At Wellity Education, we center emotional intelligence, empathy, and gratitude. We welcome you to enjoy this newsletter as an offering to care for yourself and others.
As many of you know, Youth Yoga Project has evolved to Wellity Education to lead with well-being and equity. As Wellity Education we will expand our reach, and empower more children with tools to be well through movement, mindset, and mindfulness.
Educators across the country are equipping students with mindful tools to support their mental health. In our fast moving world, the opportunity to slow down and focus on the present moment is a way to combat stress, anxiety, and depression. That is why Wellity Education teaches mindfulness in schools. It is an active stance in self-caring for your mind, body, and spirit.
“Mindfulness is about observation without criticism; being compassionate with yourself.”
What is mindfulness?
Jon Kabit-Zinn defines mindfulness as “paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, non-judgmentally. It means having the presence of heart.”
As a community, we understand that mindfulness is good for us. Yet, it is sometimes a struggle to incorporate it into our lives.
How can we devote time to self exploration when, as educators, we are very much anchored to the everyday?
We are anchored to our school schedules, family life, and every day tasks. This is an offering to you, our community, to help you use your senses to mindfully connect with your environment.
We offer you this mindset: Be curious about how you experience moments in time.
Mindfulness Practices
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Grounding Technique
This practice offers you the opportunity to become fully aware of the present moment by tapping into your 5 senses (sound, smell, sight, taste, and touch). We invite you to use your 5 senses to ground yourself in the present moment and enhance your experiences with the world around you.
Mindful Eating
Mindfulness also means adapting a slow brain. It’s estimated that 95% of our behavior runs on autopilot—something we call “fast brain.” That’s because neural networks underlie all of our habits, reducing our millions of sensory inputs per second into manageable shortcuts so we can function in this chaotic world.
One way to slow down is to eat mindfully. Purposefully slow down to notice how your food looks, smells, feels, tastes, and sounds while you are eating. Try out this mindful eating practice the next time you sit down for a meal.
