By Millie Love
The human mind is an amazing thing, but it was originally designed to survive, not to be happy. In prehistoric times we hunted all kinds of dangerous animals and needed to be on the lookout for danger and threats, this made us stress and worry
The human mind is an amazing thing, but it was originally designed to survive, not to be happy. In prehistoric times we hunted all kinds of dangerous animals and needed to be on the lookout for danger and threats, this made us stress and worry. Even in modern day, even if things were going right, we normally focus on the small things that are going on. The small things could be something somebody has said to us, a text, or even a homework that's due soon. These small things can keep us up at night or stop us concentrating at anything at all. In this article I will be outlining the ways to deal with stress and what mindfulness really is.
40 million people in the world suffer from anxiety and about 44% of people's stress levels have increased over the past 5 years. Most people themselves suffer from anxiety or stress, or they might know someone who does. With the ongoing pressure of modern life, it can be hard to keep a calm mind.
So what is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is when you bring yourself to stop and focus at the present moment. Our brain has evolved rapidly through the centuries, now it mostly focuses on the future and what will happen. Or it focuses on the past and what has happened. Sometimes you need to stop and focus on your thoughts and feelings at the present time. This can improve your mental wellbeing, or stress and anxiety. Sometimes we rush through days without stopping to realize how we feel. By practising mindfulness you can start to live a more calmer, stress- free life.
Professor Mark Williams from Oxford mindfulness centre said: "It's easy to stop noticing the world around us. It's also easy to lose touch with the way our bodies are feeling and to end up living 'in our heads' – caught up in our thoughts without stopping to notice how those thoughts are driving our emotions and behaviour".
Sometimes we wander through life on autopilot, not even stopping to realize what’s going on around us. When you walk to school are you ever aware of the path? When you eat your lunch do you ever fully notice what you are eating? An mindfulness expert, Jon Kabat- Zinn, once said ‘Mindfulness is being alive and knowing it’.
Mindfulness can help in different ways, you could use it to take a minute one night or even to calm yourself on a stressful day. One very successful way around the world is a technique called ‘.b’.Dot Be or .b for short is a simple but a effective way for children and teenagers to overcome stress. The practice stands for ‘Stop, breathe and be!’.
People have found that if they ever are panicking or worrying, it is very easy to just stop, feel their feet on the ground, breathe and just be. MISP is a mindfulness in schools project that brings mindfulness to children everywhere. They train adults to teach mindfulness, they organise courses for young people who what to learn more about mindfulness and how they can use it at home. They also offer different types of exercises like: .b Beditation and .b paying attention.
Some children in schools feel like they are stuck or have no one to talk about their stress or anxiety. If you feel stressed a lot of the time, visit the MISP website or Dot Be youtube channel to learn some practices for yourself.
If you have any worries or questions concerning mental health talk to someone in the school pastoral team, contact your doctor or email our communities' worker, Sue Barnard, at :sbarnard@clvweb.co.uk
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