Mindfulness and Technology: An Unlikely Duo

Mindfulness continues to gain momentum as a practice that can be designed to combat the ever demanding world of technology and media. It is a way for us to "unplug" from the Ipads and emails that vie for our attention like rock star groupies outside of an 80's era Whitesnake concert. Using mindfulness can help us turn off the things that steal our attention and tune into the things that are happening in the present moment such as the way we feel and the sounds we hear. By redirecting out attention to the present moment we are able create space between what is happening and how we respond to it.

In a twist of irony it appears that there are an ever growing list of Applications for our smartphones that make it easier to employ mindfulness in order to unplug from the very smartphones that are helping us to be mindful. Yeah confusing I know... its kind of like trying to start a diet by going to McDonald's and ordering a chicken salad topped with fried nuggets. However, part of dealing with a world that is increasingly being taken over by technology is approaching the way we deal with that technology in a contemplative manner. By mindfully paying attention to how we interact with these technologies we can use them to our advantage and help increase and strengthen a daily mindfulness practice. I have compiled a list of "Mindfulness Apps" that I think can help us maintain our daily practice through fun interactive means.

Insight Timer- Meditation Timer ($2.99): This is my current favorite application for my smartphone. It is available for both Iphones and Android operating systems. With the Insight Timer you can try both guided meditations as well as silent self-guided sits. It has a handy timer that starts and stops your session with a variety of bells and singing bowls. It also has a journal feature to write about your experience after meditating. The app has an online community called Insight Connect that lets you connect with other people using the application.  According to Amazon "With the Insight Connect feature, you can become part of a global meditation community - seeing at a glance people around the world who are meditating with you." 

Conscious App by Makan Studios (free): This is another app that is available for both the Android and Iphone smartphones. This app pushes daily challenges to you that help you stay mindful of a certain goal. It also has a community of users to help you stay motivated. Every morning, everyone gets the same new challenge for the day. If you accept the challenge, you then try your best throughout the day to incorporate it in your experience. In the evening, you mark the challenge as finished and add a daily journal entry to keep track of your progress and share your insights with the others. I think it is a great idea I just am not too thrilled about the idea of more notifications being pushed through my phone.

ReWire by Seated Monkey (free): This free app tries to increase your inherent ability to pay attention. It is simple and easy to use. You listen to sound and when the sound disappears you tap the screen. I also find it to be a great precursor to a meditation session by helping to ready your ability to focus. I  like that you can import your own music or purchase the ReWire "brainwave tracks." Although not specifically meditation this is a great app to use with kids or other novices who may not be experienced with staying aware of their own attention. 

The Mind Gardner App ($.99): This app can be download on both the Android and Itunes platforms. It is based off the popular Mind Gardener website which focuses on positive thinking in the realm of positive psychology rather than mindfulness. It is another app that tries to help with mind training to increase attention and focus. However, it relies more on training your brain for positive thinking and motivation... kind of like a pocket sized Tony Robbins. According to the Android store "Mind Gardener Moments contains 20 topics, including the procrastination buster, the relationship smoother, the mood shifter, the busyness buster, the change embracer and the creativity booster. Each topic reveals 3 simple and practical exercises designed to hit the spot." I don't use this app and by the looks of the website its full of platitudes that can come off a little trite. However give it a shot it may be just what you need. 

Mind Hacker app ($1.92): Mind Hacker uses binaural beat technology to alter your though patterns by stimulating specific parts of the brain using various frequencies. Binaural beats are believed to lower brain frequency, decrease anxiety and increase learning (working memory). Theta waves specifically are supposed to help with meditation. The jury here at the Mindful School Psychologist is still out on this one, but if this is your thing its a great app. 

The Meditation Jar (free):  This app is only for the Iphone and is great for kids to practice "mindful seeing". The Meditation Jar app gives relaxation to your mind and helps you to focus on the simple settling of dots in a jar- similar to a snow globe. Just shake the jar and let the dots clear your mind in 10 seconds right where you are.

As mindfulness continues to "go mainstream" more and more of these apps will continue to be developed. From websites that are dedicated to tracking the growing movement of technology in contemplation/ meditation, as well as podcasts that discuss their utility, the lines between awareness and technology will continue to blur. As a practitioner who is  excited to be apart of the growing mindfulness movement I am optimistic about how these apps can help us to strengthen or daily practice as well as bring mindfulness to those who have not found it. However, I am cautious and always mindful to approach my relationship with this technology in a inquisitive and introspective manner. What apps do you use? Are there any you would recommend. Leave your recommendations in the comments section. 

The Benefits of Meditation

What the Internet Does to Our Brains

I found this great video from Epipheo that highlights the importance of devoting a little time each day for cultivating our ability to pay attention to one thing. Wether it is our breath, the sound of birds singing or going for a run, we must triage the never ending sensory stimuli in our ever growing lives in order to learn, grow and think to our best human ability.

Your Mind at Work

Here is a great link and PDF document from Mindful magazine that give some easy ways to use mindfulness when you are dealing with everyday frustrations in the workplace. I like the idea of using little mindful tips to help combat work place frustrations. I know I am someone who often gets easily frustrated. It usually leads to me losing track of my focus as I contemplate the many ways an annoying colleague is making me feel. I especially can relate to the advice about others who gossip, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. Although not a panacea to all problems of the work place, I think these little tricks can be a great way to further a mindful practice if you already have one.


https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B81L8Ptq2gu-S0RDYXZtbTZiSWc/edit?usp=sharing

3 Activities to increase Mindful Awareness

I am trying to get back to updating this blog on a regular basis regarding my work with mindfulness and children. I wanted to write about a few activities that I have been doing that seem to be fun and well received by my kiddos.  I am currently working with 4th grade boys that struggle with attention and focus. Although they are not all diagnosed with ADHD, they have been recommended for my group as children who "struggle with attention and self-control." Recent studies have suggested that  mindful training not only helps children with ADHD increase attention skills, it also helps with developing executive functioning skills. Executive functioning skills are the skills necessary for us to control our behavior as well as  plan and self monitor our actions. Due to this growing area of research (which I recently contributed to and will write about on this blog) I have started to focus more on building mindful awareness with my students. One of the ways we do this is to focus on sensory exploration. Whether its exploring breath, pulse or the sense of touch; focusing on sensory input is one way to build the awareness needed to stay in the current moment. Here are three recent activities I have been doing with my students to build sensory awareness.

Tactile Awareness

Our hands are one of the most sensitive parts of the body. Our fingers have over 100 touch receptors in just their tips. All of this information is rushed to our brain and relays messages within a blink of an eye. However; we are often unaware of the sensations our fingers and hands send to our information processing system and having the sense of sight to go with this information we often take tactile sensation for granted. One way to increase tactile awareness is to play the "What is it?" game. In this game you gather a random assortment of small toys (race cars, action figures ect.), office supplies, coins and anything else that is lying around your office or room and throw then into a sack or tote bag that can not be seen through. Write the names of all the objects on note cards and shuffle the cards. Have a student pick a card and then try to find that item in the bag without looking. They must only use there sense of touch. I like to set a timer or have a song play (students choice :))  for 15 seconds while they search. Before I set the timer I have them describe what the item may feel like. Is it smooth? Rough? Round or Soft? If the student finds the item they get to keep the card. The first student to get to 3 cards wins the game. I got the idea for this game from this amazing educational activity called the the Touch Game, which appears to no longer be in production #sadface. The Speech/ Language therapist at my school had one that I borrowed and the students loved it. It even has a timer built into it. You can buy them on Ebay, but 80-100 dollars seems a lot for a game you can recreate with random objects laying around the office.

Awareness of Breath

Often times when I have students focus on their breath, they start to breath in a loud and labored manner, which is not only unsustainable it also causes a distraction to the group. I began to realize that children may need a fun way to practice sustaining and modifying their breath. The old fashion Floating Ball Game is a great way to facilitate breath awareness. These floating ball games can be purchased for a cheap price on Amazon. I bought one for each of my students. I start by demonstrating how to make the ball go up and down, as well as sustaining it at a certain height. I then show them how to get it to land back in the cradle. After the first demonstration the children are given a couple minutes to practice making the ball go up and down and getting the ball back into to the cradle. We talk about how one must modify their breath to make the ball go up or down as well as focus on the rate they breathe in order for the ball to get back into the cradle. After the students spend some time practicing and focusing on their breath, I then turn the game into a competition. Each person gets two tries to see how long they can keep the ball in the air and get it back into the cradle. The trial only counts if they get the ball back into the cradle. Who ever was able to keep the ball up longest gets a prize (by the way I kept my up for 15 seconds and its not as easy as it looks). After the game we do a 1 minute silent meditation. The students try to focus on their breathing in the same manner they did during the game so they can "practice their breath" for next time.

Pulse Awareness

Our pulse is a great barometer of how our body is feeling in the present moment. Just as a barometer tells us about the future weather patterns our pulse can also tell us how we are about to act or feel in any situation. When there are sudden changes in barometric pressure there may be a storm brewing. When we have sudden changes in our heart rate or pulse, dynamic and unpredictable emotions or behaviors may be coming. However; the great thing about a barometer is that by watching for changes in pressure (or pulse in this case) we are better able to prepare for the coming storm. Listening to the waring signs in our body can lead to improvements in our mental health. Teaching children to listen to their pulse is an easy way for them to gauge how they are feeling. I begin this activity with first teaching students how to find their pulse. There are three different easy ways to find your pulse. The first is by placing you index and middle finger just below your wrist.

If the children have trouble locating their pulse here then they can also try to locate it by placing two fingers just above and to the right of their adam's apple. Finally if this is not working they can lay their hand over their heart, which seemed to work for a couple of my students. Once they find their pulse, I have them count how many heart beats they feel while just sitting. We record each persons heart beat. Next we have 2 minutes of active time. I usually let them pick a song to listen to and we do jumping jacks, run in place and pretty much just run around crazy. For my students who know Yoga, we do 5 sun salutations in row. After two minutes is up we again find the pulse and count how many beats are in 10 seconds. After we record each student's number we then talk about the difference in number of beats as well as how it feels when your heart is beating so quickly. I have them share times when they became nervous or angry and their hearts started beating quickly. Finally we do 1 minute meditation where we focus solely on our breath. After the one minute has ended I ring a mindful bell and the students raise their hand when they can no longer hear the sound. The students then find their pulse again for 10 seconds and notice if focusing on their breath has made their pulse go up or down. We then discuss ways to use breath awareness when we may be faced with times that make our pulse go up.

The great thing about teaching mindfulness to children is the many different activities one can use to help facilitate awareness. Whether it is mindful walking, mindful eating or mindful breathing, teaching children to slow down and be mindful of their actions helps them to cultivate their ability to actively pay attention to the world around them. These three activities alone will not create perfect executive functioning skills or laser sharp attention skills in children. However, my goal  is to help children start to become aware of themselves and aware of their ability to control and regulate behavior. This will help them achieve what ever goals they have for themselves, whether it is passing a math test or getting through a parents' divorce. Hopefully the skills I teach them will turn into future techniques for self regulation. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, "planting seeds" of effective emotional tools for creating future peaceful, happy lives.

Resources:

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011), Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children, Berkley: Parallax Press

School Psychology Awareness Week 2012 #SPAW

 

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) is proud to sponsor School Psychology Awareness Weeek (#SPAW). This year's theme is "Know your own strengths. Discover them. Share them. Celebrate them." This theme highlights the importance of creating supportive learning environments that help students identify, build and employ their strengths in school, at home and throughout life. As a School Psychologist I think this is one of the most important things we can do with our student populations. By exemplifying strengths we build confidence, self-efficacy and long term goals, which in turn create future healthy members of society. I will be tweeting ideas for helping students find their own personal strengths all week.  


One way I like to foster students in recognizing their owns strengths is drawing a comparison to superheros. I currently run a school program which focuses on building mindful awareness through the medium of superheros and super powers. We meet as a group and talk about what each of the students would like to be when they grow up. We then discuss what super powers would be helpful to be successful in that field. For example, a student recently told me that he want sto be a Football player when he grows up. We talked about super speed, super agility and super balance- all of which are things the student feels he is good at and led him to want to be a Football player. Another student indicated that he wants to build robots (I suggested becoming an engineer). We discussed his super powers as being super curiosity, super imagination and super attention. As a group we then meditate on these super powers trying to make sure we stay self-aware of them and keep them at the forefront of our daily intentions. The hope is that the students keep a strength based approach to their goals and aspirations; staying mindful of whether their actions are congruent with their "super powers." This is just one way I am trying to employ this years SPAW theme. For more information on how to spread the "Know your own strengths" theme, the following links may be helpful:

  Activities for School Psychology Awareness Week: Know Your Own Strengths

  Handout for Teachers and other school professionals regarding "Know Your Own Strengths"   

Mindful Documentary and more links

• Great documentary about the work Mindful Schools is doing in the Bay Area.... love the way the girl looks at the bell the first time she hears it.

Room to Breathe Official Trailer from Russell Long on Vimeo.

• Interesting article about the effects of pot usage on the developing adolescent brain.

• Here is a great video showing how to incorporate mindful awareness and it links to memory using rocks (This again is apart of the awesome MIND UP curriculum)

• Are toddlers susceptible to peer pressure ?????

• Looks like schools in Memphis are finding success in meditation... maybe there is hope for the South.

• Interesting research regarding the different neural pathways activated during pleasure reading vs. critical reading

• A great quick intervention that I like to use for Anxiety

Quick Links

• Stress reduction approaches like mindfulness and biofeedback could be as important to your physical fitness as crunches

• I appears that Classical Conditioning works while your asleep as well ...

• It appears that personality traits such as self-control and procrastination may have a stronger impact on grades in school than say....cognitive ability . I always knew that Type A captain of the debate team wasn't really that smart....

• Yeah!!! we can finally get Aunt Sally to stop waking up in the middle of the night and rambling on about "kids these days"... It looks like yoga can help older people overcome insomnia and improve their mental and emotional health

• Exergaming (I guess that's a thing now), you know the whole idea of exercising while playing video games, appears to help task performance in children; specifically the ability to process interference from conflicting  visuospatial stimuli. Practical Applications???? Maybe Dance Dance Revolution may help children become better proof readers.

Links for the Day

• The Pulvinar, described as a "mysterious part of the brain" appears to be behind selective attention and how the brain transmits information... Is it just me or does this sound like some doomsday device from a James Bond movie

• Here are 10 ways Yoga makes you cool .... but if you were really cool you would have been doing Yoga before it was cool

• In a related note it appears that Hipster Ariel may really be ahead of the curve as spirituality is linked to better mental health....

•  A new line of Jewish Yoga know as "kabbalah Yoga"  is beginning to gain popularity

• Yoga and deep breathing being used to fight PTSD in soldiers

Nice Graph

This graph is not specific data with regards to Mindfulness; however, it is a nice visual about the successes of meditation in schools. These numbers appear to come from both Trancendental Meditation (TM) practices as well as Mindfulness traditions. Although it also has scientific backing, the TM movement may be a more difficult path for school implementation as it is sometimes stigmatized as a cult. Nonetheless, this article shows the positive aspects of school based TM programs, specifically the Quiet Time Program, created by the David Lynch foundation.

Bits and links

• Apparently meditation decreases the duration of the common cold

• Meditation (mantra-centered) as an intervention for the sensory processing deficits seen in Autism seems to be growing.

• Good news you don't have to drag the family to go see Grandma in the old peoples home anymore, as Carnegie Mellon found that an 8 week MBSR course reduces loneliness

• Recent research has shown that heart and lung health has been linked to better reading and math scores in middle school students. This is great because it just so happens that meditation and yoga may also help fight acute respiratory infections and asthma

Even short amounts of Mindfulness are effective...

Part of what makes Mindful meditation so interesting is the Neuropsychological impact it has on the brain. Our brain has the uncanny ability to form new connections and strengthen grey matter through Neuroplasticity. Through this process we are able learn new languages, recover from accidents and overcome mild psychological disorders. A recent study suggested that experienced meditators who have been practicing anywhere between 4 and 46 years exhibited increased grey matter in areas associated with increased attention and focus, working memory and impulse control.

 WOW this sounds great, in about 4 years we can see increase in grey matter. I barely have time stop at Chik Fil-A for dinner and you are telling me that I have to spend four years being mindful before I can see results? Luckily new research  from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the positive neurological effects of Mindful Meditation can be seen in just two weeks. The Chinese study from Dalian University of Technology randomly assigned participants to "30 minutes of either integrative body-mind training or relaxation training over a two-week period. The training totaled five hours for each group." This is encouraging news for implementing mindful meditation training within systems that are usually "strapped" for time, e.g. schools.