Category:
- Mental Wellness 🧠
- Spiritual Wellness 🙏
- Physical Wellness ⚽
Age Groups
- Grade 4-6
- Grade 7-9
Introduction
Mindfulness is the practice of purposefully bringing one’s attention to the present moment. Mindfulness has many physical, emotional and mental benefits. Practicing mindfulness can help reduce stress levels and anxiety, enhance focus, raise self-awareness and awareness of emotions and calm the body and the mind.
Objective
Learn how to calm the body and mind using a mindfulness tool.
Materials
None
Steps
- Think about how we breathe. Oxygen comes in and we breathe out carbon dioxide. When the air is in our body it changes from something positive that is good for us to something that we do not want or need. We are going to learn how to use our breathing in a positive way. It’s called Breaths of Colour.
- Choose a positive colour that makes you feel relaxed and calm.
- Now think about a colour that represents unhappiness or upset.
- In your mind, picture these colours – relaxed and calm and unhappy and upset. See the colours floating in front of you like how you might see your breath on a very cold winter day. Imagine a puff of colours floating right in front of your face.
- Now take a deep breath. Imagine that you are inhaling the relaxing colour. Feel it enter your body, feel that positive puff of colour go down into your lungs. Feel the expansion of your lungs filled with the colour of relaxation and calm.
- Now slowly start to release your lungs. Notice how the colour has changed. As you breath out, picture the cloud of negative colour start to leave your body. Push it out as you exhale.
- Repeat: breathe in the calm, relaxing colour and breathe out the unhappy, upset colour. Take your time. Feel the colour go way down in your lungs. Feel your lungs expand. You are full of calmness and relaxation.
- Now breathe out slowly. Blow the colour of unhappy and upset out.
- Repeat slowly for 5 consecutive breaths. Pause, and then repeat 5 more times.
Reflection
- Did picturing the colour of the emotions help you to focus on the 2 parts of breathing? Why do you think that is?
- Can you see the benefit of making a plan to practice this technique daily?
- Can you think of times in which you could use this technique that would help you control your emotions or reactions to a situation?
Extension
Make a list of 6 other emotions that you experience in a day. Pick 3 that are positive (examples such as upbeat, happy, delighted), and three that are not so positive (examples such as frustrated, annoyed, restless). Give each of these emotions a colour and then match positive and not so positive into 3 sets. Use these different sets of emotions to practice the Breathes of Colour routines. Do you get the same results from each set? Do you feel differently about each set? Why or why not?