Improve Children’s Attention in School with Mindfulness

August 6, 2016 psyjdc 6 Comments

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Before we can teach a kid how to academically excel in school, we need to teach him how to have stillness, pay attention, stay on task, regulate, make good choices. We tell kids be quiet, calm yourself down, be still. We tell them all these things they need in the classroom, but we’re not teaching them how to do that.” – Jean-Gabrielle Larochette

Childhood is a miraculous period during which the child is dynamically absorbing information from every aspect of its environment. This occurs almost without any intervention from the adults as the child appears to be programmed to learn. It is here that behaviors, knowledge, skills, and attitudes are developed that shape the individual. But, what is absorbed depends on the environment. If it is replete with speech, the child will learn speech, if it is replete with trauma, the child will learn fear, if it is replete with academic skills the child will learn these, and if it is replete with interactions with others, the child will learn social skills.

Elementary school is an environment that has a huge effect on development. It is also an excellent time teach children the skills that will insure that the child has the ability to adaptively negotiate its environment. Mindfulness training in school, at all levels has been shown to have very positive effects. These include academic, cognitive, psychological, and social domains. Importantly, mindfulness training in school appears to improve the student’s self-concept. Since, what occurs in these early years and in school can have such a profound, long-term effect on the child it is important to further study the impact of mindfulness training on the emotions, behavior, and self-concept of grammar school children.

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness-Oriented Meditation for Primary School Children: Effects on Attention and Psychological Well-Being.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1287962937894296/?type=3&theater

or below or view the full text of the study at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4894866/

Crescentini and colleagues randomly assigned two 2^nd grade classes of 7-8 year-old children to either receive mindful meditation training or emotion awareness training. The training occurred 3 days per week for 8 weeks. The periods were gradually increased in duration, from 10 minutes per day at the beginning of training to 30 minutes per day by the end of the 8-weeks. The mindful meditation training involved mindful breathing, mindfulness of body, and mindfulness of thoughts. The control condition of emotion awareness training occurred over similar time periods and consisted of reading and discussing a book on recognizing and experiencing emotions. Measures were taken before and after training from children’s self-reports of depression and by the evaluations of two teachers who not involved and blind to the training. The teachers rated the children on anxiety/depression, withdrawal/depression, somatic complaints, social problems, thought problems, attention problems, rule-breaking behavior, aggressive behavior, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems.

They found that both groups improved on their teacher ratings of total behavior problems and internalizing problems. The mindful meditation training also produced improvements in attention, restlessness/inattention, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder scores. The children’s depression self-reports did not differ from pre-test to post-test and between trainings. These results indicate that mindful meditation training improved attention and ADHD type problems, and reduced internalizing problems.

It is important that mindfulness meditation training improved attentional skills. These are absolutely essential to classroom education and suggest that the training may produce improvements in academic performance. Improvements in attention are not surprising as meditation is in general an attentional training. It is also important that the meditation training reduced internalizing problems. This is important for the child’s development of a positive self-image. By not internalizing the child does not interpret everything that happens as a result of their own thoughts and behaviors. This then allows the child to develop a more accurate depiction of what they affect and what they don’t, developing a more accurate self-concept.

It is interesting that meditation training can be effective in children this young. Starting early in life while the individual is learning, developing, changing, and growing may be particularly important as an appropriate stage is set for positive psychological, emotional, and behavioral development.

“Studies of mindfulness programs in schools have found that regular practice — even just a few minutes per day — improves student self-control and increases their classroom participation, respect for others, happiness, optimism, and self-acceptance levels. It can help reduce absenteeism and suspensions too.” – Katrina Schwartz

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

Study Summary

Crescentini, C., Capurso, V., Furlan, S., & Fabbro, F. (2016). Mindfulness-Oriented Meditation for Primary School Children: Effects on Attention and Psychological Well-Being. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 805. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00805

Abstract

Mindfulness-based interventions are increasingly being used as methods to promote psychological well-being of clinical and non-clinical adult populations. Much less is known, however, on the feasibility of these forms of mental training on healthy primary school students. Here, we tested the effects of a mindfulness-meditation training on a group of 16 healthy children within 7–8 years of age from an Italian primary school. An active control condition focused on emotion awareness was employed on a group of 15 age-matched healthy children from the same school. Both programs were delivered by the same instructors three times per week, for 8 total weeks. The same main teacher of the two classes did not participate in the trainings but she completed questionnaires aimed at giving comprehensive pre-post training evaluations of behavior, social, emotion, and attention regulation skills in the children. A children’s self-report measure of mood and depressive symptoms was also used. From the teacher’s reports we found a specific positive effect of the mindfulness-meditation training in reducing attention problems and also positive effects of both trainings in reducing children’s internalizing problems. However, subjectively, no child in either group reported less depressive symptoms after the trainings. The findings were interpreted as suggestive of a positive effect of mindfulness-meditation on several children’s psychological well-being dimensions and were also discussed in light of the discrepancy between teacher and children’s reports. More generally, the results were held to speak in favor of the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions for healthy primary school children.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4894866/

Improve Fitness in Visually Impaired Children with Yoga

August 3, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“As those of us with good vision can imagine, the loss of something that helps the function of our body and mind can cause a lot of stress, depression, anxiety and sleep deprivation. Well, guess what has been proven to help those who can see with the similar symptoms? Yep, yoga.” – Julie Phillips-Turner

Visual impairment is quite common among children and adolescents. “According to the 2014 American Community Survey, there are approximately 543,893 children with vision difficulty in the U.S. According to the 2014 ACS, there are 261,413 girls and 282,480 boys under the age of 18 that have vision difficulty in the U.S.” – American Foundation for the Blind. Due to the impaired vision and its impact on movements and physical activities, the visually impaired children generally have lower fitness levels, including deficits in muscular strength and balance.

Yoga practice has been found to improve muscular strength and balance in adults with visual impairment. In today’s Research News article “Yoga Practice Increases Minimum Muscular Fitness in Children with Visual Impairment.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1285660018124588/?type=3&theater

or below or view the full text of the study at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4699502/

Mohnaty and colleagues examine the effectiveness of yoga practice to improve muscular strength in 9-16-year old children. They randomly assigned students at a school for the blind to either a yoga practice group or a wait-list control group. The yoga practice consisted of breathing exercises, loosening practices, postures, relaxation and meditation and was practiced for 60 minutes, 5 days per week for 16 weeks. The wait-list control group participated in a vocational training program instead of yoga practice.

The students were assessed before during and after the 16-week practice period with the Kraus-Weber test of muscular fitness which includes assessments of abdominal with psoas muscles, upper abdominal without psoas muscles, lower abdominal with psoas muscle, upper back muscles, lower back muscles and back and hamstrings. the Kraus-Weber test is a pass or fail test and if the student failed on any of its six components then they were considered as failing the whole test. They found that by the end of the 16-week practice period that the yoga group had significantly fewer failures of the Kraus-Weber test than the control group. Before practice only 12.2% of the children in the yoga group passed the test. But, by the end of the practice period 97.6% of the children passed while only 64.1% of the control group passed.

The study provides clear evidence that practicing yoga can improve muscular fitness in visually impaired children. This is important as the lack of fitness has health consequences for the children and can lead to increased levels of falls and injuries. In addition, yoga practice is known to be safe and to have a wide variety of physical and psychological benefits.

So, improve fitness in visually impaired children with yoga.

“It’s hard at first, and then they get it. We use the edge of the mat for alignment during the practice. We also do the same sequence of poses each week, which does a lot of work on the floor, and some standing poses, including tree pose. The key is to go slowly and use ujaii breath to help center their weight, and stabilize while keeping their attention inward.” Pam Jeter

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

Study Summary

Mohanty, S., Venkata Ramana Murty, P., Pradhan, B., & Hankey, A. (2015). Yoga Practice Increases Minimum Muscular Fitness in Children with Visual Impairment. Journal of Caring Sciences, 4(4), 253–263. http://doi.org/10.15171/jcs.2015.026

Abstract

Introduction: Muscle strength, a component for balance, gait and functional mobility is vital for children with visual impairment. Yoga has frequently been demonstrated to improve physical and mental fitness in children. This study aimed to assess the effect of 16 weeks yoga training on muscular ﬁtness in children with visual impairment.

Methods: This was a wait-listed two-armed-matched case–control study. Eighty (41 yoga, 39 control) visual impairment students of both genders aged 9-16 years matched on age, gender and degree of blindness were assessed at pre, mid (after 8 weeks) and post (after 16 weeks) yoga intervention using the Kraus-Weber test.

Results: The percentage of students passed in yoga group were 12.2%, 43.9% and 68.3% whereas percentages in the control group were 23.1%, 30.8% and 30.8% in pre, mid, and post tests respectively. McNemar test showed significant differences between pre and mid, mid and post in the yoga group while those parameters were not significantly different in the control group. Yoga therapy seemed to have considerable benefits for the children’s muscular ﬁtness.

Conclusion: The study suggests that yoga have considerable benefits for improvement of fitness level in children with visual impairment and may be recommended as and effective, alternative, inexpensive low risk training activity option for them.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4699502/

Reduce Children’s and Parent’s Psychological Problems with Mindful Parenting

June 25, 2016 psyjdc 1 Comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“When we as adults learn mindfulness—paying attention here and now with kindness and curiosity and then choosing our behavior—we can support our children and teenagers in bringing these skills into their lives. If we are in the present, we aren’t worrying about our third grader getting into college and we aren’t passing this stress onto them in our day-to-day interactions. If we learn to witness our anger, fear, and sadness with kindness and compassion we show our children that this way of working with intense emotion is possible. If we slow down and choose how to respond to a difficult situation in daily life, and especially if we do it during challenges with our children and “out loud,” “Honey I am really frustrated, that you did X again, I am going to take a few minutes and then we can discuss this.” Then they see that they can do the same with various difficulties. Children learn what they live; the best way to support them in practicing mindfulness is to practice ourselves.” – Amy Saltzman

Mindfulness training has been shown to be helpful with a vast array of medical and psychological problems. But, it is also helpful for dealing with everyday life, from work to relationships, to social interactions, to parenting. Raising children, parenting, is very rewarding. But, it can also be challenging. Children test parents frequently. They test the boundaries of their freedom and the depth of parental love. They demand attention and seem to especially when parental attention is needed elsewhere. They don’t always conform to parental dictates or aspirations for their behavior. They are often affected more by peers, for good or evil, than by parents. It is the parents challenge to control themselves, not overreact, and act appropriately in the face of strong emotions. Meeting these challenges becomes more and more important as the youth approaches adolescence, as that is the time of the greatest struggle for independence and the potential for damaging behaviors, particularly, alcohol, drugs, and sexual behavior.

The challenges of parenting require that the parent be able to deal with stress, to regulate their own emotions, and to be sensitive and attentive to their child. These skills are exactly those that are developed in mindfulness training. It improves the psychological and physiological responses to stress. It improves emotion regulation. And it improves the ability to maintain attention and focus in the face of high levels of distraction. This becomes particularly important with children with psychological problems. All of the challenges of parenting become amplified. The application of mindful parenting skills to clinical issues is relatively new. So, it would seem reasonable to investigate the ability of mindful parenting training to help children with psychological problems and their parents.

In today’s Research News article “Mindful Parenting Training in Child Psychiatric Settings: Heightened Parental Mindfulness Reduces Parents’ and Children’s Psychopathology.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1258473290843261/?type=3&theater

or below, Meppelink and colleagues used mindful parenting training to treat both children with serious psychopathology and their parents. The children were diagnosed with a range of disorders including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and adjustment disorder. The parents of these children received an 8 -week mindful parenting treatment delivered in a group format. It involved weekly 3-hour sessions and at least one hour of daily meditation. It included meditation, body scan, and yoga, and teaching of mindful parenting skills. Parents were assessed for mindfulness and mindful parenting, and both the parents and children were assessed for psychopathology both before and after training and again 8-weeks later.

They found that the training increased general mindfulness and mindful parenting scores in the parents and decreased both the parents’ and children’s psychopathology scores. These improvements were still present 8-weeks later. In addition, the greater the increase in the parents’ mindfulness, the greater the decrease in the parents’ psychopathology, but not the children’s. On the other hand, the greater the increase in the parents’ mindful parenting scores, the greater the decrease in the children’s psychopathology, but not the parents’. These results suggest that mindful parenting training benefits both the parents and the children, with improved mindfulness benefiting the parents while improved mindful parenting benefiting the children.

These conclusions need to be tempered with the understanding that there was not a control condition. So, it is impossible to tell if the improvements occurred because of the mindful parenting or due to a subject expectancy (placebo) effect, due to experimenter bias, spontaneous remission, or other confounding variable. A randomized controlled trial is needed.

Nevertheless, these results are encouraging, provide the rationale for more extensive and tightly controlled research, and suggest that children’s and parents psychological problems can be improved with mindful parenting training.

“It seems there’s no one right way to parent mindfully. Happily, there are many right ways. Sometimes the smallest adjustment in a child’s schedule can change a whole family’s day-to-day life. And sometimes it’s as simple as practicing paying full attention to our kids, with openness and compassion, and maybe that’s enough at any moment.” – Juliann Garey

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

Study Summary

Meppelink R, de Bruin EI, Wanders-Mulder FH, Vennik CJ, Bögels SM. Mindful Parenting Training in Child Psychiatric Settings: Heightened Parental Mindfulness Reduces Parents’ and Children’s Psychopathology. Mindfulness (N Y). 2016;7:680-689. Epub 2016 Mar 15. Doi: 10.1007/s12671-016-0504-1

Abstract

Mindful parenting training is an application of mindfulness-based interventions that allows parents to perceive their children with unbiased and open attention without prejudgment and become more attentive and less reactive in their parenting. This study examined the effectiveness of mindful parenting training in a clinical setting on child and parental psychopathology and of mindfulness as a predictor of these outcomes. Seventy parents of 70 children (mean age = 8.7) who were referred to a mental health care clinic because of their children’s psychopathology participated in an 8-week mindful parenting training. Parents completed questionnaires at pre-test, post-test and 8-week follow-up. A significant decrease was found in children’s and parents’ psychopathology and a significant increase in mindful parenting and in general mindful awareness. Improvement in general mindful awareness, but not mindful parenting, was found to predict a reduction in parental psychopathology, whereas improvement in mindful parenting, but not general mindful awareness, predicted the reduction of child psychopathology. This study adds to the emerging body of evidence indicating that mindful parenting training is effective for parents themselves and, indirectly, for their children suffering from psychopathology. As parents’ increased mindful parenting, but not increased general mindfulness, is found to predict child psychopathology, mindful parenting training rather than general mindfulness training appears to be the training of choice. However, RCTs comparing mindful parenting to general mindfulness training and to parent management training are needed in order to shed more light on the effects of mindful parenting and mechanisms of change.

Mindful Motherhood

May 8, 2016June 21, 2016 psyjdc 1 Comment

Mindful Motherhood

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“There could not be a better time to learn mindfulness than during pregnancy and early motherhood. For one thing, this is a time when most people have a strong motivation to become the best person they can be in a relatively short period of time. When you realize the full enormity of the responsibility you have taken on by becoming a mom, the primary source of care for another whole human being, not to mention one that you love more than you thought you could ever love, there is a really high level of motivation to try your best to get yourself into the best mental and emotional shape possible.” – Cassandra Vieten

Mothers’ Day was basically invented and promoted by the greeting card and florist industries. But, even though its origins were crass, the idea took off, because it hit upon a truth; that we all love our mothers. As a result, Mothers’ Day has become a culturally accepted and encouraged time for the celebration of motherhood and all that it means. The deep bonds and love that virtually everyone feels for their mothers and their mothers for them fuels the celebration of the holiday.

Motherhood is ubiquitous. Everyone has a mother, who in turn, has had a mother, who has had a mother, etc. Many are, or want to be mothers. It plays an immensely important role in our individual and societal existence. The bond that develops between mother and child is a beautiful, virtually unbreakable, thing, perhaps the strongest bond between individuals that exists. It is essential for ensuring the nurturance that is mandatory for the life of the virtually helpless infant and the development of the child. The effectiveness, or lack thereof, of mothering has a major impact on the offspring that continue throughout their lives. It is such an important role that it seems reasonable to explore what goes into successful mothering and child rearing and what might be of assistance in improving mothering. There has accumulated a tremendous amount of scientific evidence that mindfulness, (“awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally”) can be an important asset for mothers, from conception, to pregnancy, birth, nurturing the infant, and childrearing and the mindfulness of the child can be an important asset for its development. So, on this day celebrating motherhood, we’ll explore the role of mindfulness.

Mothering does not occur in a vacuum. It’s been said that “It takes a village” to rear a child. Indeed, motherhood is embedded in a community. There are many people who are either directly or indirectly involved, from the father, to the extended family, the community, the medical profession, teachers, clergy, social workers, childcare workers, and even the government. So relationships become an essential part of mothering from conception, to birth, and family and social life. Mindfulness has been found to be important to becoming a mother in the first place. Mindfulness makes the individual more attractive to the opposite sex, it improves sexual relationships, it helps to relieve infertility, and it improves relationships in general. All of which underscores the importance of mindfulness in improving the likelihood that conception will occur and that childbirth will be born into a supportive social context.

Mindfulness continues to be helpful during pregnancy. It can help to relieve the anxiety and depression that commonly accompany pregnancy and even appears to benefit the neurocognitive development of the infant. After birth mindfulness continues to be of assistance as it improves caregiving and parenting, even in the case where the child has developmental disabilities. Mindfulness not only helps the parents deal with the stresses of childrearing, but developing mindfulness in the child can be of great assistance to helping the kids develop emotionally and cognitively, develop high level thinking, develop healthy self-concepts, develop socially, deal with stress, and cope with trauma and childhood depression. It even improves the child’s psychosocial development and academic performance and grades in school. In addition, it seems to be able to assist children through the troubled times of adolescence.

It should be clear that mindfulness is an important component of motherhood. Why would this be so? There are a number of reasons that mindfulness helps. It reduces the psychological and physical effects of stress on the mother and let’s face it, pregnancy, birth, caring for infants and raising children can be quite stressful. Mindfulness also improves emotion regulation making the mother better able to be in touch with her emotions yet react to them adaptively and effectively. Mindfulness helps the mother maintain her health and well-being, and to recover quicker should she become ill. After all, mothers can’t take sick leave or take vacations.

The essential capacity developed in mindfulness training is paying much greater attention to what’s occurring in the present moment. This can be of immense help to the mother. It makes her better attuned to her child’s and to her own needs. It reduces rumination and recriminations about past mistakes. It tends to diminish the worry and anxiety about the future. It helps her to focus on what needs to be done now, making her much more effective. And it helps her to experience the joys of motherhood to their fullest. In general, by focusing on now, she is tuned into the only time that matters for herself or her child, improving her relationship with reality, dealing with its problems and relishing its wonders.

Hence, mindfulness can make mothering better, both for the mother, and the child. So, on this important day of celebration of mothers, let’s adopt mindfulness and make it a part of our relationship with our mothers and our children. We may all love our mothers but we love mindful mothers even more especially when we ourselves are mindful.

“For me, the program gave me the freedom to be the kind of mom I wanted to be, instead of just reacting automatically. I still have difficult moments, and can get stressed out, but the mindfulness helps me stay centered and stay connected to myself and my baby.” – Cassandra Vieten

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Reduce Stress in Kids with Yoga

February 29, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

“Yoga is about exploring and learning in a fun, safe and playful way. Yoga and kids are a perfect match.” – PBS Parents

Childhood can be a wonderful time of life. But, it is often fraught with problems that can stress the child. Grammar school aged children are exposed to many stressors including problems at home. These can vary from simple disciplinary problems to physical and sexual abuse to familial economic stresses. At school they can be discriminated against, teased, bullied, or laughed at. In addition, modern testing programs insure that these children are constantly exposed to high stakes testing. All of these stresses can occur while the child has yet developed adequate strategies and mechanisms to cope with the stress. So, there is a need to develop methods to assist young children, perhaps even more so than adults, to cope with stress.

Yoga practice has many positive physical and psychological benefits including reducing the physical and psychological responses to stress in adults (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/yoga-contemplative-practice/). It has even been shown to benefit high school students (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/10/24/keep-grades-up-with-downward-dog/). It is known that mindfulness training has positive effects on 4^th and 5^th grade children (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/08/building-a-better-adult-with-elementary-school-mindfulness-training/) and even with preschool children (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/building-a-better-adult-preschool-mindfulness-training/). This suggests that there it is reasonable to further explore the effects of yoga practice on stress at earlier ages.

In today’s Research News article “Effects of a Classroom-Based Yoga Intervention on Cortisol and Behavior in Second- and Third-Grade Students: A Pilot Study”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1174408595916398/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4410873/

Butzer and colleagues conduct an uncontrolled trial of 10 weeks of yoga training for 2^nd and 3^rd grade students and measured salivary cortisol levels, a marker of stress, and obtained teacher behavioral ratings. The children received instruction in the classroom in all components of yoga practice, including breathing exercises, physical exercises and postures, meditation techniques, and relaxation. They practiced twice a week for 30-minutes for the 10 weeks. Measures were taken before and after the 10-week yoga practice period.

They found that the 2^nd graders showed a significant decrease in salivary cortisol levels from the beginning of the 10-week training period to the end. This suggests that there was a decrease in stress levels in these children. The teacher rating again revealed significant improvement in the 2^nd grade children in social interactions with classmates, attention span, ability to concentrate on work, ability to stay on task, academic performance, ability to deal with stress/anxiety, confidence/self-esteem, and overall mood. This suggests that there was an increase in academic, social, and emotional abilities in the 2^nd grade children over the testing period. Unfortunately, they did not observe similar benefits in the 3^rd grade children.

These are encouraging results. But, it must be kept in mind that this was an uncontrolled pilot trial. Without a control group there is no way to tell if the children simply improved due to their maturing, growing more accustomed to their environment, or learning from the normal instruction over the 10-week period. There is also the possibility of a bias effect as the teachers who taught the yoga were the same ones doing the ratings. In addition, the fact that the 3^rd grade students did not show similar responses as the 2^nd graders, limits the generalizability of the results and questions their validity. It is possible, though that the differences between the 2^nd and 3^rd grade were due to differences in the teachers or the classroom environments rather than the yoga training.

Regardless, these pilot results provide support for implementing a larger randomized control trial of the application of yoga to grammar school children and, perhaps, demonstrate a safe and effective method to reduce stress in kids.

“We can learn so much from how children respond to uncertainty with a sense of curiosity and adventure. Rather than fearing that we’ll fail to meet an expectation, we can adopt a child’s practice of letting go, and so much more becomes possible. We can create more magic, inspiration, happiness, love, joy, and laughter both on and off the mat.” – Kali Love

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Help Kids Emotionally and Cognitively with Mindfulness

February 25, 2016 psyjdc 2 Comments

“Mindfulness within schools makes a lot of sense. There is a growing body of evidence that supports the claims that mindfulness improves working memory, attention, academic skills, social skills, emotional balance and self-esteem.” – Joseph Pound

Elementary school is a wonderful time to structure the environment to develop knowledge, attitudes, and skills. This has been known for centuries. But, which ones are most important to the development of a high functioning adult? Elementary school environments stress academic skills. This is appropriate and necessary. But at times, particularly in the United States, the emphasis on academic skills, especially factual learning, is so great that other important learning is neglected. There is often little effort to develop the so called softer skills; emotional, mindfulness, creative, meta-cognitive, psychological, and social skills. This is unfortunate as these skills are important unto themselves’ and also turn out to be very important in developing academic skills. In addition, it’s been shown that these softer skills in childhood predict health, financial stability, and educational attainment into adulthood.

One method that has recently been employed to help develop these softer skills in school children is mindfulness training. This has occurred for good reason as mindfulness training has been shown to improve academic performance, social skills, emotions, and meta-cognitive skills in grammar school children (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/08/building-a-better-adult-with-elementary-school-mindfulness-training/) and even in preschool children (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/building-a-better-adult-preschool-mindfulness-training/). This is a potentially very important development and as such deserves far greater research scrutiny.

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness Training in Primary Schools Decreases Negative Affect and Increases Meta-Cognition in Children”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1172028366154421/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4709470/

Vickery and Dorjee delivered twelve ½-hour mindfulness lessons over approximately 3-weeks to 7-9-year old primary school children in the classroom in addition to the typical curriculum. A second group of children were provided the typical curriculum without the additional mindfulness training. Children were measured with objective and observational measures before and after training and 3-months later. They found that positive changes in mindfulness were associated with positive increases in emotional awareness in the mindfulness trained children. They also found that at follow-up the mindfulness training produced a significant increase in teacher rated meta-cognitive skills and also a significant decrease in negative emotions.

These are potentially important findings. Meta-cognitive skills include working memory, planning/organizing, organization of materials, initiating and monitoring activities. These are important skills that are generally predictive of academic performance and success later in life. Mindfulness, paying attention to the content of the present moment, may be a prerequisite for meta-cognition. One cannot initiate, plan, organize, remember, or monitor activities without paying attention to them as they are occurring. So, mindfulness skills may be seen as foundational for cognitive skills. It is exciting that this appears to be effective in young 7-9-year old children and makes a strong argument for the implementation of mindfulness programs in grammar schools.

The decrease in negative emotions is also important. They can lead to anxiety and depression. It has been shown that mindfulness training in adults and adolescents is effective for the reduction of anxiety and depression. It is exciting to observe that mindfulness training may have similar effects in 7-9-year old children. This suggests that the mindfulness training may develop resilience and psychological well-being in the children. It is possible that mindfulness training may be an effective early intervention for the prevention of later psychological problems and act to promote the development of psychological health.

It should be noted that Vickery and Dorjee did not find significant changes in measures of mindfulness, positive emotions, emotional awareness and expressive reluctance, and positive well-being. It is possible that a the total of 6-hurs of training is simply insufficient to impact these domains. Further research is needed to clarify this issue. Regardless, the positive findings that were reported are exciting and potentially important and support the further development and research on the use of mindfulness training in grammar school curricula.

So, help kids emotionally and cognitively with mindfulness.

“People are stepping back on that full focus on reading and math scores and are looking more holistically at all the skills that really matter. Social-emotional learning is not only crucial to academic success, but also career success and lifelong being.” – Sara Bartolino Krachman

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Repair the Damage with Mindfulness

January 3, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

“In today’s rush, we all think too much — seek too much — want too much — and forget about the joy of just being.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Mindfulness practices are known to improve people’s physical, mental, and even social well-being. But, why would mindfulness training, learning to pay attention to the experiences of the present moment without judging the experiences, be so good for people? It is surprising that such a simple training would be so beneficial. Why would we need to practice something as obvious as paying attention to what is going on right in front of our noses.

It is particularly puzzling, given that we are born mindful. A newborn infant is the epitome of mindfulness. Everything that is going on grabs their attention and they respond only to the present moment. There is no past as the memory systems have not yet developed and there is no future, as planning and foresight mechanisms have yet to develop. For them there is only now. Even later in childhood, life is experienced in the present moment. There is a sense of wonder and awe at the world and the beings, human and otherwise, that populate it. Play is a joy unto itself, without goal or purpose.

So, if mindfulness is our primal state, why do we later in life need to try to recapture it? It must be that we somehow lost it, otherwise why would we need to practice it. Rather than lost, mindfulness is trained out of us. The training that puts mindfulness to the side is ubiquitous. It’s present in the home, in school, at work, in the media, and in friendship groups. It teaches us to strive for a “better” future, for a degree, for a career, to acquire things, to seek relationships, for a family, to look out to avoid difficult issues or people, to make money. It teaches us to be focused on the future, rather than now. It teaches us to see now, not as something to be savored but as a necessary evil to get to the promised future.

We are trained to perfect ourselves, to be better at everything we do. This causes us to focus on the past and particularly things in the past that didn’t work, were troubling, embarrassing, or even terrifying. We try to look back at these events and work out what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. We are trained to try to have a healthy “self-concept.” This notion unto itself in unmindful as there really isn’t anything there, other than an accumulation of labels, thoughts, stories, and experiences that are summarized as the self. Again this causes us to focus on the past and future in the continuous striving to perfect ourselves.

By the time we’re adults severe damage has been done to our appreciation of our existence. Our society and culture not only allows it, but encourages it. Messages in the media and in ads constantly hammer home the notion of perfecting oneself and one’s life situation. We become so focused on these unattainable goals that our lives become a treadmill of unsatisfactoriness leading to more analysis and striving, leading to more unsatisfactoriness, leading to ….. It leads to unhappiness that we delude ourselves will be fixed sometime in the future when we accomplish some objective or acquire some object.

The damage that has been done is severe. It makes us constantly dissatisfied and unhappy. There isn’t a magical solution. But, going back toward our primal state of mindfulness will help immensely. But, our minds are so trained to focus on the past and future that we literally need to be retrained. We’ve been trained out of it, so we need to be trained back into it. That is where mindfulness practices come in.

Mindfulness practices work to undo the damage that’s been done to us by our society and culture throughout our lives. They work to return us to that happy state of appreciation of the present moment, to return, if only occasionally, to the wonder and awe at this miraculous thing we call life, to the appreciation of the other people that surround us. These practices work to teach us to really listen to one another and become compassionate, and to become active contributors to the overall group happiness.

It’s no wonder that mindfulness training is so beneficial to us physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and socially. It repairs the years of damage that so blinds us and makes us so dissatisfied. In a different society, with a different culture and values, mindfulness practice may not be so valuable. But, in our modern western culture, mindfulness practice is almost mandatory to ever truly be healthy and happy.

So, practice mindfulness, repair the damage, and thrive.

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” – Lao Tzu

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

ACT for Depression in Childhood Diabetes

November 3, 2015 psyjdc 2 Comments

“Self-acceptance means you refuse to buy into your judgments your mind makes about you, whether they’re good judgments or bad ones. Instead of judging yourself, you recognize your strengths and your weaknesses, and you do what you can to be the person you want to be.” – Russ Harris

There is an image, a societal meme, of childhood being a time of great happiness, fancifulness, freedom, creativity, and play. But, the reality is frequently starkly different. It has been estimated that 2% to 4% of children are depressed. This is particularly true with children under intense stress from childhood illness, particularly chronic illness. Indeed, 2.4% of children suffer from childhood diabetes. The day to day struggle with diabetes and the feelings that they are burdens on the family frequently produces depression in these children.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been shown to be effective for depression in adults (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/09/17/act-for-depression/). ACT employs mindfulness practices to increase awareness and develop an attitude of acceptance and compassion in the presence of painful thoughts and feelings. Additionally, ACT helps people strengthen aspects of cognition such as in committing to living according to their values. It is not known, however, if ACT is effective for depression in diabetic children

In today’s Research News article “Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Depression, Psychological Well-Being and Feeling of Guilt in 7 – 15 Years Old Diabetic Children”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1111453218878603/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4575800/

Moghanloo and colleagues provided ACT modified for children and adolescents in ten weekly sessions to a randomly assigned group of 7-15 year old diabetic children. The change from before to after was compared to a no intervention control group of children. They found that the children treated with ACT reported lower depression and feelings of guilt and had improved psychological well-being. The effects sizes were large and clinically meaningful. Hence, ACT appeared to be effective in children as it’s been shown to be in adults.

It should be noted that there was no follow-up to determine if the effects persisted after the end of active therapy. Also, since the control group did not receive psychological treatment of any kind, it is impossible to determine if ACT is particularly effective or any form of therapy would have worked as well.

Like most mindfulness techniques ACT is targeted to improving awareness and acceptance of experiences in the present moment. These include emotions. This may be particularly important in children. By making the children more aware of how they’re feeling and why, they may become better able to deal with and accept these sometimes overpowering emotions. In addition, ACT supplies tools to look at their own thoughts about their disease and psychological state and recognize, accept, and form a different relationship with them. This allows the individual to be more psychologically flexible and mindful. In this way ACT can assist the children in coping with not only their emotions but also their disease and thoughts about it in a more accepting and productive fashion.

So, ACT for depression in childhood diabetes.

“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until… we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say “I lost it.” – Sydney J Harris

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Building a Better Adult with Elementary School Mindfulness Training

August 8, 2015 psyjdc 5 Comments

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle

Childhood is a special time of dynamic learning. It is here that behaviors and attitudes are developed that shape the individual. If we wish to build better adults we need to focus on what is experienced during childhood. It is difficult to affect the family and what is learned at home, but we can affect what is learned in school. So, to build a better adult we need to build a better childhood education.

Childhood education rightly focuses on building knowledge and understanding of academic importance. But there is little effort to develop cognitive, emotional, and social skills. This is unfortunate as these skills are important unto themselves’ and also turn out to be very important in developing academic skills. In addition, it’s been shown that cognitive, emotional, and social skills in childhood predict health, financial stability, and educational attainment into adulthood.

Elementary school is a wonderful time to develop these skills. In today’s Research News article “Enhancing Cognitive and Social–Emotional Development Through a Simple-to-Administer Mindfulness-Based School Program for Elementary School Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial.”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1064877936869465/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4323355/

Schonert-Reichl and colleagues test the effectiveness of a social and emotional learning with mindfulness program in 4^th and 5^th grade students. The results were remarkable, with the mindfulness training producing improvement in a wide array of academic, social, emotional, cognitive, and physical measures.

Mindfulness training improved executive function, improving the children’s working memory, and cognitive flexibility. In addition they showed improved ability to control their behavior. The heightened inhibitory control led to the better control of their emotions as evidenced by a decrease in aggression. If that was not enough improved executive function and control resulted in the mindfulness trained children performing better in the only academic subject measured, math, achieving higher grades.

The mindfulness trained children showed greater social and emotional maturity with increased levels of empathy, perspective-taking, optimism, emotional control, school self-concept, and mindfulness and significantly lower depressive symptoms. In addition the other children rated the mindfulness trained children as higher in sharing, trustworthiness, helpfulness, taking others’ views, and were liked more, and lower aggressive behavior and were less likely to start a fight.

These results are nothing short of spectacular. A simple, easy to administer program to elementary school children produced major improvements in every aspect of the child’s performance in school, from academic, to social, to emotional. It remains to be seen how lasting these effects are but regardless, even if they only occur in conjunction with mindfulness training they indicate that this kind of training is extraordinarily important in promotion the child’s school performance and well-being.

So train your children in mindfulness and produce a better adult.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein

CMCS

Yoga for Trauma in Children

July 17, 2015 psyjdc 4 Comments

“Yoga’s ability to touch us on every level of our being—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—makes it a powerful and effective means for trauma victims to reinhabit their bodies safely, calm their minds, experience emotions directly, and begin to feel a sense of strength and control.” – van der Kolk

Trauma comes in many forms, from abuse to warfare, from children to the elderly, from natural and man-made causes, and from the rich to the poor. But, regardless of the cause or the characteristics of the individuals, it leaves in its wake a syndrome of posttraumatic symptoms which can haunt the victims for the rest of their lives. These include persistent recurrent re-experiencing of the traumatic event, including flashbacks and nightmares, loss of interest in life, detachment from other people, increased anxiety and emotional arousal, including outbursts of anger, difficulty concentration, and jumpiness, startling easily.

There have been many treatments employed each with varying but limited success. Mostly these treatments have been used with adults. But, children who are victims of trauma have been the focus of very few studies of therapeutic interventions. The lack of focus is surprising as it’s been estimated that of adolescents, 8% had been exposed to sexual assault, 17% physical assault, and 39% had witnessed violence. It is estimated that 15% of children show symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Mindfulness training and yoga practice have been found to be effective for trauma in adults, particularly from the middle and upper classes. It has yet to be shown if they can be employed effectively with children and with individuals from low socioeconomic categories. In today’s Research News article “Yoga to Reduce Trauma-Related Distress and Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties Among Children Living in Orphanages in Haiti: A Pilot Study”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1049082531782339/?type=1&theater

Culver and colleagues begin to address this issue by employing yoga training to treat traumatized orphans in Haiti. They found that yoga reduced the symptoms of trauma in these children and showed a trend toward a reduction in behavioral difficulties.

These findings are very encouraging. Trauma affects both the mind and the body. Yoga works with both, but is particularly targeted to the body. The relaxation produced by yoga practice is a soothing antidote to the hyperaroused state that is so characteristic of trauma victims. Yoga appears to reduce activity in the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight system. Hence, yoga appears to produce both muscular and physiological relaxation, directly addressing a symptom of trauma.

The practice of focusing attention that is so central to yoga training addresses the difficulties with concentration that are characteristic of trauma victims. The focus of attention in yoga is on the sensations from the body. This can directly address the numbing of sensation that is frequently reported by trauma victim. In addition, getting in touch with bodily sensations helps trauma victims get more in touch with their emotions allowing them to better work with them.

So, yoga appears to be an excellent treatment for trauma alone but preferably in combination with other treatment modalities.

CMCS