5 Mindfulness Exercises to Help Students Relax and Focus

Mindfulness is an excellent way to help students relax & focus in the classroom. Here are 5 mindfulness exercises you can do with your students.

5 Mindfulness Exercises to Help Students Relax and Focus

Mindfulness is an excellent way to help students relax and focus in the classroom. It can help reduce stress, improve emotional regulation, and increase concentration. Here are five mindfulness exercises that you can do with your students to help them stay calm and focused.

Color Breathing:

This activity is a great way to remind students of the importance of breathing. Ask them to think of a color that represents relaxation and another color that represents anger, frustration, or sadness.

Then, have them take a few deep breaths while visualizing the colors. This will help them relax and refocus.

Body Postures:

Body postures are a fun way for children to get into mindfulness. Tell them that doing fun poses can help them feel strong, courageous, and happy. This will get them excited about mindfulness and help them stay focused.

Abdominal Breathing:

Abdominal breathing is an excellent activity for students to practice staying calm during stressful situations.

Centervention has a complete lesson plan that you can use about abdominal breathing. It includes pre-discussion and post-discussion questions, as well as step-by-step instructions.

Sesame Street App:

The free Sesame Street app is a great way to introduce younger children to the concept of calming down through breathing. The app teaches children the “Breathe, Think, Do” method. They help an animated monster faced with a frustrating situation to calm down by breathing deeply and for a long time.

Calming Corners:

Calming corners can help reduce student stress and provide relaxing visual, auditory, and tactile experiences for students to de-stress.

A calming corner can be a physical corner of your classroom or a virtual space. You can also provide headphones and music devices with relaxing music or sounds of nature for students to escape for a moment. These are just five of the many mindfulness exercises you can do with your students. Mindfulness helps students reduce social anxiety, restlessness, and improve their learning experience. It also helps them prepare to learn and concentrate throughout the day.