Mindfulness is fast becoming the world’s favourite pathway to inner peace and high achievement. It’s meant to benefit adults and children alike. Mindfulness posters and centres have mushroomed in and around Wimbledon town centre and Merton. So what I wanted to know was how much the practice could relax anxious children, and whether Private Tuition in SW19 could accommodate it.
Since I offer Employment Services through this site, I also researched the impact of Mindfulness in the world of work. Contact Me
Mindfulnes at Work
“ … ‘Mindfulness’ is now climbing up the agenda in organisations worried about the effect of endless change on the wellbeing of employees.“ So says the Institute for Employment Studies, in a major report published in November 2016. http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/resource/mindfulness-organisations
- The use of Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) is growing in many business sectors. Commercial providers claim it boosts employees with resilience, wellbeing, creative problem-solving. MBIs also enhances individual performance through more ‘mindful behaviours’.
- IES case studies include Google, TfL, Blue Bay Asset Management, a Global Professional Services firm – and the US Military. These organizations all sought different benefits: Stress Reduction, Employee Wellbeing, Peak Performance and (Google of course!) Brain Work Outs. Results and findings were all in favour.
Now, in a real shocker of a research project with big implications for medicine, 244 patients with unmanageable pain at the University Hospital in Utah revealed that a 15 minute Mindfulness session had given the same relief as a dose of powerful opioid painkiller Oxycodone.
How? Why?
Mindfulness training teaches people to focus on the moment. You feel youself breathe, and then “label” the sensations you experience. It is now used in therapy, as well as in medicine. Mindfulness practices were inspired mainly by teachings from the Eastern World, particularly from Buddhist traditions. In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme at the University of Massachusetts to treat the chronically ill. It shares much common ground with Yoga.
Living in the moment – Mindfulness is for children too, practitioners say .
What About Mindfulness for Children?
Let’s be practical. Mindfulness isn’t magic, and not all youngsters will engage with daily sessions. Still; cutting out distraction, feeling calm and controlled, eliminating negativity – they all work towards better marks in a Maths test. Sensation awareness can only improve the quality of creative writing. And most importantly, children under stress have a tool to help them deal with life.
According to Katherine Weare, Emeritus Professor at the Universities of Exeter and Southampton Mood Disorder Centre, two minutes can be enough. “Inviting students to stop what they are doing, close their eyes and recognise what is happening in their mind and body. Right now. Then focus on the breath and really feel a sense of contact with the floor. It can take just two minutes, but once done, students are often ready to carry on in a much calmer way.”