5 Mindfulness Exercises for You and Your Kids

Strengthen Your Family Bonds by Doing These Exercises Together! 

Both parents and children love mindfulness exercise because of its simplicity. Mindfulness involves all the senses, and it is beneficial to kids. It helps them to manage anxiety and stress as well as promote self-compassion and self-regulation.

Practicing mindfulness encourages kids to grow their mindsets because it empowers them. This way, children are brave enough to take more risks and learn new things. Mindfulness exercise is all about self-compassion and self-love; it helps children to shun negative self-image and talk. People of every age can learn social skills by practicing mindfulness. Consider your kids’ ages before starting your sessions; for instance, preschoolers enjoy pictures, music, and simple movements.

 

5 Mindfulness Exercise Suitable for You and Your Kids

Before trying any mindfulness exercise, you ought to remember that kids and teens require different things if we compare them with adults. As a family, you should include age-appropriate activities. When first introducing the exercises to kids, do it in short durations. They require time to get used to these activities. Increase the time as they get comfortable with the practice.

Any event involving children should include simple language. Do not forget that young kids have a short attention span and might not sit still. You can introduce mindfulness exercises to your little ones in various ways.

 

1. Mindfulness Breathing Exercise

Mindfulness breathing exercise is simple and has a lot of benefits. For instance, when you practice breathing, you acquire a skill you can use whenever you need to clear your mind. Breathing in and out a few times relaxes both the mind and body so you can observe and interact with your surroundings.

The good thing is that it can be practiced during mealtime, drive time, or any other appropriate moment. It just involves pausing for a few seconds and breathing consciously.

During this exercise, encourage your kids to identify how breathing affects them, what they feel, how they want to behave, and what they think. Explain that this exercise can help control their feelings and change their thoughts.

You can try various breathing techniques, like the flower breath, where you imagine smelling a flower. Breathe in through your nose and exhale through the mouth while letting go of all the tension in your body. Stop and smell the flowers. It helps kids to understand the way breathing makes them feel. You can also incorporate other fun breathing tricks.

2. Mindfulness Meditation Exercise

Do you know that kids can also be stressed and even suffer from headaches? They can be depressed due to academic pressure, social media bullying, which can cause depression, or even lack of sleep. 

Mindfulness meditation exercise is beneficial for the whole family. In today’s world of technology and social networks, children get distracted easily. However, mindfulness teaches them to focus on a specific task. This increases their attention span.

Kids go through various things that can lower their self-esteem; teasing and bullying are some of the common causes. Mindfulness meditation fosters inner peace and confidence, which makes you appreciate and live in the moment.

3. Mindfulness Walking Exercise

This one is easy and suitable for the whole family. Mindfulness walking exercise involves a physical activity that also brings you closer to nature. It helps you and your family to be aware of your surroundings, the air, trees, animals, and the ground. This reminds you that you are connected to nature and also encourages you to notice the environment rather than simply wandering.

Mindfulness walking helps to clear your mind and eliminate boredom. Sometimes all you need is to take a walk and appreciate nature. This gets rid of mental fatigue and fog and helps you to think straight. You might ask, “Which form of mind-body exercise is best described as a form of moving meditation?” Mindfulness walking exercise fits in this category.

While seated reflection requires a quiet environment, mindfulness walking puts you at the center of many distractions. There might be traffic, children playing, and other noises. However, this helps you to concentrate as you focus on walking and ignoring the noise.

4. Mindfulness Relaxation Exercise

This session helps your body to recover from tension and to balance your body and soul. Many times you might ask yourself: how does exercise benefit your mind? Relaxation helps you to cope with stress, which contributes to many illnesses. This technique promotes a healthy body, both inside and out, because of physical and psychological effects.

Mindfulness relaxation exercise does not only help kids deal with stress, but it also helps to get rid of bedwetting, certain behaviors such as nail-biting or sucking thumbs. By the way, consider the best CBD gummies to break them of that habit.

Encourage your kids to engage in muscle relaxation activities. This involves tensing all their muscles and relaxing them. Try to target different body muscles like the face, arms, stomach, and legs.

5. Draw Your Emotions

Mindfulness exercise involves our emotions and surroundings. Sometimes, kids find it difficult to express their feelings. This is why you ought to promote the mindfulness of emotions exercise. Kids love fun activities like drawing. Encourage them to draw what they are feeling.

Try this activity at different times when your child is going through many emotions. Ask him/her to sit down and try to think about their feelings at that time. You can also support your little one by offering words associated with different feelings or drawing them together, expressing yours as well.

Another fun activity to try with your kids is the Spiderman senses, and it only takes 5 minutes. Spiderman can hear and smell different things in the environment. Get your children to tune in to their “spidey senses” and ask them what they hear, see, or smell. Guide them through the game by providing clues.

 

Mindfulness exercise involves being conscious of your surroundings and your feelings without judgment. You can incorporate different activities to make this exercise fun for the whole family. Mindfulness helps you to deal with stress or anxiety and promotes security and confidence in kids.

Tell us about your sessions in the comments!