Our students may
begin to feel restless. We ourselves may feel this way too.
It is not uncommon
during the winter months to experience what is known as S.A.D. Seasonal Affective
Disorder.
Did you know that
Michigan is also one of the 10 most cloudy states in the United States? According
to FarmersAlmanac.com no matter where you live in Michigan you are likely to
only see 65-75 clear days a year. This means we don’t get a lot of sun rays
helping to fill us with Vitamin D.
Vitamin D deficiency
can lead to mental health concerns. Most doctors in Michigan will test for
Vitamin D deficiency due to an overwhelming amount of people in Michigan
suffering from this condition. You may be a person who knows they need more Vitamin D.
If you weren’t
dealing S.A.D. before I started this blog, you might be now.
Let’s explore a few ways mindfulness can help us and our student combat all of these winter wonders we are exposed to daily.
Let’s explore a few ways mindfulness can help us and our student combat all of these winter wonders we are exposed to daily.
First, it is a
good idea to be aware of your body and how it feels. Take a few minutes to
complete a body scan.
Completing a body scan helps us recognize where in our
body we feel; anger, sadness, pain, depression, happiness, peace, tension, relaxation,
and many more sensations and feelings.
Inner Explorer has
lessons for each age group to aid with a
body scan or body relation.
Pre K-1 : #7 Relaxation
Train, #13 Body Scan … and many individual body part awareness practices.
Grade 1-4: #10
Body Scan, #12 Relaxation Train … and many individual body part awareness
practices.
Grade 5-7: #10
Body Scan, #30 Progressive Relaxation … and many individual body part awareness
practices.
Grade 8-12: #10 Body Scan, #20 Progressive Relaxation …
and many individual body part awareness practices.
The students I
have practiced the relaxation train with love it and have asked to do it again
and again. I have watched them focus on parts of their body, tense them up and
then release the tension. I have practiced with them and have found it very
relaxing and beneficial to my day.
Another great body
scan activity comes from a set of mindfulness cards in my mindfulness library. I
practice them with students and you are welcome to come check them out and borrow
for a time.
55 Mindful Games –
Activity Cards: Butterfly Body Scan
This activity, I
find, to be fun and relaxing.
After you have
taken time to scan your body, you can do a reflection activity. This can be one students
keep for themselves, to help them be more self-aware, or they can share it with
you, allowing you better understand them.
A simple figure
like this can be used to color in feelings. You can give guidelines such as:
Red is for Anger, Blue is for Sadness, Green is for Happiness, etc… then once
they have scanned their body they can color this figure.
As you work on this activity, this could be a great time to reflect on our blog regarding exploring the words use to describe feelings.
Remember our students may never have been taught to identify how they feel with words. In fact, it is likely we ourselves struggle with identifying and being alright and accepting of our feelings.
I had a student this week tell me that anger was a bad feeling and he needed to completely get rid of it. This opened a discussion about anger not being bad, however what we do with our anger has the potential to be destructive and harmful.
We can be anger, identify where we feel the anger, understand the what of our anger, and then sit with it, accept it, and then learn to let it go, safely.
I have another card from: 55 Mindful Games – Activity Cards called Pink Bubble. This is a great mindfulness activity to help us let go of feelings we do not feel we can or should hold.
This week let’s take some time to scan our body, understand ourselves and feelings better, and learn to accept and keep or accept and let go.
My hope for us all this week, is that we are able to spread an internal sunshine, and feed our bodies and minds peace and acceptance. Hopefully this can start our road to reducing S.A.D. and brighten our days.
As you work on this activity, this could be a great time to reflect on our blog regarding exploring the words use to describe feelings.
Remember our students may never have been taught to identify how they feel with words. In fact, it is likely we ourselves struggle with identifying and being alright and accepting of our feelings.
I had a student this week tell me that anger was a bad feeling and he needed to completely get rid of it. This opened a discussion about anger not being bad, however what we do with our anger has the potential to be destructive and harmful.
We can be anger, identify where we feel the anger, understand the what of our anger, and then sit with it, accept it, and then learn to let it go, safely.
I have another card from: 55 Mindful Games – Activity Cards called Pink Bubble. This is a great mindfulness activity to help us let go of feelings we do not feel we can or should hold.
This week let’s take some time to scan our body, understand ourselves and feelings better, and learn to accept and keep or accept and let go.
My hope for us all this week, is that we are able to spread an internal sunshine, and feed our bodies and minds peace and acceptance. Hopefully this can start our road to reducing S.A.D. and brighten our days.
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