Designed for parents, grandparents, caregivers and caring people in the lives of children, Heart-Mind Online offers you a treasure-trove of research-informed information, and activity ideas to support you in the most important job in the world!
Our minds are always full of chatter, including rumination and excessive worry, which trigger our brain’s stress response.
Mindfulness consists of observing a single phenomenon (e.g., the breath) with compassion and acceptance, thereby quieting the chatter. It looks like this: Focus --- lose focus --- gently refocus.
Returning focus trains the mind to reduce chatter. Effective mindfulness practice can require as little as 5 minutes, 5 days per week, but if necessary, start with just 1-2 minutes each day. Consistency is key!
Research has shown many physical and psychological benefits from mindfulness. The latter include:
Our breath is a direct pathway to the autonomic nervous system. Through altering the type, rate, and ratio of breath, we engage the vagal pathways that influence heart-rate and messages sent to the brain.
Voluntary regulation of breathing often improves symptoms of anxiety and depression, and slower breathing with prolonged exhalation increases parasympathetic activity.
Here is a tool you might find useful as you voluntarily regulate breathing:
Sync Your Breathing: https://yp4h.osu.edu/justbreathe
Our brains naturally and routinely scan for bad news, in the world and within us. This “negativity bias” is designed to ensure our survival, but it activates our stress response and has many negative consequences.
Consider keeping a “gratitude journal” in which you write down and routinely review your blessings; record two a day and see how long you can keep the list growing!
