Students with and without special needs experience anxiety and stress navigating the multiple and complex pressures of the school day. They need to gain the skills required to exercise self-regulation and calm down. A number of research studies show that mindfulness-based practices help to alleviate stress, improve students’ self-regulation and attentional control and strengthen social-emotional development besides boosting academic performance.
The quick reference guide, Mindfulness-based Practices for Developing Brains: Cultivating Calmness, Concentration and Coping Skills, is a valuable tool for teachers and support staff as well as for families. It provides the ‘what, why and how’ of mindfulness practice, identifying what mindfulness-based training is, why it is beneficial for the developing brains and the how to implement it with step-by-step instructions, aided with pictorial illustrations.
The guide presents Mindfulness-based practices –– Mindful Breathing, Mindful Movement, and Mindful Positivity–– with the specific steps involved in integrating them easily into the classroom instructional framework. Educators will discover that the regular practice of mindfulness-based calming practices result in calmer classrooms and minimize instructional disruptions.
Mindfulness practices when practiced diligently will provide all students positive tools for life that lead to desirable long-term social-emotional and academic outcomes.
