by Tim Curry, MS ACSM-RCEP
Recall your middle school or high school experience - How much stress did you encounter daily? Between academic and social pressures, puberty changes, standardized tests, increasing workloads, and starting a job…a lot is going on! Stressors (forms of stress) have a profound role on a K-12 student's mental health which, in turn, can impact their health across a wide range of areas as they move into adulthood. Physical activity can be an effective way of managing stress for student-athletes, but can coaches actively help when it comes to stress management?
Mindfulness-Based Practices
YES!!! The field of mental health treatment is broad and diverse but the practice of being mindful shows great promise in managing stress. Simply put, mindfulness involves maintaining an active awareness of the present moment. This was originally adopted from Buddhist meditation practices. The objective is to experience each moment in real-time (ie to keep your mind in the present). Before we explore ways to practice mindfulness let’s start with some scientific data.
What The Research Says
Unsurprisingly, the data supports the positive impact of mindfulness practices on mental health, especially in children and teenagers. Regular mindfulness practice provided in a school setting has been shown can help reduce depression, anxiety, hostility, distress, and aggression. Further, some data indicate that mindfulness practices improve resilience to mental illness! This is believed to be due to improvements in the ability to emotionally regulate, feel more optimistic, improve attention and social skills, and more.1
When researchers spoke to students (i.e. qualitative research) they found that the students were very aware of the benefits they were experiencing from these mindfulness practices. They also noted that students were better able to deal with their daily stressors (aka coping) and utilize mindfulness practices as a form of relaxation. Students reported that this practice helped them become more aware of their emotions and thoughts. This allowed them to respond more appropriately to challenges instead of just reacting. We've all had experience reacting poorly to a situation and wishing we'd handled it differently afterward. While being mindful often takes practice, it can give you the space you need to handle situations in a healthy way.
Being Mindful: Individual or Team
Some people may think of mindfulness solely as a personal practice or struggle to find ways to implement it with a larger group of middle and high school students. When it comes to coaching I encourage everyone to try to make mindfulness a team-wide practice for several key reasons:
Equity - Some athletes may not have the ability to afford some of the mindfulness resources more easily accessed by their peers. Practicing as a group creates equity for this skill development.
Stigmas - Mental health is still very stigmatized in the US (...and worldwide). A student engaging in this practice on their own may feel uncomfortable sharing this fact. They may be worried about appearing “weak” in front of their peers. Similarly, a student may decide not to engage in this practice for the same reason.
Peer pressure - We all know that school is a place with various forms of peer pressure. By making mindfulness a mandatory team activity and engaging everyone we can help reduce any peer pressure that might hinder an individual's participation.
Depending on the size of your team it may be beneficial to engage in a mindfulness-based practice in smaller groups, just make sure each of your group leaders knows the plan and is committed to it!
Where To Start
There is a broad range of resources available to get you and your team started! I recommend starting with these options:
- Apps - These are two widely used and well-supported apps.
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Website resources - These sites provide some resources you can use to help prepare your team plans.
- Calm - That’s right! Calm has some free resources to download including a 30-day guide teachers (...or coaches) can use.
- Headspace - Yep! Headspace also has a range of free resources to pull from as needed.
- Calmer Choice - You can find a range of guides and resources for kids, parents, and instructors here.
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Videos - There are many helpful videos available online. Here are two options to get you started.
- Headspace Youtube Channel - You can find a wide variety of videos to learn from and use with your team. This may be a good resource to utilize as videos to share with your team regularly. Many of these videos are ones that you will also find in their paid app!
- Box Breathing - This is a straightforward video on a basic breathing technique that you, and your athletes, may find very helpful. It is quick to learn and can come in handy as a tool to manage stress and anxiety quickly…like at a race start!
- Belly Breathing - Another simple, but effective mindfulness technique! Take a walk through this quick video and see what you learn.
Finally, while this is not a mindfulness-specific resource I want to point you in the direction of my favorite sports psychology book, In Pursuit of Excellence by Dr. Terry Orlick. The book is an easy-to-read, practical guide to a range of tools that can help any athlete written by a sports psychologist who has worked with a wide range of world-class athletes.
Bringing a regular mindfulness practice into your team may seem like a daunting task. Remember though, you do not have to create a full and perfect program on day one. Start small, but start! I hope these resources inspire and motivate you to create a program that positively improves the mental health of your team and those around you.
Sources:
1 - Porter B, Oyanadel C, Sáez-Delgado F, Andaur A, Peñate W. Systematic Review of Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Child-Adolescent Population: A Developmental Perspective. EJIHPE. 2022;12(8):1220-1243. doi:10.3390/ejihpe12080085
2 - Sapthiang S, Van Gordon W, Shonin E. Health School-based Mindfulness Interventions for Improving Mental Health: A Systematic Review and Thematic Synthesis of Qualitative Studies. J Child Fam Stud. 2019;28(10):2650-2658. doi:10.1007/s10826-019-01482-w
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