Really? Helps Kids Focus, Concentrate, and Respond Better to Stress

In the sixth grade, my Health instructor invited a couple of police officers affiliated with the local Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program to our class. They came dressed in their full uniforms and sat down and asked us to close our eyes. Then they walked us through an exercise where we breathed in for several seconds, paused, and then breathed out for twice as long. As we breathed out, they invited us to let go of our anxieties or worries.

I love the beautiful irony that while in other parts of the world, monks and elders were teaching children how to be more mindful, in Richmond, Kentucky, a couple of mid-career police officers were training us to breathe our way out of stress and anger. The truth is, that may have been the most useful 10 minutes of my entire educational career. I have since used that breathing practice with great benefit when I have experienced anxiety in high school, college, graduate school and the workplace.

All of which brings up an interesting question: in North America, where childhood , anxiety, depression, anger and stress levels have been rising for decades, what are we doing to teach our children how to concentrate, self-regulate or calm themselves in and out of the classroom?

A simple instaGrok search on “” reveals that more and more school systems are teaching children meditation techniques. In the process, the schools are discovering what the monks up in the have known for a couple of thousand years: meditation is really good for all of us, even for young children.

So, what is meditation anyway? Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the verb to meditate as: 1 : to engage in contemplation or reflection 2 : to engage in mental exercise (as concentration on one’s breathing or repetition of a mantra) for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness

While various meditative and contemplative practices developed in all of the major religions, including , and , a secular, non-religious version is beginning to be taught in schools throughout North America.

Schools are teaching meditation

Walk into Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco on any given day and you will find at the beginning and end of the school day.During that time, the majority of students choose to practice .

Meanwhile, in Madison, Wisconsin, that researchers say will hard-wire their brains to focus more. And Vancouver elementary schools have a program called where students practice everything from mindfully observing objects in a classroom to practicing breath work. A thousand teachers have trained with the program at the Vancouver school board.

Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  and Canada are incorporating meditation and mindfulness practices into their curriculums.

So, what is the actual impact of all this meditating?

Visitacion Valley Middle School is located in a particularly violent part of San Francisco. Most of the students are related to someone who has shot another person, been shot or seen a shooting. According to an article in the from May of 2011, the principal and school staff at Visitacion Valley Middle school credit their Quiet Time program with reducing violence, increasing attendance and test scores and dramatically decreasing suspensions. One student was quoted as saying that meditating takes away his anger.

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson told the that simple meditation techniques backed up with modern science can help children hard-wire themselves to pay better attention and be kinder.

Meanwhile, the that in a study from the Department of Psychology at UNC Charlotte, psychologists found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills. After only four days of training for 20 minutes a day, they performed significantly higher in cognitive tests than a control group. More recently, the Science Daily reported on a .

Getting Started:

If you’re serious about getting meditation started in your school, check out from Edutopia.

In the meantime, here are a few simple practices that Neuroscientist Richard Davidson described in his interview with the

1. Breathing practice. Students lie down with a . They focus on their breathing as the stone goes up and down. They can do this for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. Potential Benefits: It may help students pay attention and improve their studying abilities. Age group: Students as young as 4 years old can do this.

2. Kindness Practice. Ask students to visualize a . Then ask them to follow that up with a thought that their loved one be relieved of suffering. Age group: Teenagers Potential Benefits: More capacity for kindness

About the author: Lucy Flood is a writer, environmental journalist, and a practitioner of meditation for nearly 20 years.