Click above to listen to Larry Magid’s 1-minute CBS News segment on Mind Yeti
If you’re a parent, or wherever a student, you know that school can be stressful and that stress can lead to all sorts of issues, including lack of attention, irritability and behavior problems, including bullying.
A proven way to focus attention, reduce stress and make people feel more connected to themselves, their classmates and world around them is through mindfulness. A study at Northern Arizona University found five essential benefits of mindfulness, incuding:
Strengthening the immune system and physiological responses to stress and negative emotions.- Improving social relationships with family and strangers.
- Reducing stress, depression, and anxiety and increased well-being and happiness.
- Increasing openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness and reduced negative associations with neuroticism.
- Leading to greater psychological mindfulness, which included an awareness that is clear, nonconceptual, and flexible; a practical stance toward reality; and present attention to the individual’s consciousness and awareness.
There are numerous mindfulness training programs for schools, but a new one — called MindYeti — is really easy to administer. Teachers don’t need a lot of training or preparation. All they have to do is log on to MindYeti.com and play audio sessions for their students. And, you don’t have to be in school or be an educator to use it. You can use it at home with your kids or, as I’ve done, by yourself. It may be aimed at kids, but it’s useful for all of us.
Mind yet is a project of Committee for Children, a nonprofit organization best known for its Second Step program that teaches social emotional learning skills to students at all grade levels.
