22 Jul “Follow Your Bliss” For Kids
The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, has called the declining mental health of adolescents, the “crisis of our time.” He points to the use of social media as a major contributing factor.
Meanwhile, a recent New York Times article asks: “Are we talking too much about mental health?”
These are complex issues that will require wide-ranging and nuanced solutions from healthcare, education, communities, churches, and families.
One program that might help some children and adolescents is a “Follow Your Bliss” after-school program that gets kids off of their social media and teaches them basic “yogic” self-care, like how to calm themselves when their emotions are raging.
The late Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, recommended teaching all children a simple grounding practice; he believed it would save lives.
A “Follow Your Bliss” program could provide kids with the opportunity to immerse in activities that bring them joy. Those activities could include yoga, meditation, and mindfulness practices but also dancing, drawing, painting, and journaling. It could also train them to “work with their minds.”
According to Rick Hanson, neuroscientist, the brain is hardwired to have a negativity bias, it’s velcro for the bad and teflon for the good.
Hanson and other neuroscientists remind us the brain is plastic and can be “rewired.” As an antidote to the negativity bias, Hanson recommends “taking in the good,” taking the time to acknowledge and linger on all the good things in our lives.
Yoga has many skillful ways for working with the mind and shifting our mental/emotional state. Simply asking these kinds of questions, as part of an after-school program, can engender a more positive outloook: What do you love?” What are your grateful for? What brings you joy?
A “Follow Your Bliss” After-School Program could also serve as a literacy program. At Barnes and Noble there is now a children’s “mindfulness” section. When I took this photo, a little girl was putting Po’s Guide to Being Zen back on the bookshelf.
“How was it?” I asked.
“Good,” she replied, nodding her head.
It’s based on the film Kung Fu Panda 4 and includes “over 100 meditation exercises, mindfulness prompts, beginner yoga poses, and more.”
Sounds like fun to me! And like a good way to start rewiring young brains to feel more of the good stuff – more calmness, more peace, and more joy.
