The Resilience Project

Dear Parents,

During our CARE groups the students have been focusing on Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is our ability to be calm and present at any given moment. We practise this by slowing down and concentrating on one thing at a time.

Mindfulness

When you run really, really fast, everything around you becomes a blur. But when you slow down, you can suddenly see everything more clearly. This is what happens when we practice mindfulness — we’re giving our brains the chance to slow down and take in what’s going on around us.

Evidence

Sometimes when there is so much going on, it can make our heads spin! We can feel sad or nervous or frustrated and not know how to make those feelings go away.

But something special happens when you shift your focus away from those feelings and start to pay attention to what your body is doing instead. If you ask yourself, ‘What can I see around me?’ ‘What can I smell?’ ‘What can I hear?’ By doing this, you’re giving your brain the chance to calm down and relax. Those thoughts that were making your head spin earlier will start to get quieter.

Doing this every day can help you stay focused on tasks, do better at school and be an overall happier person because your brain isn’t so cluttered and blurry.

The Wellbeing Team

Fiona Arthur and Vicky Soldatos