Hey Blog, we are back for the final week of implementing a new mindfulness technique into my daily routine! My search this week into my new mindful habit stemmed from noticing a positive shift in my physical and emotional well-being post physical health education class since the start of the semester. After the class ends and we have spent around an hour warming up, exercising, and properly cooling down, I always notice my mind feels clearer and more focused and my body feels a sense of calm while also being reenergized! It was this feeling that led me to investigate mindful movement strategies!
What is Mindful Movement:
According to Mindful.org, mindful movement targets the same goals as other mindfulness practices. The goal being, to bring one’s attention to the present moment they are experiencing, bringing awareness to only the way the body feels through the movements. Any type of movement can be transformed into a mindfulness practice by simply tuning into how the body feels and being fully attentive to the movements throughout the exercise practice.
Why Mindful Movement?
Like other mindfulness strategies, mindful movement offers both physical and emotional benefits! The physical benefits of yoga and walking are well studied and known, so for this section I will be focusing on the emotional benefits of mindful movement.
Benefits of yoga from Harvard Health Publishing:
- Reduces anxiety and depression symptoms
- Enhances cognitive skills and strengthens brain structure (learning, memory, reasoning, decision-making, information processing)
- Improves mood and mental well-being
- Regulates emotional reactivity (balances stress response)
Benefits of mindful walking from Positive Psychology:
- Boosts mood
- Reduces depression, anxiety, and brooding
- Reduces physical stress
- Increased quality of life
Another big benefit as described by Mindful.org is that mindful movement practices offer an easy access point for those who have a tough time sitting still. Many of the other techniques I have researched focus on settling down rather than waking the body up and this offers an entry point for to mindfulness for those of us that have busy bodies!
My Mindful Movement Routine:
For my mindful movement routine, I choose to implement two different strategies. My first technique was implementing mindful walking into my mornings. On the days where I did not have class or work until the afternoons, I choose a mindful walking practice since I was able to capitalize on the quickly receding daylight. On the days where I had early morning classes and could not capitalize on the current daylight, I implemented a morning yoga session. To get the most out of my mindful movement sessions I followed Mindful.org’s eight tips for success:
- Pause and identify your purpose: find your goal for the movement practice and use it to boost your motivation and recenter your attention.
- Unplug from distractions: to be fully present through the practice distractions must be mitigated (music, podcasts, conversations, reading, TV watching).
- Notice body sensations: bring awareness to physical cues from the body, identifying areas of strength, weakness, and new sensations.
- Use the breath: an anchor for the practice can simply be the breath and noticing is changes through the movement, when the mind wanders bring attention back to the breath and use it to adapt the practice. If the breath’s tempo increasing, slow down the practice, if the breath’s tempo is decreasing, challenge yourself and work harder.
- Use different anchors: can switch from focusing attention on the breath to focusing the attention on specific movements to center your attention.
- Use your surroundings: use open awareness to maintain focus on the present moment by noticing the surroundings of where you are mindfully moving.
- Accept the challenge: accepting the challenge of the movement and do not try to change the present moment, commit to the practice and stay focused on the here and now.
- Practice kindness: try to remain accepting by embracing your current abilities and thank yourself for committing to show up for your body and mind.
After each of my walking and yoga sessions my body and mind felt awakened. Sometimes I wanted to hit snooze on the alarm for the early morning yoga sessions but after a few days of reflecting on how much my days were jumping off on the right foot, it became easier to be more motivated for my next session. My walks have been more different than ever before. Rather than rushing to reach my destination, and instead of using my walks to call friend and family or to catch up on new podcast episodes, I brought my awareness to my surroundings and my body. A huge positive influence in my life has always been movement but since the start of the semester I have fallen out of my regular exercise practices. Reflecting on how this week went, I can tell the mindful movement positively benefited both my emotional and physical health. My feelings felt lighter, mood brighter, attention centered, and body more awakened. This is certainly a practice I will be keeping up with for my own benefit! If you’d like to try the one of the yoga sessions I implemented, see the video below:
Mindful Movement in the Classroom:
For researching strategies to incorporate mindful movement into the classroom I found Waterford.org which had heaps of mindful movement strategies, below I have suggested a few of my favorites:
- 5 senses nature walk: walk while discussing and encouraging students to focus and identify their five senses to bring awareness to the body (see template below).
- Yoga: I recommend checking out Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube as they have piles of resources
- Rainbow Walk: go for a walk outside and ask students to find items outside reflecting the colors of the rainbow (jot down instead of collecting) bringing awareness to the present surroundings.
- Freeze dance mindfulness: regular freeze dance but switch the music to vary dancing speeds, when the music stops students freeze, and we can ask them to reflect on how their body is feeling, bringing mindful awareness to their body cues.
This is my favorite strategy of all so far! Kids spend so much time sitting in their desks and integrating mindful movement activities or brain breaks will be a staple practice in my future classroom. My favorite techniques to implement mindful movement into the class are the ones where kids get to engage in outdoor activities. Any outside activity can be mindfully based by giving students a task to focus on that grounds them in the present moment and by providing the right prompts to get students to think mindfully!
jennaabbey
October 27, 2024 — 1:58 pm
Ryley, I love that you are not only researching the benefits of mindful moving, but you are also implementing it into your daily routine! Your dedication is admirable, and I love your idea’s for implementing this in the classroom. The watchful walk activity seems like a very engaging idea for students to regulate and ground themselves!