicals including dopamine that mediate feelings of relaxation and happiness.  Our heart rate slows, blood pressure lowers and we just feel happy.   Dr Robert Emmons at the University of California, Davis is a leader in the fairly new field of positive psychology and a prominent researcher of the benefits of gratitude.  In studies, making a daily list or keeping a gratitude journal has been shown to lead to higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy.  Check out the Gratitude Project put together by the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center for lots more information on the benefits of gratitude as well as active research and education initiatives.

Experiencing gratitude is another tool we can use to give ourselves a little boost in the midst of all our collective craziness.  Try mindfully experiencing gratitude with your child, it’s a simple way to bring a smile to a busy day.

Some material for this activity has been adapted from the MindUp and Mindful Schools curricula.