Mindfulness for School-Based Occupational Therapy
Starting your school-based occupational therapy sessions with a mindfulness activity can set the tone for the rest of the session, allow pause and calm before beginning and can help you as the therapist regroup and be more mindful as you move from one child to another throughout the day. Try practicing mindfulness with the kids you work with, to benefit both them, and you!
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness means, being in the “here and now”, or in other words, being mindful refers to having the ability to focus and maintain your attention on your present moment experiences as they are happening without wishing for things to be different in any way (Reid and Razza, 2022). You can read more about the benefits of mindfulness here.
Benefits of Mindfulness for Students
There are many benefits of mindfulness for kids, in and out of the classroom. Here some benefits of mindfulness for students:
1. Mindfulness Enhances Focus and Attention: Many students struggle with sustained attention, especially in environments with sensory overload. Mindfulness practices like focusing on breathing, or how their body is feeling can help students learn to center themselves and improve their focus.
2. Emotional Regulation: A student’s ability to self-regulate plays a large role in classroom participation. In classroom settings, behavioral self-regulation is associated with remembering instructions, paying attention, and completing academic tasks (McClelland et al., 2021). Deficits in self-regulation may lead to difficulty focusing, poor communication and coping skills and aggressive behavior.
Practicing mindfulness may lead to the improvement of emotion regulation and may lead to alterations in thought patterns and self-management of behavior by reducing emotional reactivity and lead to optimal self-regulation (Malboeuf-Hurtubise, Taylor & Mageau, 2019).
3. Behavioral Improvements: Mindfulness practices can reduce impulsive behaviors, which can be particularly helpful in school settings where self-control and delayed gratification are essential.
4. Interoception: Interoception is the sense of knowing what is going on INSIDE our bodies. When interoceptive cues go unnoticed or are misunderstood, it can lead to the reduced ability to identify or describe emotions (Mahler et al., 2022). Research suggests interoception and mindfulness are closely linked and Scientists believe that interoception is one of the primary reasons why many people report benefits from mindfulness practices (Mahler et al., 2022).
In other words, even though many people do not realize it, when using mindfulness strategies, they are activating the insula, which is the interoception center of the brain, and so are actively working to strengthen their interoceptive connection (Mahler et al., 2022).
5. Anxiety and Stress: Children deal with daily stress at school or at home and this stress can lead to an impairment of healthy development during a very critical stage of life (Carro, D’Adamo, Lozado, 2021). Many studies have shown that deep breathing and relaxation techniques which are part of mindfulness-based practices can help to decrease salivary cortisol which is a measure of stress. (Carro, D’Adamo, Lozado, 2021).
6. Mindful Movement/Yoga: Yoga is an ancient mind-body practice that has many different forms and can be modified or adapted to meet the needs of a wide variety of learners. There is a natural connection between occupational therapy and yoga. Both occupational therapy and yoga accentuate the importance of mind, body and spirit.
Yoga uses postures, breathing and mindfulness to calm and energize the body. Yoga strengthens all muscles of the body, including core and postural muscles that children need for all areas of their life including in schools
Developing these muscles through yoga, can help children to maintain an upright posture for tabletop tasks such as handwriting, cutting and sitting on the floor during school activities. A strong core and posture are important for gross motor skills such as running, walking, skipping, playground skills and various sports activities. Some of the ways yoga can help with occupational therapy is on Crossing the Midline, Range of Motion, Body Awareness and Proprioception to name a few.
School-Based Mindfulness Techniques for OTs
Every student is different, and the mindfulness practices that work for them, may not work for another student. Practicing a variety of techniques is essential to figure out what they like or don’t like. Just like we all don’t like the same foods, or same activities, we all have different affinities to mindfulness techniques.
Here are some mindfulness tips OTs can use with the students they work with:.
Make mindfulness fun
Practice breath-work using analogies children will understand is essential. Making mindfulness fun will make techniques more accessible to kids. Here are some examples to get started.
- Hot Cocoa Breath or Hot Soup Breath : this breath is simple and easy and can be modified to whatever the child you’re working with prefers. Do they like Mac and Cheese? Call it Mac and Cheese breath! Do they like to eat hot Naan or slurp on Ramen? Call it Naan or Ramen breath! Here is the general premise: Imagine you’re holding a bowl of hot cocoa or hot soup in your hands. Take a deep breath in smelling the wonderful smell of the cocoa/soup .Take a deep breath out as you blow to cool it down.
- Snake Breath: Take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, hiss loudly like a snake.
- Bumblebee Breath: Take a deep breath in , and as you exhale BUZZZ like a Bumblebee. You can hear a voice recording of me leading children through this breath here.
Using analogies or animals help make mindfulness more fun for kids.
Use Props
Using props can help make mindfulness more fun and accessible for younger children. Here are some ideas to get you started
- Belly Breathing with a Breathing Buddy: Use a stuffed animal (breathing buddy) and have the child hold or place their buddy on their belly when they are lying down on their back. Breathe in and out and watch and feel the stuffed animal move up and down with breath.
Using a breathing buddy is a really great tool to physically “see” how their breath is moving through their bodies.
- Open the Sphere as you breathe in
- As you breathe out, close the sphere
- Feather Breathing
- Using feathers can make breathing fun
- Hold a feather in your hand
- As you breathe in, pay attention to the feather
- Breathe out and make the feather wave in your hand
A short age-appropriate body scan can help students become aware of their physical sensations and tension areas. For younger kids, you could guide them to imagine their bodies are slowly “falling asleep” part by part, while older students might respond well to a more straightforward “noticing” of what is happening in their bodies. You can find an example of a body scan here.
Guided imagery uses your imagination to help put your body in a calmer state. You can use your imagination to help lower stress, feelings of anxiety and even sadness. You can read more about guided imageries here, and sign up to get my Guided Imagery Adventures for Young Minds.
Make it fun!
Here are some other ways to make mindfulness fun for the kids you work with.
Ten Fun Breathing Exercises for Kids
Practice What You Preach
Before we can teach we must do. This is powerful!! We can’t teach what we don’t know. The more you understand how mindfulness works, and the benefits that YOU experience, the easier it will be to teach it and explain to kids why it works. If you are truly interested in teaching mindfulness, we have to be practicing being mindful ourselves. Try some of my mindfulness strategies for adults here:
Let me know if you’ve tried any of these techniques and if they have worked for you. I would love to hear from you.
References
Carro, N., D’Adamo, P., & Lozado, M (2021). A school intervention helps decrease daily stress while enhancing social integration in children. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 47(3): 251-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/08964289.2020.1738319 *
Mahler,K., Hample, K., Jones, C., Sensenig, J., Thomasco, P., & Hildton, C. (2022). Impact of an Interoception-Based Program in Emotion Regulation in Autistic Children. Occupational Therapy International, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9328967
Malbouef-Hurtubise, C., Taylor, G., & Mageau, G. (2019). Impact of a mindfulness-based intervention on basic psychological need satisfaction and internalized symptoms in elementary school student with severe learning disabilities: results from a randomized cluster trial. Frontiers in Psychology, 10: 1-9. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02715.
McLelland, M. M., Gonzalez, C.R., Cameron, C.E., Geldhof, J., Bowles, R.P., Nancarrow, A.F., Merculief, A. & Tracy, A. (2021). The Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders Revised: Links to Academic Outcomes and Measures of EF in Young Children. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.721846
Reid, S.,& Razza, R.A. (2022). Exploring the efficacy of a school-based mindful yoga program on socioemotional awareness and response to stress among elementary school. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 31: 128-141.
