My other Websites:
Smart-Thinking@weebly.com Further information on the creator of this Website: I am an individual who is discontent with the current culture of creative education. Our most creative times as children are being homogenized, sanitized and institutionalized. Where has the freedom for mistakes evaporated too? Our most minds are being encouraged not to be still, but are super stimulated by diet, environment, technology. When was the last time you took ten minutes to do nothing? I know I can't recall. This page is about my journey to find strategies to reboot my mind and reclaim my creative soul. Interesting links: TED LESSONS |
Where to start?
Mindfulness.... not mindfulness Mindfulness Mindfulness: A quality of consciousness; a connection of purpose, a connection with the present, a non-judgmental connection My journey starts here:
I became interested in exploring mindfulness after watching Andy Puddicomb's Ted Talk... "see right" My next step was to start reading Ruby Wax's book Frazzled. I have started reading Frazzled in conjunction with another book "Blink" and so the journey begins.
In the words of Seth Goden "You can do anything, the only one stopping you is you." Just created a new page based around the chemical reactions that occur in the brain. Chemical Reaction. The journey continues... I also have recently watch a youtube lecture by Matthieu Ricard this guy has a good message around happiness and Alturism.
see video on "right Change your mind change your life" His website: http://www.matthieuricard.org/en/ Great TED TALK: https://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness?language=en Great book and comes with meditation CD
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Adult humour and content
The surprising truth about what motivates us.
Matthieu Ricard
very insightful with scientifically evidence for the benefits of mindfulness |
Mindfulness in schools
whether the attention come by grace of genius or dint of will, the longer one does attend to a topic the more mastery of it one has. And the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will. […] And education which should improve this faculty would be theeducation par excellence.” (William James : Writings 1878-1899)
Sharing Mindfulness - gaining focus, attention and concentration.
The following information was adapted from a .b Slideshow Amanda Bailey Bright Futures Educational Trust http://www.slideshare.net/ChallengePartners/an-introduction-24299852 More and more educators are seeing the educative sense of introduction mindfulness education into the busy schedules of primary and secondary schools. "Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, But today is a gift, And that’s why it is called the present." This is very close to the core meaning of mindfulness, which is PAYING ATTENTION TO THE PRESENT MOMENT. Whilst it is a little more complex than that, this very much captures the spirit of mindfulness. Mindfulness is about training the mind to be in the present moment, whatever is happening, be that good or bad. "The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Heav’n of Hell, a hell of Heav’n" Milton, 1667 ideas taken form the .b program: 1: All at one level academic studies give pupils plenty of knowledge and undoubtedly develop their thinking skills, they are very rarely taught to directly investigate and to understand the mechanism which does the observing and which does the thinking. What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness involves paying attention… on purpose.. in the present moment.. with curiosity and kindness …to things as they are. Understanding what mindfulness is may be easier if we explore its opposite, mindlessness, which ironically can be when our minds are too full! For much of the time we most of us tend to live in a preoccupied state in which the here and now is hardly experienced. Our heads are full of chatter, often anxiously ruminating on the past or planning obsessively for the future. In so far as we are thinking about what is happening right now we tend to view our present experience through a filter of self-centred judgements and labels - such as whether what is happening is pleasant or unpleasant, interesting or boring, useful or pointless and so on. Close your eyes and think about how often you operate out of this kind of state. Our minds are also often disconnected our body, and so unaware of the potentially valuable information that it has to tell us, such as stress warning signs, or the emotions that are driving our behaviour. Mindfulness training and regular practice can give greater access to a state of calm concentrated focus on the here and now - more reliably, more often and more at will than most of us normally experience. Some research: Research is increasing exponentially and an increasing numbers of studies have shown reasonably strong evidence for the positive impact of mindfulness on a wide range of mental and physical health conditions. It has been shown to address physical health problems directly, and is effective in reducing pain, high blood pressure, in improving the symptoms of physical conditions such as psoriasis and fibromyalgia. Mindfulness has also clearly been shown to be effective in improving mental health too, addressing problems such as substance abuse, stress, anxiety and recurrent depression, and to improve sleep. Notes. Results obtained from a search of the term "mindfulness" in the abstract and keywords of the ISI Web of Knowledge database on Feb. 5, 2011. The search was limited to publications with English language abstracts
Brain imaging studies on adults are showing that mindfulness meditation reliably and profoundly alters the structure and function of the brain to improve the quality of both thought and feeling.
It produces greater blood flow too, and a thickening of, the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. Although the most striking changes are observable in long term meditators, brain changes are clearly observable in people who have only been meditating for eight weeks for an average of under half an hour a day. In these subjects, imaging showed increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection. Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased grey-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although studies have not yet been done on children’s brains there is no reason to suppose the changes would not be similar. Training our attention is a bit like training a puppy. I tell my attention to focus here, or focus there, or do this, or do that, but it doesn’t stay still. It doesn’t do what I say. It’s like training a puppy to “stay” or “heel”. You put the puppy down and say “stay”. Does the puppy listen? No. It gets up and runs away. You sit the puppy back down again. “Stay”. And the puppy runs away over and over again. Sometimes it jumps up and down, sometimes it yelps, pees in the corner or worse. Minds don’t tend to stay still either, at least in the early stages of our mind-training. The other thing the puppy does is bring things back to you that you didn’t even want. It runs off and finds an old sock or a half-chewed shoe. This is just like the mind trying to pay attention. You ask it to pay attention to one thing, and it goes off and thinks about something completely unrelated! As one mindfulness teacher says: “Our minds are much the same as puppies, only they create bigger messes.”
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Activity
How do you anchor yourself in the present? Answer the following questions with a partner then try the 7/11 activity.
•Since waking up today, what have you done on autopilot?
•Where do our minds tend to be when we’re on autopilot? •What’s it like being on autopilot? 7/11 punctuated by normal breaths. -
One way of grounding yourself in the present moment is to focus on what the body is doing… simply observing your breath for example. One exercise for example, is called the 7-11. Count from 1-7 as they breathe in, and from 1-11 as they breathe out. There is no need for them to change the breath… just (for example) speed up your counting towards the end if you think the inbreath will finish before you get to 7. The objective here is simply to pay attention to the breath by becoming aware of where exactly they are moment by moment in each breath. Most of you, I imagine, for those seconds, were completely focussed on the present moment activity. That is a little mechanism, an exercise, which you can take with you anywhere. If you feel yourself getting really stressed, or angry, then use it. However, it takes practice to get good at this. At first the mind wanders constantly, but with practice we learn to sustain our attention and direct it more skilfully. This helps break the grip of unhelpful mental habits, judgements and impulses, making way for greater calm, and for more helpful, kinder and rational thinking about all aspects of life. Attention is like a puppy It wanders around, sniffing aimlessly
It doesn’t stay where you want it to It makes messes It brings back things you didn’t ask for Training our attention is a bit like training a puppy. I tell my attention to focus here, or focus there, or do this, or do that, but it doesn’t stay still. It doesn’t do what I say. It’s like training a puppy to “stay” or “heel”. You put the puppy down and say “stay”. Does the puppy listen? No. It gets up and runs away. You sit the puppy back down again. “Stay”. And the puppy runs away over and over again. Sometimes it jumps up and down, sometimes it yelps, pees in the corner or worse. Minds don’t tend to stay still either, at least in the early stages of our mind-training. The other thing the puppy does is bring things back to you that you didn’t even want. It runs off and finds an old sock or a half-chewed shoe. This is just like the mind trying to pay attention. You ask it to pay attention to one thing, and it goes off and thinks about something completely unrelated! As one mindfulness teacher says: “Our minds are much the same as puppies, only they create bigger messes.” .b GREAT ....
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http://www.mindfulschools.org/
Stop . Recognise Breathe ‘Be’ |
Mindfulness for Young students
https://vimeo.com/119439978
http://www.mindfulteachers.org/search/label/young%20children
http://www.mindfulteachers.org/2015/11/how-teachers-can-share-mindfulness.html
http://www.mindfulteachers.org/p/free-resources-and-lesson-plans.html
http://www.mindfulnesswithoutborders.org/about-us/
Bodyscan
https://www.livingwell.org.au/mindfulness-exercises-3/6-body-scan/
https://vimeo.com/119439978
http://www.mindfulteachers.org/search/label/young%20children
http://www.mindfulteachers.org/2015/11/how-teachers-can-share-mindfulness.html
http://www.mindfulteachers.org/p/free-resources-and-lesson-plans.html
http://www.mindfulnesswithoutborders.org/about-us/
Bodyscan
https://www.livingwell.org.au/mindfulness-exercises-3/6-body-scan/