 What is mindfulness? How can it help our current school systems? Let's start off with what mindfulness is. There's a program called mindfulness-based stress reduction created by Dr. John Kabat-Zinn. He defines mindfulness as paying attention and purpose in the present moment and non-judgmentally to the unfolding experience moment to moment. In regular terms, it's keeping yourself focused in the now while living your life normally. What does this mean for schools? Research shows that integrating this into the school system resulted in better standardized test scores, less conflict in class and higher ratings from students about their happiness. But the benefits don't end with the students. Combining what we know about mindfulness with leadership, our teachers and leaders can benefit from it too. By using mindfulness and meditation, teachers can learn to be more attentive, focused, non-reactive and caring. Exercises such as yoga, visual imagery and practice self-awareness can bring change to what may be chaotic classroom environments. We live in a time where teenage anxiety and depression is on the rise and schools all over the country have used alternative methods to help students deal with the stress this life brings. This is incredibly important for children in areas of socioeconomic distress or who don't have strong parental figures in their lives. Because of these reasons, we should hope to move towards California's mindfulness integration. They have programs like Inner Kids, Mindful Schools and Still Quiet Place. They've brought meditation to educators and students leading to a drastic overall change to the learning environment. Inner Kids, for example, makes their program off of author S. Greenland. Greenland emphasizes breathing and self-awareness for character development. Studies into how it affects performance in schools have consistent results in attention, academics and most other benefits. This research has also shown that stress reduction in the learning environment increases teacher and student focus and emotional regulation. It's not just California too. In Canada, there are programs like MindUp, which are based in neuroscience and are helping kids with ADHD, anxiety, depression and other mental ailments. The program presents teachers with skills to become self-aware and to use relaxation and meditation techniques when they teach. The research done on these techniques show an increase in academic productivity due to increased concentration. This means less behavior modifications are needed in the classroom, giving them more time to work. This is due to the shift in perspective kids acquire when they have a foundation in compassion, empathy and kindness. The University of British Columbia evaluated MindUp. Among students in grades 4 and 5, they saw an 82% increase in positive outlooks and an increase in the students' abilities to make themselves happy. And to help fellow students. They did this by measuring salivary cortisol levels, which showed proof of the children's ability to regulate emotions. Finally, with MindUp, there was 15% increase in math grades and 100% positive response from teachers and faculty discussing how it altered their classrooms. With all this awesome information, it's alarming how little mindfulness is actually being used. Do you have any experiences with mindfulness? If you have any opinions or experiences you want to share, comment below.