Managing Classroom Stress and Anxiety with Mindfulness

Have you ever experienced a “monster under your bed” as a child? As children grow up, this monster shifts its form and from under their bed, goes straight to their heads.

Now, it isn’t the sharp teeth or the veiny fingers that scare them. It’s the exam stress, the upcoming deadlines, the stage fear and often the pressure to “be cool” that makes them jump.

A young mind faces a myriad of challenges during school.?

Keeping up with social and parental expectations is a burden for students. Not only that but they are also buried under their expectations to perform well in every field. This leads to the feeling of stress and anxiety.

When stressed, most students find it hard to concentrate, experience poor memory and lose self-confidence. Physiological reactions to stress include headaches, the tension in muscles, sweat and nausea.

Stress is manageable only when the first step is acceptance. Barriers to acceptance of stress are social, cultural, and prejudicial. These are worsened by the inability of fellow students and teachers to view the symptoms of stress in the same way as physical illness and injury.?

On top of this, students deny stress because they don’t want to be perceived as weak or inadequate.

The school community can help students accept as well as manage their stress by educating them about mindfulness.?

Firstly, an authority figure talking about stress, anxiety and mindfulness in a classroom automatically makes a student more comfortable with these topics.

Mindfulness has proven to be a promising intervention for treating anxiety and mood problems.?

Anxiety traps the mind in its thoughts and emotions whereas mindfulness frees it by allowing the mind to accept life as it is in the present moment. It helps students live fully in the tangible world rather than remaining stuck in anxious thoughts, worries, and what-ifs.

Schools can make mindfulness a part of the routine so that every student can learn to cope better with their stressors. It takes no more than 10 minutes!

Mindfulness helps tame the monsters in the head.