Mindfulness activities are a great way to start off a class because it allows students to relieve stress before taking on a busy day of work.

Many students feel stressed and tense throughout the school day so mindfulness activities can be very calming, and help ease the student before tackling the workload. Having a calm, relaxed mind can also be very helpful while learning new content because it lets your mind be able to focus in class and not on other things.

Mindfulness activities are also a great way of checking up on a student’s mental health. This is important and crucial because no one knows what’s going on in a person’s mind and what they might be going through outside of school except for them. Studies have shown that participating in mindfulness activities has been found to help people manage their mental health. According to the Mental Health Foundation, doing mindfulness activities is recommended as a way of improving someone’s mental health and well-being. Mindfulness activities can be comforting to students because they help them recognize that effort is being put in while caring about them.

Teachers and students need to connect more rather than teachers assigning work and calling it a day because it builds a stronger bond, for instance, if a student needs help with an assignment, they would have no trouble coming to the teachers for help. Mindfulness activities are a great way for teachers to interact with students more because it allows them to have time to get to know students a bit more and find out how they’re feeling. Teachers substituting time for check ins with students will help students find it easier to have a strong bond with them.

Having a couple minutes at the start of class everyday to interact with students is extremely beneficial because mindfulness activities have many benefits that are proven to be beneficial for students.

The use of mindfulness activities during school is a waste of precious class time which could be utilized for implied actual classwork.

My own experience with mindfulness activities is that 10-15 minutes of the class is spent by students either not listening or dozing off. The amount of wasted time outweighs the benefits of being more “balanced” in school and life.

The stress and anxiety that students feel during school are at the fault of the school, the amount of schoolwork and homework that students receive on a daily basis are one of the reasons these mindfulness activities have to happen. Students are already overwhelmed with the combination of school work, sports and work jobs.

This leads to an inadequate amount of time diverted from other things such as personal free time. The increase in time wasted during school takes away from the opportunity for education and learning useful information.

Instead of wasting precious class time, the students that actually need this mindfulness time should seek help from professionals, such as the high school counselors. If students don’t feel comfortable speaking with counselors, the Natural Helpers are also a resource. The school gives plenty of ways for students to destress. Students need to use their resources and find other ways to fix the problem.