WellREDS

Getting excited to see everyone at our first wine & wellness event this evening at 6:30! Cheers!

Today I got to visit all K-5th classrooms to talk about and practice mindfulness! 🌱🧘‍♀️👍

We talked about how this concept is both simple and complex and takes plenty of practice. With practice, the benefits are numerous. Research specifically on using mindfulness practice with children indicates decreased stress, improved attention and focus, improved emotion regulation, improved social skills, a decrease in testing anxiety, and overall improved sense of well-being and increased compassion. Pretty impressive! 👏

The children were amazing in sharing their understanding of mindfulness and how it might benefit them. Ask your child if they remember the seed planting symbolism from the book we read. When we read the book I Am Peace, we talked about planting seeds of mindfulness, nurturing our practice so that it grows big like the tree in the book, and how it can become our anchor when riding our waves of feelings. 🌊

We practiced a mindful check-in and pretended our thoughts were clouds floating by. We talked about key concepts of mindfulness ~ noticing and being aware of the here and now by paying attention to what’s happening inside our bodies and minds and noticing our outside surroundings by using our senses. This paying attention is done with a curious and kind mind. ☺️❤️💭

We will continue to nurture this practice, watch it grow, and notice the benefits this year. Can’t wait to continue to the journey! There will be ups and downs to navigate, but as we discussed today ~ the expert on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Jon Kabat-Zinn, says “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” 🏄‍♀️🏄‍♂️🌊