I love this topic. How many of us do NOT take time out of our day to stop and be mindful? I know I sure don't but it sounds delicious. I believe we have been raised as a culture (and especially women) to think it is selfish to take time out to self-care but I have learned this is ridiculous! When I think about mindfulness, I think of being still, focusing on breathing, and attempting to clear things that auto-jump into my brain. I also like to think about how some monks meditate - to the sound of a bell/gong. I am going to attempt to insert more of this into my daily routine next week. Thank you!

Hi Kari! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on mindfulness. Love your examples of what comes to mind when you think of it, which can vary a little for each of us but ultimately leads to activating those other areas of our brain we don't usually tap into.

You're so right, we're a culture that doesn't value slowing down, and I often have to process with my clients on why they feel guilty, ashamed or unproductive if they take time for themselves. The irony with the latter is that research shows we're more productive when we engage in mindful exercises (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5836057/).

I'm so glad you brought this up because not only do many of us fail to make time to be mindful and care for ourselves, we have so many underlying and often subconscious negative emotional messages about it that we don't face. This then causes a cycle of feeling stuck but not taking action.

Made my day to know you'll be implementing mindfulness into your daily routine. Feel free to share your experience if you'd like.

Thanks!
Patty

Welcome to week 2, where we'll focus on the effectiveness of mindfulness, consider how it impacts our teaching and also apply mindfulness techniques to address holiday stress. 

Although it appears to be a magical concept, science substantiates why mindfulness works. Studies show that spending a few minutes daily investing in mindfulness practices causes us to more objectively view our circumstances. It pulls us out of our preconceived ideas and memories of how things should unfold, and instead causes us to assess situations in a more neutral way. Further, mindfulness moves us away from the ongoing monologue in our minds, leading us to be more attentive to others.

Mindfulness is quite powerful in the way it impacts our bodies' responsiveness to stress as well. Our heart rate increases in certain situations because we know that we've faced something difficult in this context before. When we are able to retrain our bodies and replace fear-based reactions with calm and a sense of safety, our day to day cumulative stress reactions will decrease.

So how this significant in the teaching context? To put this into practice throughout the week, I'd like you to reflect on how you approach the start of a class, including preconceived ideas about the teaching environment. Is there a lot of excitement but also a moderate amount of anxiety related to how the class will go, how you might balance it with other responsibilities or current stressors in your life, or what class dynamics may complicate learning? How can existing ideas about teaching impact the way you teach going forward?

Here is a brief article that discusses the effectiveness of mindfulness: https://insight-international.org/why-is-mindfulness-effective/

I'm also including this link with instructions on how you can begin to apply mindfulness practices in your life through breathing exercises: https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/uz2255

Let me know how your journey with mindfulness is going and what your thoughts are relating to mindfulness and teaching.

By the way, I promised I'd include some tips on mindfulness for the holidays. The next time you're at the mall, I'd like you to notice all the sights, sounds and smells around you. See the excited children skipping alongside their parents. Take in the smells of food, perfume, even new clothes. Hear sounds of laughter, banter and even maybe a few arguments. Let us know how this changes your experience of visiting the mall.

Have a great week. And remember to breathe. :)
Patty

This is a great discussion on a very important topic! Taking time to stop and smell the roses is certainly an important way to practice mindfulness, but I think the goal is to be mindful all the time. Whatever we're doing, we can bring our full attention to it. Teaching is a great opportunity to be mindful because we're visible to the class and everything we say and do communicates volumes. An exercise at the start of class could be to ask everyone to come into silence and just notice what's going on for them. Are the the students' minds busy or preoccupied? Any physical discomfort or emotional experience that makes it hard to be fully present? Acknowledging what's in the way and taking a few deep breaths can help bring everyone into the here and now and hopefully focus better on the class. 

Looks like I'm a bit late to the party, Patty.  Thanks for leading this discussion!

In your opening post you mentioned a number of items including regulating blood sugar.  Full transparency...I had a piece of cake before submitting this post, so I may not have been very mindful about dietary decisions this evening.  :)

For me personally, I tend to feel the most mindful when I'm out for a long run.  It clears my mind, and it's an excellent time for personal reflection.

Thanks for the link on breathing exercises...that's something I feel could really benefit me and I've been meaning to get in a routine using them for a while.

Vince

Hi, Patty, Vince, Mark, Kari, and future posters.

I appreciate this topic and each of your posts. 

When I trained to be a Waldorf teacher, I learned that teaching is our spiritual practice. 

Our students were not just part of our day to day work. They were reminders of our connection to God (to Christ). When we struggled with our students, our colleagues, or our work, we viewed that as an opportunity to grow in our relationship to Christ. Everything was viewed as an opportunity for prayer. In that, the day to day became a process of tiny steps toward constant mindfulness. 

Year of this practice has made mindfulness a habit. 

I see mindfulness as the silent internal process that encourages softness to replace the edges, encourages the heart to practice compassion even when it isn't convenient, and to encourages us to be increasingly better versions of ourselves even when nobody is watching.

Hi Folks!

First of all, thanks for the great topic! I try to incorporate mindfulness into my life constantly, throughout the day. For me it is about taking moments here and there to reflect and slow down.  I’m not sure how to incorporate it into my online classes. I’m also teaching ground, 9th and 10th grade algebra. I’m stopping the class and having them meditate when it gets loud. It helps me to center and they are enjoying the re-set as well. 

Anyone have thoughts on incorporating it into the online environment?

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for a well worth discussion - mindfulness.  It is a topic dear to me because every day I try to incorporate mindfulness in my day to day work. It is not easy when you get busy and immersed in projects.  One thing I have found that helps me get centered is doing Yoga and Tai Chi and I incorporate meditation.  When I am in a state of mindfulness, I am more effective and get to complete my tasks way much faster. I encourage my dissertation learners to practice some form of meditation and minfulness to help center their thoughts and assist them through their dissertation journey.  

Hi Patty, 

This may seem topic of the mindfulness discussion, but I will get there. That whole thing about only using a teeny tiny part of our brain is more urban legend than fact, though there are some theories that the small percentage of the brain we supposedly use (usually stated as 5 or 10%) came about through misquotes and outdated information.  One theory of how this myth came about is that a researcher stated that "We only know what 10% of our brain does" back in the days before we had fMRIs and all these other ways of investigating what the different parts of our brain do, and that has been warped over time into "We only use 10% of our brains."  Often the people who say that follow it up with claims that if we can only harness our brains, we can develop telepathy or telekinesis or other super powers.  While it gives people great hope of harnessing their great untapped potential, biologically it is just not true.  

We now know a lot more about what our brains do than we did in the past, and we are using 100% of our brains on a regular basis.  The brain does a lot of rewiring based on its own activity levels, so if a certain area of brain cells is not getting enough activity, those neurons will change their connections so that they can get activity again. For example, if someone has their left arm amputated, the neurons in the brain that are normally stimulated by tactile sensations to the arm will no longer be getting any stimulation from the missing arm. The neurologist Victor Ramachandran investigated phantom limb syndrome where people who had limbs amputated reported sensations coming from their phantom limb, and he discovered that the reason for this is that those sensory neurons that were previously processing tactile information from the missing limb ended up rewiring so that they started processing information from other areas of the body instead, such as the chin.  Thus, when these other areas of the body were stimulated, people would experience sensations coming from their missing limb.  

The body in general does not like to waste energy on feeding and maintaining cells that are not serving a necessary function, leading many to say that everything from muscle cells to bone tissue to brain cells operate on a "use it or lose it" basis.  If you do a lot of bodybuilding and then adopt a more sedentary lifestyle, the excessive amount of muscles needed to perform activities you no longer do will atrophy, and you will drop back down to a muscle mass appropriate to the activities you do.  A similar thing happens with bone mass, which is why bones tend to weaken with lack of activity or in lower gravity environments.  A similar thing happens with brain matter as well. In an extreme example from the animal kingdom, there's a critter called the sea squirt that starts its life as a tadpole-like creature with a simple brain and spinal cord that helps it move through the water in search of an ideal home to live the rest of its life.  Once it has found one, the sea squirt attaches itself permanently to that location, then digests its own brain and spinal column because it will never be needed again.  These are just a few examples of how neural tissue that is not active will either be repurposed or lost.  

However, I am not trying to say that there isn't any hope of improving the power of our minds: Just as a people can increase their strength, endurance and bone mass  through training, we can also develop our minds through training and practice, strengthening neural connections that deal with the skills and knowledge we use the most.  Every time you learn something new, or meditate, or continue to practice skills you already know, you are altering your brain cell activity and the connections between those cells in a process known as neuroplasticity.  Mindfulness can do things like weaken the neural connections between past memories and the emotions from those past memories so that people can remember things without getting wrapped up in the anxiety and other negative emotions from the past.  Practicing attention to the current moment strengthens your ability to pay attention to the current moment, making it easier to let go of those worries about the past or future.  The power of mindfulness is not that it allows you to harness unused parts of the brain. Rather that it gives you a powerful tool to alter the very way your brain works.

Patty, nice article on mindfulness. As I'm reading it I'm thinking over and over about 'living in the moment', that is, without the 'adornments' of past difficulties, or of worries of tomorrow, but, dealing with 'today's business, today'. This is not to say to 'remove the now' from the context of your past or your future, to view today as an opportunity to 'engage' in, and dealing with today, to the very best and fullest extent you can. 

/Rich Horne 

Hi Patty,

Thank you for discussing this relevant, powerful topic. Mindfulness to me is being present, listening to your body through breath and awareness. It is a practice, not a destination. I’ve learned that it is a style of living over a box to check. I practice mindfulness through yoga, which helps me understand a deeper connection between the three: mind, body and breath. The pace of culture is wildly fast.  I look forward to following the discussion as I continue a genuine practice of mindfulness in my personal and professional life. 

Take good care,

Brittanie Bondie 

Great article, Patty! 

Thank you for posting! I personally enjoy practicing mindfulness to help reduce the anxiety and emotional response to some of my traumatic childhood memories. Certain things that took place in my childhood have resulted (I believe) in frequent headaches as well as anxiety some mornings. Ever since reading Daniel Siegel's book Mindsight, I have practiced mindfulness to manage the remaining, unprocessed trauma. Although I have been walking with the Lord for nearly 30 years, there are still certain things that trigger bodily responses, so I practice mindfulness. I do it for at least 20 minutes, or until I can reduce my breathing down to 6 breaths per minute. It's amazing how many times my headaches or anxiety will dissipate. Thanks for sharing!

Alfonso

Thanks Patty. This is very insightful information about mindfulness.  Thank you Alfonso. I want to liik into that book on Mindsight. 

Elmay

Thank you for starting such a great discussion topic!

I have always tried to practice mindfulness, especially since it can help slow things down a bit when life seems to be spinning out of our control, but I recently took up yoga in an effort to help me become more effective at it. It is amazing how focusing on my breathing and coordinating my movements helps me to clear my mind and let go of many of the stressors that can overwhelm us in life. I know that it will take more practice over time, but I am trying to figure out ways I can use these techniques in other areas of my life, especially since it is how we react to the world around us that can help us maintain a healthy perspective throughout each day.

I'm so glad I clicked on this topic. In defining mindfulness, I first think of the opposite, which to me is clear - mindlessness. This term conjures images in my mind of one going about in a robotic state, functioning purely by rote without engaging mental faculties. Mindfulness is, therefore, the opposite. Reading related articles, I like what Pauline (2016) advises - to eschew rumination and focus on the experience. I can see the benefits of this approach in the classroom and in my life in general. It is a challenge to practice mindfulness, and I want to take up the challenge.

Thank you all on your wonderful feedback of what mindfulness means to you and how you have harnessed it or thought of doing so. It is quite powerful and as we've seen in the discussion, it can be utilized for so many reasons - needing to quiet ourselves from a (emotionally/mentally/work load/stressful relationships) noisy world, connecting to God, healing from trauma, engaging more wholly with the world and with our students and loved ones.

I love the suggestion of being silent in the classroom for a few moments and considering where we are in our mental and emotional state (particularly around test time), especially at the outset of class time. What a precedence we can set by starting with a sense of calm and focus.

Would anyone like to share about how you're staying mindful and grounded in the true reason for Christmas during this time?

I'd like to share another resource for those who are interested:

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, a book on meditation, the rationale for why it works and how it can be applied to address physical health problems and our perspective of illness.

Thank you all again for your thoughts. Blessings.

Sara,

So glad you asked about incorporating mindfulness in the online classroom. It's the topic we'll be diving into next week. 

Thanks for your question!

Hi Patty & All~

This is a terrific topic! Practicing mindfulness helps me to embrace challenges as opportunities and also appreciate the meaningful moments in life! With mindfulness in mind, here is a Ted Talk that I like to share with students during discussions and others on the importance of mindful minutes: https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes?language=en. I hope everyone enjoys!

Mindfulness in the online environment almost seems like an oxymoron. I once learned from a yoga instructor that yoga is a balance of effort and surrender. That concept stuck with me, and I think it reflects perfectly my method of mindfulness in my classrooms. 

I constantly ask myself, "What is needed in this moment?" or "What does this student need in this moment?" Should I exert effort, or should I surrender?

Often a student asks for something but what he/she really needs is validation, encouragement, softness, coaching, kindness, or something else that is related to Being rather than Doing. In the online classroom, Being still involves typing a compassionate or encouraging response or sending an appropriate scripture. How we craft that message or how we choose that scripture to send carries our Being-ness with it.

Thanks for joining the discussion, Marlene and Jan. 

Great resource, Marlene. Thanks for the talk link! Embracing challenges as opportunity" is a wonderful way to frame how we take on life. 

Jan, so true that mindfulness in the online environment seems like an oxymoron - to be mindful in a virtual environment. Powerful take. I appreciate your comment on the act of being having such great impact.

Thank you for sharing this piece on Mindfulness!

Hi All,

Thanks Genna for your post on myths related to using only 10% of our brain. This is a good point to clarify. 

What mindfulness does is reaches into our brains and harnesses our potential to calm, reduce and even sometimes heal ourselves from our reactions to stress. Conversely, not meditating leaves these benefits dormant. Contrary to previous ideas about the brain, it is quite pliable. Here is a brief video on how mindfulness impacts the brain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TN23YiGkAQ

Let me know what you think if you get a chance to watch.
Thanks!

Welcome to week 3. We'll be discussing how mindfulness combats perfection, and in fact, how it is the antithesis of perfection. And why is that? Because when we're mindful of each moment, we don't have time to focus on the past or present, which are times we're most often anxious about. 

For instance, when we worry about something we've said or done that has potentially offended someone, this possible offense has occurred in the past. And on top of it all, it's something we can't change in the moment that we're worried. And then again, when we worry about something we must do in the future, we are again in a place we cannot change. 

So when a student is hearing a lecture and focused on now, there's less room to fret about whether that content will be on a test, whether the student will be able to retain the information and most of all, the false belief that an imperfect grade may define who the person is. And with decreased worry, the student can process information more effectively. So essentially, when focus is on the moment and being present, thoughts of performance decrease.

One way we can assess and address anxiety and perfectionism during class sessions is to stop and ask what feelings are coming for students about their ability to perform in the class. We can then ask students to accept that these worries are coming up for them. Simply acknowledging and accepting that the worries exist can paradoxically cause worry to decrease because the subconscious mind is no longer repetitively ruminating about the worries. Then, you can provide a summary of what was taught after students have noticed and accepted their worries for a few moments.

Staying with this idea of learning in the moment, I'd like to ask about ways that you've applied mindfulness in the classroom, maybe sometimes even inadvertently.

As the week goes on, I'll share other practical ways we can implement mindfulness into each class session to combat perfectionism. As a side note, moderate to severe perfectionism can be very emotionally distressing and if you have concern about the level of a student's sense of perfectionism, a counseling referral may be warranted.  

Thanks! Have a great week.
Patty

Merry Christmas, All!

I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas. In this last week, we'll be focusing on diligence versus perfectionism. I posted last week about how mindfulness can combat perfectionism. Keeping in line with that, I'd like to ask you to think about how the focus of class can remain on diligence. It's an important shift for learning effectively because if we reduce the idea of perfect performance, we can freely focus on the simple and wonderful act of learning. Harsh self-evaluation is reduced and creates a path for enjoying the act of learning. 

In doing so, we can encourage our students to begin to think about what learning means to them. We can zoom out from the everyday tasks of a course and have students think about why they applied to the program they're in, what motivates them to move forward and how they make efforts to stay motivated (career, a loving and encouraging partner, career independence, children for who they want to set an example, being the first in their family to graduate...).

When the perspective shifts from moving through assignment to assignment, students are able to be more present in the process of learning. This also creates a vision for what they'd like to achieve rather than creating frustration and disappointment in their current educational challenges, often leading to negative self-talk about their abilities. 

A positive vision creates diligence. 

I'll post some visualization techniques this week that can promote a larger vision and also help students appreciate current opportunities for learning. Please join the conversation on your thoughts about shifting the perspective from perfectionism to diligence.

Enjoy this time with family and the joy of Christmas. Care well for yourselves if holiday traditions are reminders of loss or change in your life.

Blessings,
Patty

I would love to see some of the visualization techniques you have. I'd love to shift my students' attention from grades (where they often focus on perfectionism) to learning. I try to do this in my own class by helping them apply the information to their lives and constantly reinforcing why the information is helpful. Any help you can give me on this would be appreciated!