A Mindful Future Society?

 I really found the lecture on mindfulness and meditation to be extremely interesting. I think the biggest reason is because of the evidence that has been produced to show the positive effects meditation has on the brain. It makes you wonder why meditation isn’t being prescribed by doctors…or why all of our children aren’t participating in it in the classroom? After learning more about it and having a child myself, I think it is something both him and myself could do as there are only positive outcomes to practicing meditation. Before I sat down and started writing this blog, I was looking up guided meditations and I found one that I really liked. It is only five minutes long and is for the morning right after you wake up. Can you imagine if everyone started their day with five minutes of meditation?

 5 Minute Guided Meditation

Meditation can affect the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the prefrontal cortex. These two parts in the brain work together with the amygdala and the hippocampus and are responsible for any emotional reaction we have. For any emotion we have, we might have a reaction because of that emotion and it is because of these four parts of the brain working together that we are either able to control those reactions or not. Practicing meditation affects these parts of the brain so that people might not have the same kind of emotional reaction they would have had before they practiced meditation. Meditation actually changes the structure of our brain in these areas which can also be associated with increased learning and memory capacity and greater personal awareness, (Shonin, 2016, p. 3). New brain cells are created in these areas of the brain because of meditation.

I am a firm believe that everyone can benefit from therapy. I believe that without a doubt everyone in the world should be in therapy as the world would probably be a better place if people had the tools they needed to handle certain life events and process those life events, but also the mondain events in between. Saying that, I also think everyone would benefit from being mindful and practicing meditation. Dr. Parrish said in one of her lectures something along the lines of when you see an adult that has been through trauma and that being the end of it for them, (that is not an exact quote). They are who they are because of the trauma or events in their life that they’ve been through and I really chuckled at that because I have said that many, many times before. Our children are different though. Our children haven’t experienced trauma (hopefully) and if they have, they are still young enough to be able to be handed a bag of (mental) tools and not let their trauma have a huge, potentially negative, affect on who they become in life. Meditation can be one of those tools. I’m not saying that meditation is only good to handle trauma and only children who experience trauma should be taught it. Meditation should be taught in schools because there are many benefits to it. According to Zelazo and Lyons, “repeated pairing of activation in the PFC (mediating reflection) and the limbic system (mediating emotional experience) in response to an emotion-eliciting event should strengthen connections between these neural regions, quite literally growing the neural circuitry that will support emotion regulation across the lifespan,” (Zeloza & Lyons, 2012, p. 158). Meditation can help children learn how to regulate their feelings that will benefit them throughout their life. This is what adults need to know how to do. This is a tool adults need in their belt, but they don’t have it or don’t think they need it. If more people in the world were able to regulate their emotions, there would be a lot less violence and I think a lot more people would be more openminded about certain things.  

I am currently observing an IEP class for one of my other college courses and every Wednesday they do meditation for 10-15 minutes. When the teacher first told me this was something they do I said something along the lines of, “Oh great that’s exactly what I need.” But really, I think it is so great that she is doing that for her high school students. Now when I finally sat in on the class, I’m not sure if what they are doing is meditation since most of the kids have their phones out, but I appreciate the effort! Personally? Do I practice what I preach? Okay you caught me, no I don’t, (I do go to therapy though which has taught me other ways to manage anxiety and be more mindful of myself). Why don’t I practice meditation? I can think of a number of excuses probably: my house is too loud, I have a five-year-old, there’s always a dish that needs to be washed, clothes that need to be put away. I can say that it is on my list of things to do. When I become a teacher, I would like to implement meditation in the curriculum I am teaching though. I think having children be mindful could create a better learning environment, so they will have a better opportunity to thrive in my classroom. I also think it is important for our children to be given every tool possible to be successful in life and I think meditation is one of them. 

References

Shonin, E., & Van Gordon, W. (2016). The Mechanisms of mindfulness in the treatment of mental illness and addiction. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 14(5) 844-849. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-016-9653-7

Zelazo, P. D., & Lyons, K. E. (2012). The potential benefits of mindfulness training in early childhood: a developmental social cognitive neuroscience perspective. Child Development Perspectives, 6(2), 154-160. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2012.00241.x