Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement

"Where does one start in recognizing what a valuable gift the authors of this book have provided teachers and their students? Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement is truly an amazing experiential resource that begins with an overview of the wealth of neuroscientific research supporting the efficacy of yoga, mindfulness, and mediation in alleviating stress, enhancing executive functioning, dealing with emotions, and advancing happiness and well-being for children and adults. The authors, in a marvelously understandable and illustrative fashion, provide educators with numerous age-appropriate classroom practices to choose from, all with step-by-step instructions including trauma-informed yoga instruction to help students who have experienced trauma, especially considering the impact of COVID-19. The emphasis on how to address the barriers to practice and increase motivation, engagement, interest, and fun is incredibly helpful. In addition, the reader will discover numerous online resources, apps, and outside readings to facilitate classroom instruction. The authors also stress the importance of integrating these practices into teachers' own lives to help deal with the high levels of stress and burnout that is endemic in their profession and to enhance the joy of teaching these practices to their students, knowing that it can change their lives forever. While I was reading this book, I often felt the mindfulness of the moment. What a wonderful, heartfelt contribution to the field of education!" -- Glenn Albright, PhD "Educators will find much inspiration and support in this book, which offers insightful and practical ways to support students' emotional health. It is our bodies that hold trauma, and it is through our bodies that we can find release and emotional rest. This compassionate work provides educators with easy-to-implement strategies and activities that use the breath and body to create change from the inside out. The goal of this comprehensive resource is to not only lower anxiety and challenging behaviors, but also to create learning communities that further joy, wonder, and happiness." -- Hannah Beach "This is a superb resource! Supported by research, the authors offer a treasure chest of well-structured mindfulness-based activities, practices, materials, and frameworks for educators, yoga teachers, and students. The authors seek not only incremental improvement in student mental and physical well-being, but they have also offered a practical roadmap for high-performance functioning, integrating mind, body, and heart. Reflecting the authors' social justice and equity perspectives, the text and the photos are racially and culturally inclusive." -- John Bell "Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement represents an immense contribution to the field. Beginning with research findings, the authors anticipate and address virtually every what, why, how, who, when, and where question that educators, parents, and the public may have about the book's subject. Their goal is nothing less than to provide blueprints for an education that truly serves the needs of students and teachers in today's troubled times. They have succeeded!" -- Richard Brady "I am so excited to hear that Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement will be available to practitioners across K-12 settings. Chris Mason and her colleagues share practical, sensible, and 'you can do today' strategies in a beautiful way that adds a spirit of calm at a much needed time in schools. Educators looking for a compassionate approach to supporting their students in a developmentally appropriate and engaging way need to look no further: You found your resource." -- Dr. Susie DaSilva "At a time when the pandemic, global warming, racial reckoning, ideological division, and technological innovation have coalesced to present schools and students with disorienting change, the authors of Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement have provided a tremendous resource of hope. Grounding their work in scientific evidence, they demonstrate the benefits that mindfulness traditions have on the health and well-being of adults and students alike. This path-breaking book provides an accessible overview of ancient yet vibrant practices that provide remarkable possibilities; it offers tangible implementation plans that empower students and teachers to listen with their heads and their hearts, to face adversity with courage and compassion, to build confidence and resilience, to care for themselves, and, above all, better understand and heal one another. Every teacher, administrator, and parent who wants to improve learning outcomes, raise moral children, and create a more peaceful and just society should read this book and embrace its promise. " -- Bryan K. Garman, PhD "Learning, understanding, and using the five Cs described in this book for social emotional learning in my practice as a school principal has been a game changer! Working with staff and having compassionate conversations has changed how we do business in school. Staff and students are definitely benefitting from being engaged in mindful movement and yoga." -- Stacy Bachelder Giles "Playing and learning are synonyms. Both-in their purest form-are about freely and joyfully engaging, connecting, and exploring the surrounding world. For children-and adults for that matter-to effectively play and learn, they must have a deeply embodied sense of calm, confidence, connection, and curiosity. Movement, meditation, and mindfulness are essential tools for developing these senses and enabling people to become lifelong learners and players. This book is a gift: a gift that has been given to our school communities at a time in our history when we need it most. Within its pages lies a practical roadmap for creating safer and more joyful, loving, and inspiring schools." -- Steve Gross "This generously comprehensive manual will open new doors for any educator hoping to share best practices in introducing yoga and mindfulness to their students and schools. Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement fills an important gap in well-being in education work, reminding us of the crucial importance of paying attention to the body, mind, and heart when working with young people. Well-being is increasingly taking center stage in educational redesign initiatives, and the authors rightly emphasize the importance of teachers establishing their own awareness before setting out on this rich and rewarding journey with their students. With this valuable book by their side, teachers will be equipped with a wide range of practical self-care tools and approaches to bring greater well-being to themselves and their community." -- Kevin Hawkins and Amy Burke "The pandemic has brought us to the decisive realization that if we are going to make good on the essential purpose of education-to draw out the innate potential of our children-we must address the impact of the emotional, physiological, and social well-being on their learning and identify practices that foster the ability to thrive in all of these dimensions. Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement is the guide to this endeavor, providing critical understandings, vital practices, and inspirational evidence to equip our students with the strategies and confidence for the personal strength and self-determination required for academic, social, and emotional fortitude so needed now-and throughout their lives!" -- Yvette Jackson "As a parent, I know how strongly we hope our children will thrive and flourish. With the enormous challenges facing our world today, I am worried, as many are, about the world we will be leaving them. How can we best equip our children to navigate their challenges today and the world's challenges tomorrow? For centuries, meditation and yoga have provided a gateway to calmness and insights that can guide our actions and interactions as we strengthen our health and well-being. To protect and support them, and for our collective future, these teachings must reach our children. Dr. Mason and her team of dedicated yoga-meditation teachers have written a manual to help schools implement practices that can make a profound difference for each and every child and for our planet. Filled with hundreds of photos and time-tested yoga sets, breathing exercises, and meditations, Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement provides a pathway to a better, brighter future as it addresses students' and teachers' immediate needs. This book will be useful for yoga instructors as well as public and private school teachers, school counselors, and administrators. I encourage you to read, practice, and reflect, watching in wonder at the significant improvements in your own happiness, resilience, and well-being as well as in all the children in your life!" -- Amrit Singh Khalsa "Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement offers a comprehensive and compassionate approach to personal growth, awakened education, and enlightened living. As a practitioner of Kundalini yoga and mindfulness I have found these practices to be complementary and supportive of one another and important in developing a whole human being in the journey of evolution. This book provides a clear understanding of how to integrate these teachings in a public educational setting as well as in an environment dedicated to expanding consciousness. I look forward to using this as a constant companion in my teaching and as a source of inspiration as I travel on a path of self-awakening." -- Mahan Rishi Singh Khalsa, D.C. "Convincing research has demonstrated that our children and adolescents are experiencing an almost universal burden of mental and behavioral health challenges that they will carry with them into adulthood. Our schools are not providing the strategies and skills necessary for successful coping with the worldwide epidemic of unmanaged chronic stress. This book provides a comprehensive rationale, description, and instruction on the implementation of the yoga-based practices of physical exercises, breath regulation and relaxation techniques, and meditation and mindfulness into schools that research is demonstrating improves the stress and emotion regulation and overall mental and behavioral health necessary for our children to succeed and prosper." -- Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, PhD "In today's ever-changing world, learning cannot take place without paying attention to the well-being of K-12 students and teachers. This powerful book grounds the reader with the scientific understanding of why the connection of mind, body, and heart can enhance one's capacity to navigate daily stressors. It also contains essential strategies and activities that lift the knowledge off the pages and into personal and professional practice, as well as yoga-mindfulness-meditation exercises and teaching tips on how to effectively lead and guide others. Authored by a village of exceptional individuals with years of experience in the field of social-emotional well-being, this book will influence systemic change in education and, in turn, positively impact the health and resilience of future generations." -- Theo Koffler "I have had the pleasure of working with Chris Mason and have benefitted from her expertise in engaging educators in much needed reforms. We need more of the authors' vision and the holistic, human-centered approach described in this book in our work. As we move to prevent and alleviate the impact of trauma, we must build skills like mindfulness to best prepare current and future generations in our ever-changing world." -- Jesse Kohler "This is an excellent, informative, and well-researched book. It is a must-read for all future and current teachers, school counselors, and administrators and is without question one of the best books written on the topic. Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement is a valuable guide to improve teacher training, schools, and personal happiness and will be added to my classes' reading lists." -- Dr. Sandra McElroy "This book is beautiful in its clarity. The authors are lifelong practitioners with a profound understanding of the practices they teach. They manage to distill, demystify, and make accessible some very confusing terrain. In this book educators will find everything they need to know to help their students (and themselves) cultivate greater happiness, resilience, and well-being. But this book is more than that. It is one of the most precise expositions of mindfulness available. It can and should be used by everyone interested in understanding and offering mindfulness to others." -- Michele Milan "Too often we forget that our personal and professional well-being and health are directly related to our individual efforts to remain mindful, reflective, and balanced. Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being Through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement is an outstanding resource for all who wish to continuously learn, grow, and improve. The advantage here is that this work provides the reader with practical and replicable steps and skills to increase one's overall well-being. This is a must read for anyone interested in elevating and enriching both personal and shared experiences." -- Joseph L. Ricca, EdD, Superintendent of Schools "The practice of using meditation, mindfulness, and movement should be in every educator's toolkit of strategies under the labels of self-preservation and decision-making. This is the book they need to learn these stress-reducing techniques. The book is situated on a stable foundation of theory and what theory looks like in practice. The authors provide validating research and align it with evidence-based activities educators can easily incorporate during their working hours, and they demonstrate how these techniques decrease the risks of empathic distress and burnout while increasing an educator's capacity to become more compassionate and impartial when making judgments about their students." -- Victoria E. Romero "The comprehensive and heartfelt exploration of both the scientific evidence base and practical hands-on approaches found within the pages of this book will support teachers, parents, and students to foster learning environments where everyone can flourish and thrive. The thoughtful narrative includes reviewing the research, developing personal practice, curating an effective teaching space, and implementing practical activities and makes this book a pragmatic and approachable resource for both those new to the field and longer-term practitioners." -- Elli Weisbaum, PhD "A lovely, personal, deeply practical book for educators across the ages aimed directly at supporting mindful practices: practices of movement, of curriculum integration of mindfulness, and pausing--in the midst of it all! A special bonus are photos that accompany basic yoga movements, key principles in every chapter, and hundreds and hundreds of resources! What a gift to all educators during moments when our sector is experiencing enormous stress and volatility." -- Dr. Kirsten Olson, MCC