Calming and Regulating Brain States ( A Simple Strategy)

Calming and Regulating Negative Brain States for all Students and Grown-Ups!! Try this at your next staff meeting or corporate meeting!!

For all educators who work with students!!!

So many thoughts tonight about classrooms filled with students who come from environments of adversity! They absolutely come into your presence in the mornings completely unaware of "being there." A strategy I am using in the next two weeks with elementary is: "Giving each student an ice cube and paper towel or napkin to hold in our circle morning meeting! As they hold, the ice cube, I will ask them to focus on:

1. What does this feel like like in their hands?

2. What does this sensation remind you of?

3. Could you sit still and wait for the ice cube to melt?

4. What were you feeling or thinking as you held the cold ice cube?

For older students... Just like our anger, our anxiety, our negative emotions... if we stayed with our cube of ice and held it, it eventually melted away just like our negative feelings! What we can name we can tame!! Just sharing and experiencing our sensations lessen them and brings a regulation to the brain! Let me know if you try this and how the students responded!! Sarah Desautels is teaching me this semester with students who come trauma that is difficult to imagine!! Sarah this is for you!! And for us all! Great for all students waking up that medial frontal lobe that is responsible for our self-awareness, mind and body awareness!