Craving more peace within? Mindfulness for You and for Your Kids
2016-05-16 04:06:00 Katie Navarra
What is Mindfulness?
Some may think of its historical routes based in eastern religion, but mindfulness has evolved over time to be a practice that can be integrated into your daily life providing relief, peace, self-reflection, and calm. Who doesn’t want all of those things? Put simply, the practice of mindfulness is about bringing yourself to the present moment while being aware and not having to loose sight of everything going on around you (which is impossible anyways). There is freedom in living mindfully because it is about accepting yet being empowered to live freely despite your circumstances.
Clinical studies have also found that mindfulness meditation helps to combat stress, improves your focus, and increases your personal resiliency. More specifically, the workings of mindfulness have an effect on the autonomic nervous system, which is further broken down into sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Many organs and muscles are affected by these systems. The sympathetic nervous system heightens during so-called “fight or flight” situations and may be calmed down during meditation. The parasympathetic nervous system works to slow the body’s responses to fight or flight, and meditation may increase the functioning of this system.
Mindfulness is as informal as a deep breath or as formal as a daily practice. It is up to you. Don’t be overwhelmed by what it entails, just try. There is a false belief out there that it is a religious practice…it can be or it cannot be. You chose! It tends to pair well with prayer life and spiritual practices, but it is flexible to what you need it to be for yourself.
Mindfulness Resources:
CALM App – downloadable through your app store. It has timed meditations for easing anxiety and tension and helping clear your mind to refocus.
Mindfulness for your kids:
Teach your children how to breathe
- Have them lie flat on their bellies with their favorite small stuffed animal across their belly.
- Tell them to make the stuffed animal move up and down…through doing this they will be engaging their entire body to breathe, increasing calm and relaxation.
Create a “Moody Jar.”
Instructions:
- Gather supplies: small glass mason jar, multiple glitter colors, glycerin, hand soup, water.
- Fill the jar almost to the top with water.
- Your child can choose what color glitters or “emotions” to put in the jar. Have them name what color represents what emotion.
- Add glycerin and a small pump of hand soap.
- Close jar and shake.
Now your child has a jar they can use when they are emotionally upset. Simply shake the jar and watch the glitter swirl and fall to the bottom and breathe.
Kids trouble sleeping
Apps for Children
- CALM App has some children meditations
- Smiling Mind (ability to choose age group in the app)
Couples, Parenting, Children and Teens, College, Women, Men, Mental Health, Gratitude, Spirituality, Anxiety, Depression