Meditations for students

20 Terrific 10 Minute Teacher Guided Meditations

It has been quite a year, to say the least. Whether you are a beginning teacher or a long-term veteran, this has probably been the most challenging year of your career. Regardless of if you are teaching in person, virtually, or in a hybrid model of some sort, you are expending every ounce of your energy trying to reach your students. Many of us have been so caught up in the madness that we have forgotten the most important factor: taking care of ourselves. These teacher guided meditations can be done anywhere and are perfect for when you just need to breathe. So, grab a cup of coffee and catch your breath with any of the 20 below! Additionally, consider sharing them with your students as needed.

1. 10 Minute Guided Meditation for Beginners

This is a great video for anyone, especially if you are new to meditation. Relax and breathe.

2. 10 Minute Guided Meditation for Anxiety

Try this meditation anytime you are feeling anxious to put your mind at ease. Breathe. Just breathe.

3. 10 Minute Guided Meditation to Start the Day

This is one of our favorite teacher guided meditations. Try it first thing in the morning to bring positive vibes throughout your day! Good, good, good, good vibrations.

4. Calming Meditation with Affirmations

Kassandra Reinhardt of Yoga With Kassandra will soothe your soul with these calming affirmations. Check out her YouTube channel for more gentle meditations and a plethora of yoga classes for beginner, intermediate, and advanced yogis. Namaste.

5. 10 Minute Guided Meditation for Inner Peace

Adrienne Mishler of Yoga with Adrienne walks you through this peaceful meditation to help you catch your breath. Her YouTube channel is filled with mediations and yoga classes for yogis of all levels. Catch your breath with her and her adorable dog, Benji!

6.

World-famous, spiritual guru Deepak Chopra will help you catch your breath with this meditation when you are feeling uneasy. In addition, check out his books and other videos for advice on achieving a more peaceful and balanced life.

7. A Mindful, Self Soothing, Guided Meditation

Join Tamara Levitt to wash your worries away in just 10 minutes. If you enjoy this meditation, be sure to check out more from Tamara through her website and popular app, Calm.

8. Feel Amazing in 10 Minutes

Change your whole outlook in just 10 minutes with this amazing meditation. Breathe in, breathe out.

9. A Grounding Guided Meditation 

Join the Mindful Movement to ground yourself while chasing nervous feelings away. Zen starts now!

10. Pave the Way for Abundance and Creativity

Pave the way for abundance and creativity with self-help guru Louise Hay. You should definitely check out her longer meditations and books, too, after this gentle introduction to her. She gives wonderful advice for achieving a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life!

11. Feel the Positive Energy from Gratitude

Strengthen your gratitude practice with this 10 minute, positive meditation. Catch your breath and let go.

12. Focus on Self Improvement Guided Meditation

This meditation is a great pick me up, focusing on self-love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Breathe the blues away!

13. Let it All Go with This Guided Meditation

Forget all your troubles with this guided meditation. Picture ocean waves rolling in and out as you let go.

14. Cleanse Your Chakras in 10 Minutes

Chakras are the seven energy points in the body, from the crown of the head to the base of the spine. They correspond to the nerves, organs, and other body parts. This meditation will help cleanse and align the chakras for peace and calm.

15. Take a Time Out From Stress

Visualize white sand beaches and ocean waves as you catch your breath and take time out from stress.

16. Remove Blockages and Negative Energies

Are you feeling stuck, depressed, or in a rut? Master Sri Akarshana will help you turn those negative thoughts into positive ones. Happiness starts now!

17. Calm Down and Banish Stress With This Guided Meditation

Feeling frazzled or stressed is not enjoyable. Calm down and banish negative feelings with this 10-minute meditation from the Honest Guys.

18. Positive Affirmations to End Your Day

We have all had one of those days where it feels like nothing is going right. This evening meditation is perfect for when you need to shut off your brain and reassure yourself that everything’s gonna be alright.

19. Sleep Well with This Guided Meditation

Boho Beautiful leads this 10-minute meditation to help you sleep soundly. Start counting those sheep before your head even hits the pillow.

20. Evening Guided Meditation from Goodful

Get cozy and ready for a night of deep sleep as you take deep breaths with this 10-minute guided meditation from Goodful.

What teacher guided meditations do you use when you just need to catch your breath? Share in the comments below and just breathe!

Also, check out this article on self-care for more.

Mindfulness for Kids - Mindful

• How to Meditate
• Mindfulness Activities
• Guided Meditation
• Coping with Stress
• Parenting Tips

How to Meditate with Your Kids

By teaching children meditation and mindfulness skills we help them increase their well-being and enable them to meet the stresses of the world with presence, self-compassion, and openness.

In order to help kids of all ages find their way into practicing mindfulness, it can be helpful to give them an easy definition they can relate to.

A Definition of Mindfulness Meditation for Children

Mindfulness meditation, at its simplest, is paying attention to what is happening in the present moment. It may be what you’re feeling, hearing, or anything else you notice. There’s no special place of calm you have to reach and it’s not about clearing your mind, it’s just an honest and kind look at what you’re experiencing in this moment. 

A Mindfulness Practice for Families

By Christopher Willard

One easy way to introduce mindfulness to your children is through informal practices that you can do along with them. Start with a simple kindness meditation—offering good wishes and compassion to others.

1. To begin, find a comfortable sitting position. You can even place a hand on the heart. Allow your eyes to close or lower your gaze toward the floor.

2. Bring to mind someone who you really respect and look up to, and who really loves you in return. 

3. Notice how you feel as you bring this person to mind.

4. Make a kind wish and send it their way. What would make them happy?

5. Next, bring to mind someone else you love and care about: A family member, a friend, a beloved colleague. Just bring this person to mind, sending this person a kind wish.

We’ll move from here to a more neutral person. Perhaps someone you don’t know very well: A parent you see occasionally in the pick-up line, a person who delivers your mail, or makes your coffee in the morning. Just bring this person to mind and imagine yourself sending them some kind of kind wish.

6. Lastly, bring to mind someone who has frustrated you lately, someone who is a little difficult. Send this last person a kind wish—something nice for them in their life.

7. Check in with your mind and body as you conclude this practice. Allow your eyes to open if they’ve been closed. Notice if there’s any shift

Why Teach Mindfulness to Children?

When we teach mindfulness to kids, we give them the tools they need to build confidence, cope with stress, and relate to uncomfortable or challenging moments. The earlier we do so in their young lives, the greater the opportunity to help them cultivate resilience and develop and refine their mindfulness practice as they mature.

Teaching mindfulness to kids can also help shape three critical skills developed in early childhood: paying attention and remembering information, shifting back and forth between tasks, and behaving appropriately with others. These abilities are known as executive functions and they are essential for more advanced tasks like planning, reasoning, problem-solving, and positive social relationships.

There Benefits of Mindfulness for Kids

Studies show that the benefits of mindfulness for kids may include:

1. Increased focus, attention, self-control, classroom participation, compassion.

2. Improved academic performance, ability to resolve conflict, overall well-being.

3. Decreased levels of stress, depression, anxiety, disruptive behavior.

Mindfulness Activities for Kids

To introduce the idea of mindfulness more directly to your kids, you can use exercises that encourage them to tune into their senses. Make a game out of eating a snack very slowly, savoring the smell, texture, and taste. Or, dive into an afternoon of glitter jar making with any variety of materials: glitter, different-coloured beads, food colouring and oil, pieces of lego. The DIY craft doubles as a creative exercise and a mindfulness tool to represent the mind settling.

An Appreciation Practice for Children

By Susan Kaiser Greenland

Leading the game:

1. Ask your child: “Do you ever feel disappointed by something or someone?”
2. Ask: “How did that make you feel?”
   Acknowledge their feelings and, if appropriate, talk about them.
3. Say something like: “I bet even when you’re feeling disappointed there are good things happening in your life, too. Let’s name three good things together.”

Tips for naming three good things:

1. Remind your child that the point of this game isn’t to pretend they’re not upset when they feel upset. It’s to remember that they can feel two things at once: they can feel grateful for good things while feeling sad, hurt, or disappointed by challenges.
2. If children or teens have trouble thinking of three good things on their own, brainstorm and help them discover some.
3. When kids understand that this game is not about sweeping their feelings under the rug, the phrase “three good things” can become a playful and humorous response to the minor gripes that show up in family life.
4. Parents can encourage kids to remind them to name Three Good Things when they’re stuck on a trivial disappointment or minor annoyance, too.
5. To develop a habit of thankfulness, play Three Good Things around the dinner table, before bedtime, and at other times when the family is together.

Guided Mindfulness Meditation for Children

Once your child is comfortable with the idea of meditation, you can offer them tools to refine their own practice. Here are three guided practices developed for kids. Feel free to join your child in these meditations if it helps encourage focus.

An 8-Minute Practice to Notice Positive Moments

A Mindfulness Practice for Kids: Coming Back to the Positive—From Dr. Mark Bertin

• 8:00

1. Lie down somewhere comfortable. Let your arms and legs fall to the ground. Close your eyes gently.
2. Start to notice how your body changes with each breath you take. Each time you breathe, your belly moves up, and your belly moves down. If it is easier, put a hand on your belly. Or if you want, put a stuffed animal there.
3. Each time you breathe, your belly moves. Your hand, or your toy, rises, and then falls. See if you can count ten breaths that way. Breathing in, one, breathing out, one.
4. When you lose count, don’t worry about it. That’s normal, and happens to everyone. Come back to whatever number you last remember.
5. Now, shift your attention to your day. Breathing in, focus on your breath as your belly goes up. Breathing out, focus on something that went well today.
6. With each breath: breathing in, noticing your belly move, and with each breath out, noticing something that went well today.
7. Now, picture something about yourself that makes you proud. Breathing in, focus on your belly moving. Breathing out, picture something that makes you proud of yourself. If nothing comes to mind, that sometimes happens. If that’s how you feel, picture what you’d wish for yourself instead.
8. Finally, bring someone to mind who makes you happy. Before we end, try one more practice. Breathing in, notice your belly move. And now, breathing out, picture someone who makes you happy.
9. As you come to the end of this practice, take a few deep breaths, and start to wiggle your arms and legs. Pause and decide what you’d like to do next.
10. It’s normal to have thoughts that make us feel scared or bad. We should never ignore anything important, but it’s useful to focus on the rest of our lives too. Take a few minutes every day to notice what has gone well, and see what happens next.

Guided Audio Practices for Kids

1.  A Meditation for Preschoolers

This guided practice will help you teach your child the basics of mindfulness by drawing on the elements of nature. Follow along as your child observes their experience and explores their strength within.

Be Like Nature: Mindfulness for Preschoolers—From Scott Rogers

• 4:00

2.

A body scan meditation is a great way to help your child bring attention to the present moment—especially when emotions or thoughts are overwhelming. They’ll learn to explore sensations in the body while bringing calmness, attention, and appreciation to daytime routines or bedtime rituals.

A Calming Body Scan: Mindfulness for Kids—From Dr. Mark Bertin

• 11:39

3. A Meditation for Teens

Preadolescents and teens can practice mindfulness the same way as adults. Although, practices geared toward this age group often feature language that is more engaging to them. Here is an 8-minute practice, appropriate for older kids, that uses counting breaths to cultivate mindful awareness.

Count Your Breaths: Mindfulness for Teens—From Dr. Mark Bertin

• 8:13

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Helping Kids Cope with Stress

Mindfulness practice can offer your child stress management strategies to calm their nervous system. Below are a few kid-friendly breathing techniques you can demonstrate and do with them.

5 Mindful Breath Practices for Children

1. Belly Breathing

When breathing in, the belly expands slightly; and when breathing out, it contracts. Do several rounds and return to normal breathing.

2. Mindful Breathing

Simply notice the breath and feel it move in the body. You can add visuals and words to make the practice more engaging. For example, on the in-breath ask your child to repeat the phrase, I am a lake and on the out-breath, I am calm. This technique can be adapted to use any visual and taps into the power of imagination.

3. Teddy Bear Breath

This is a great variation of the belly-breathing practice for little ones. Have them lie down with a teddy or stuffed animal on their belly, and let them watch as it moves up and down while they breathe, as if they are rocking it to sleep.

4. Four Square Breathing

This practice is a useful tool for older children. Breathe in for a count of four. Hold the breath for a count of four. Breathe out for a count of four. Hold the breath for a count of four. Do several rounds and return to normal breathing.

5. Basic Breath Ball Practice

You can use a Hoberman sphere—a geodesic dome that can be folded and unfolded—to teach your child basic breath awareness. The toy can be referred to as a breath ball because the dome’s movements mimic the movements of breathing: as the dome folds inward, we imagine the out-breath contracting; as the dome expands, we imagine the lungs expanding on the in-breath.

1. Using both hands, gently hold the breathing ball in front of your belly.

2. Hold one square on opposite sides of the sphere’s surface.

3. Take a deep breath in. As your belly expands, let the ball expand with it. 

4. Breathe in fairly slowly, maybe holding momentarily at the top of the breath as you fully expand the ball.

5. As you breath out, allow the sphere to contract to its smallest size.

6. Repeat a few times. You might even count along in a rhythm.

Mindful Parenting Tips

By Elisha Goldstein and Stephanie Goldstein

It’s important to follow the oxygen mask principle: put your own mask on first, before you help your child. The more we discover how to be mindful ourselves, the more we can turn to mindful parenting strategies and appreciate our children’s capacity to be present in each moment.

There’s an inner skill set called for in parenting—an awareness of what is, what’s changing, and what matters going forward. In day-to-day life, take the time you need to notice your own feelings, pause before responding, and practice listening. 

7 Things Mindful Families Do Differently

1. Embrace Imperfection

You are going to make mistakes, you are going to hurt your children’s feelings, and you are not going to be able to show up in all the ways you want to or the ways your children want you to, but none of that makes you a bad parent—it only makes you a human one. When you can move into a place of acceptance of this you are able to shift into a greater ease and grace within yourself.

2. Listen with Curiosity

When we pause and listen to each other more in our lives, we can engage the experiences in our family with a growth mindset. We can see the struggles and triumphs as opportunities for learning and growth. Instead of judging each other, we can get better at recognizing when we don’t understand where the other person is coming from, lean in with curiosity and say, “tell me more.” Or we might try and stand in their shoes to understand their perspective by asking ourselves, “why might they be acting this way?”

3. Communicate Courageously

Being clear and honest with each other about what you need and how you feel is ultimately an act of kindness that creates trust and connection. This means showing up with our partners and kids with an open heart and an open mind. It builds on listening with curiosity and creates space for everyone to feel comfortable to share how they feel and what they need.

4. Practice Appreciation and Gratitude

While words of affirmation may or may not be your primary love language, we all want to be seen and appreciated and there’s a surprisingly simple way of doing this that can have huge benefits—intentionally practicing being appreciative and expressing gratitude to one another. By taking the time to acknowledge our kids or our partner when they empty the dishwasher or are ready on time, we can shift the culture of the household from demanding and frustrated to cooperative and grateful

5. Forgive Ourselves and Each Other

In practicing mindfulness we come to understand that our mistakes aren’t signs of failing at being a human. Instead, they are opportunities for learning about the inevitable pitfalls of life, what gets in our way and understanding the optimal route to get back into a space of balance and connection.

The simple phrase of “forgive, investigate and invite” can be enormously helpful. If we have transgressed, we can set the intention to “forgive” ourselves for this wrongdoing, understanding that we can’t change the past, remembering that we aren’t perfect, and realizing that we often make mistakes out of ignorance, confusion or upset feelings.

6. Practice Support and Generosity

Our kids are always watching us, learning how to be in the world and modeling our behaviors. So it’s important that we model this way of being in the world and include them in these acts as often as possible. Want some ideas? You can consider getting involved in service projects at a local school or organization. You can encourage your kids to make pictures or cards for their grandparents or someone who is ill. These small or large acts are the essential healing agent within the family system, our culture, and the world. Ultimately, connection is the cornerstone of well-being and it starts in the family.

7. Remember to Play and Have Fun

It seems silly to say that any of us would forget to have fun and enjoy each other but it’s more common than you think. Raising children is probably the most important job you will ever be tasked with and the pressure of raising good humans can be weighty. So much so that we can fall into a pattern of taking things too seriously and being overly focused on tasks (chores, homework, activities, etc. ) that we lose the enjoyment of being together.

10 Powerful Meditations for College Students

College life can be stressful, but that doesn't mean students should let stress take over their lives. By incorporating meditation into daily life and practicing meditation techniques for college students, students can not only reduce pressure, but also improve their memory, concentration, and ultimately their grades.

For many students, the college experience conjures up images of night parties, a frightened freshman 15, sleep deprivation, and hangovers. nine0003

However, no one said it had to be, and many students use college as an opportunity to explore new, healthy lifestyles they may not have experienced at home.

Those already accustomed to a healthy life can use their increased independence to tailor their healthy practices to their specific needs.

In this part, we will look at 10 Powerful Meditation Resources for College Students and related meditation tips. nine0003

College is an ideal time for students to maintain physical and emotional well-being and well-being. in other words, to find their zen. Technically, Zen is a specific mind-body practice that comes from Chinese Buddhism.

However, because of the emphasis on meditation, personal insight, and self-expression, Zen is often used as a collective term to describe a general sense of physical and mental balance.