Meditation in the Classroom: Helping Your Students Find

Thomas M Ferrari, PhD408 O’Dowd Hall

mbferrari@oakland.edu

"Meditation in the Classroom: Helping Your Students Find

Peace in Anxious Times"

Definitions

• Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.

• Anything can be done with mindfulness

• Meditation is a practice to develop relaxation, open awareness, and focused attention.

• These are practices and require discipline

Meditation

Goals?

Meditation

Objections?

Ours

Students

Meditation

Classroom Methods

What are the constraints?

What are the possibilities?

Meditation

Minute methods

BreathCleansing (in = positive, out = negative)Sounds (e.g. singing bowl)Phrase (mantra, or meaningful phrase re topic)Music (classical)Story (i.e. guided)Mandala (coloring)Tapping/Acupressure

Benefits

Why meditate?

Physical – relaxation response, cardioprotective, longevity, immune benefits

Mental –greater awareness, focused attention, strengthened will power, pain reduction

Emotional – reduced reactivity, increased resilience, courage

Relational – relaxation, empathy, acceptance, compassion, peace with others

Methods

How to meditate?

Two components: Motivational and Practical

1st Pick a reason why to meditate.

Commit 100% (100% is easy; 99% is hard).

Do it in a SMART way.

Seek support.

Methods

Practicalities:

Posture - dignified

Space – quiet, undisturbed, dedicated

Time – repeated and realistic, ideally early a.m.

Anchor – breath, mantra, mudra, posture, object, question - almost anything as long as it is simple

Patience! “Oh, well”

Observe results….realistically

Sense of Humor!!

Practice

Singing bowl exercise

What did you notice right when the sound faded away? What did you notice in the intervals between ringing of the bowl?

Self-Reflection:

What did you learn about yourself?

Why would you want to practice?

Challenges

What are the barriers to regular practice?

Conviction

Time

Turmoil

Ego – wants instant gratification and to be the expert

Frustration at seeing negative patterns = Discomferies….fear, anger, shame, grief, etc.

Challenges

Promise

“Freedom from thoughts that create suffering”

Autonomic Nervous SystemFeign and Freeze

Fight or Flight

Rest and Digest

Tend and Befriend

Sickness behavior

Sexual Behavior

Nummenmaa et al., 2013. PNAS.

Bodily Maps of Emotions

In five experiments, participants (n = 701) were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions.

Universal emotion somatotopic maps

Ainsworth B, Eddershaw R, Meron D, Baldwin DS, Garner M. The effect of focused attention and open monitoring meditation on attention network function in healthy volunteers. Psychiatry Res. 2013, 210(3):1226-31.

Crescentini C, Capurso V. Mindfulness meditation and explicit and implicit indicators of personality and self-concept changes. Front Psychol. 2015, 6:44.

Hutchinson JB, Turk-Browne. Memory-guided attention: Control from multiple memory systems. Trends Cogn Sci. 2012, 16(12):576-579.

Jevning R, Wallace RK, Beidebach M. The physiology of meditation: a review. A wakeful hypometabolic integrated response. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 1992, 16(3):415-24.

Mehrmann C, Karmacharya R. Principles and neurobiological correlates of concentrative, diffuse, and insight meditation. Harv Rev Psychiatry. 2013, 21(4):205-18.

Nummenmaa L, Glerean E, Hari R, Hietanen JK. Bodily maps of emotions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014, 111(2):646-51.

Nijjar PS, Puppala VK, Dickinson O, Duval S, Duprez D, Kreitzer MJ, Benditt DG. Modulation of the autonomic nervous system assessed through heart rate variability by a mindfulness based stress reduction program. Int J Cardiol. 2014, 177(2):557-9.

Papies EK, Pronk TM, Keesman M, Barsalou LW. The benefits of simply observing: mindful attention modulates the link between motivation and behavior. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2015, 108(1):148-70.

Regehr C, Glancy D, Pitts A. Interventions to reduce stress in university students: a review and meta-analysis. J Affect Disord. 2013, 148(1):1-11.

Shapiro SL, Schwartz GE, Bonner G. Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on medical and premedical students. J Behav Med. 1998, 21(6):581-99.

Selected References