As Simple as Breathing

‘Breathing with Awareness,' as discussed in Scott Hobbs’ post, promotes health benefits as simple as relaxation and as profound as changes to the very structure of the brain. It is both a psychological and a biological intervention used to treat a number of clinical disorders (including eating disorders and obesity which, as Arianna points out in her recent post, has become a national crisis). Mindfulness based stress reduction, mindfulness based cognitive therapy for depression, and mindfulness based therapy for OCD, are just a few of many mainstream treatment programs grounded in both science and mindfulness practice.

I teach children, pre-kindergarten through elementary school, to pay attention to their breath. There’s more to mindfulness practice than breath awareness, but that is where we start. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Students report using breath awareness to help them sleep at night, when they are arguing with siblings, and when they are doing homework. Parents say children tell them to take a deep breath when driving on a crowded freeway or if they are cranky at home. Last week, a fourth grade teacher practiced breath awareness with his class before they took standardized tests required by the state.

As simple as they seem, these practices make a big difference in children’s behavior and how they relate to the world. In fact, research in neuroplasticity and the brain has shown that, through the willful exercise of focusing attention, mindfulness practice can literally change the way the brain works.

Training ourselves and our children to pay attention -- to slow down and take a few deep breaths -- won’t solve all of the world's problems, but it is not a bad place to begin.

Susan Kaiser Greenland, the Executive Director of the InnerKIds Foundation, has a long practice in meditation and teaching mindful awareness practices to children.