18 Mar Can Mindfulness Improve Executive Function Skills?
How Can Mindfulness Improve Executive Function Skills:
Teaching Kids the Art of Meditation and Slowing Down
Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being highly aware of what you are sensing and feeling at the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Mindfulness involves breathing techniques, guided imagery, and other activities that assist to calm the body and mind and reduce stress.
It can be exhausting to spend too much time planning, problem-solving, daydreaming, or thinking negative thoughts. It can also increase your chances of experiencing stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression. With mindfulness activities, you can shift your focus away from unproductive thinking and allow you to engage with your environment in a more positive manner.
What are the advantages of meditation?
Many clinical experiments have been conducted to investigate the benefits of meditation. The data overall supports the usefulness of meditation for a variety of diseases, including:
- Stress
- Anxiety
- Pain
- Depression
- Insomnia
- Blood pressure is too high (hypertension)
Meditation can help you experience thoughts and emotions more calmly and acceptingly. Meditation has also been demonstrated to:
- Increase your focus
- Reduce job burnout
- Improve your sleep
- Improve diabetes management
How Can Mindfulness Improve Executive Function?
While the effects of mindfulness on executive function skills have not been extensively examined, there are several interesting studies that show its positive impact on one’s ability to self-regulate. Executive functioning refers to the brain-based processes that include flexible thinking, self-control, and working memory. These skills are essential not only in a child’s academic success but also in later life. (Read more about the Executive Functioning Skills Your Child Needs to Succeed.)
A June 2021 study published in the Frontiers in Psychology journal examined the effect of acute exercise and mindfulness meditation on executive functioning, particularly in the psycho-emotional well-being of children and teens with ADHD. The researchers found that while acute exercise did not have a significant impact the participants’ executive functioning, “acute mindfulness medication increased performance on tasks of inhibitory control, working memory, and task switching.”
This supports a 2012 study that confirmed the positive effect of meditation on executive functioning. The study goes further to suggest that the improvements in executive functioning is because meditation allows one to better process and accept their emotions, particularly when mistakes are made. Individuals become better at executive control because meditation improves their ability to handle feelings or emotions that come with making mistakes.
What Are the Types of Mindfulness Activities?
There are numerous easy ways to practice mindfulness. Here are several examples:
Pay close attention. It’s difficult to slow down and observe things in a fast-paced environment. Take the time to observe your surroundings with all of your senses — touch, sound, sight, smell, and taste. Take the time to smell, taste, and truly enjoy your favorite food, for example.
Live in the present moment. With an open, attentive, and discriminating mind, try to pay attention to all you do. Simple pleasures can please you.
Recognize and accept yourself. Treat yourself the same way you would a close friend.
Concentrate on your breathing. When you are experiencing negative thoughts,sit down, take a deep breath, and close your eyes. Concentrate on your breathing as air enters and exits your body. Even a minute of sitting and breathing can assist.
You might also experiment with more formal mindfulness exercises. for example:
Meditation on a body scan. Lie on your back with your legs extended and your arms at your sides, palms up. Slowly and deliberately focus your attention on each area of your body in turn, from toe to head or head to toe. Be mindful of any sensations, emotions, or ideas that are related to each region of your body.
Meditation while sitting. Sit with your back straight, your feet flat on the floor, and your hands in your lap. Focus on your breath traveling in and out of your body while breathing through your nose. If bodily sensations or thoughts disrupt your meditation, take note of them and then restore your attention to your breathing.
Meditation while walking. Find a peaceful spot 10 to 20 feet long and start walking slowly. Concentrate on the feelings of standing and the small movements that keep you balanced as you walk. When you reach the end of your path, turn around and walk again, paying attention to your senses.
What Is Mindfulness Education?
Mindfulness education is exactly what it sounds like: the intentional incorporation of mindfulness and mindful meditation ideas, beliefs, and practices into educational settings. (See the definition of mindfulness for further information.)
Mindfulness education aims to help students learn:
- Self-awareness
- Empathy
- Techniques for focusing and calming the mind
- Conscious communication
- Putting mindfulness skills to use in everyday life
If you perform a quick Google search for “mindfulness education” or “mindfulness in education,” you’ll get millions of hits. Many of these results will direct you to pages about specific mindfulness training programs or curricula. Some educators concentrate on instilling awareness in kids. Some programs concentrate on teaching educators how to teach mindfulness to students. Others may concentrate on training the administrative staff, parents, or the entire community. While their intended audience may differ, the final result is usually the same: favorable results.
A mindfulness curriculum typically comprises mindfulness content taught in short weekly (or more frequent) sessions that cover both mindfulness principles and mindfulness practice. Depending on the school and program, the curriculum may include information on key concepts and definitions (e.g., awareness, acceptance, mindfulness, meditation), exercises (e.g., body scan, mindful breathing, mindful awareness of the senses), and other mindfulness content that students can use in class or at home (e.g., guided meditations, relaxation imagery, written instructions, videos).
What Are the Advantages of Including Mindfulness in the Classroom?
According to the Mindful Schools group, there are ten primary areas where studies have demonstrated that mindfulness can have a positive impact, including:
- Focus and attention
- improved grades
- More effective emotion modulation
- Better school behavior Increased empathy and perspective-taking
- Improved social abilities
- Test anxiety has been reduced.
- There is less stress.
- Reduced the frequency and severity of posttraumatic symptoms
- Lower depression rates/severity
These findings are supported by research; a 2015 study on mindfulness instruction in schools discovered that:
- Mindfulness enables students and faculty to manage stress more effectively and efficiently.
- Mindfulness practice regularly—even micro-sessions of a few minutes or less—provides health advantages.
- According to research, mindfulness programs can increase cognitive performance as well as stress resilience.
- Mindfulness programs can be simply created and tailored to certain ages and situations.
- It is quite simple to implement mindfulness into classrooms, given that students’ developmental stages and requirements are considered (Bostic et al., 2015).
Furthermore, Erica Baxter (n.d.) discovered that mindfulness has been shown to aid children and adolescents with:
- Reducing their stress.
- Assisting them in reducing and/or managing their stress.
- Improving their capacity to focus and pay attention.
- Controlling their emotional reaction.
- Improving self-awareness and self-regulation.
- Assisting them in finding serenity.
- Encouraging their abilities to regulate their emotions and calm themselves.
- Improving their executive function and higher-order cognitive skills (i.e., planning, strategic thinking).
- Reducing test anxiety via improving memory and concentration and decreasing mind-wandering/daydreaming.
- ADHD symptoms can be mitigated or reduced.
- Mindful Schools curriculum decreases depression symptoms, according to additional research.
According to a 2010 pilot study, the Mindful Schools elementary program reduced depressive symptoms among minority children. Eighteen minority youngsters attending a summer camp were randomly assigned to either mindfulness or health instruction. The children ranged in age from 8 to 11, with 64 percent coming from the Caribbean and Central American countries. Ten 15-minute classes from the Mindful Schools curriculum were led by an instructor. The mindfulness group reduced depression symptoms much more than the control group.
According to the researchers, the findings “offer the potential for the application of mindfulness to reduce particularly depressive symptoms in minority children.” Furthermore, there is evidence that higher sample size may allow for differentiation between groups in terms of anxiety symptoms.” They also lauded the Mindful Schools curriculum, stating that the youngsters “engaged totally in the activities” of the curriculum.
More Mindfulness Resources
- Headspace – Science-backed meditation and mindfulness tools
- Smiling Mind – App for daily meditation and mindfulness exercises.
- Daniel Goleman: Breathing Buddies – Simple exercises to help kids manage emotions and improve focus.
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Read more blog posts:
- What are the Executive Functioning Skills?
- A Beginner’s Guide to Executive Functioning Disorder
- What Part Of The Brain Is Responsible For Executive Functioning?
Handouts:
- What is Executive Functioning?
- 4 Types of Attentional Focus
- Strategic Observation And Reflection (SOAR)
- 13 Executive Function Skills for Academic Success
- Working Memory Strategies
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⏩Can Mindfulness Improve Executive Function Skills?⏪
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Craig Selinger
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