Mindfulness of Thoughts and Feelings: Anxiety, stress and emotions
Our four categories of activities teach the basics of mindfulness, with each section covering a fundamental skill to help introduce wellbeing techniques to children. All four sections work together to create a thorough introduction to mindfulness.
The Stix Remotes use audio, lights, and vibrations to bring mindfulness activities to life, making it tangible and enjoyable for young minds. Today we’ll be covering our mindfulness of thoughts and feelings activities, which teach children how to understand and manage their thoughts and emotions.
Introducing mindfulness of thoughts and feelings
Mindfulness of thoughts and feelings involves observing and understanding the internal experiences that arise within us, without becoming overwhelmed or reactive. This practice helps to identify thoughts and feelings, recognize patterns, and develop healthy ways to respond. It encourages a non-judgmental attitude, fostering emotional intelligence and mental resilience. The first step in mindfulness of thoughts and feelings is learning to observe thoughts as they come and go.
Stix activities for Mindfulness of Thoughts and Feelings
Using visualisation techniques, such as bubbles, surfing and colours this section of activities builds children’s understanding of how thoughts and emotions arise. It also teaches them techniques to manage these thoughts that they can use when they feel strong emotions.
Using the Stix remotes to focus on emotions also allows children to avoid self-criticism, understand what emotions they are facing, and learning techniques to let those emotions go.
1. Bubble Popping
Visualise your thoughts as bubbles floating through the air. You cannot see anything if your vision is crowded by bubbles, but you can pop your thought bubbles with the Stix! This activity uses the movement detection on the Stix to provide audio feedback every time you pop a thought bubble.
Focus on the breath: This activity, as many of our activities do, begins by instructing a key focus on breath: ‘before we begin, take a deep breath through your nose…and out through your mouth’. This principle, as discussed in previous blogs helps encourage focus and mental clarity throughout the activity. Children are told to ‘continue breathing in and out in a natural way’.
Explaining distracting thoughts:
It is important that children understand that thoughts naturally come and can be overwhelming, leading to anxiety.
The instructor explains that ‘when thoughts come into our mind, they can distract us from our daily life’ and that ‘we can’t stop them popping up..but we can learn to let go when we do get caught up, and return back to whatever we need to be doing’. This is an important set-up for the rest of the activity.
Blowing the clear-mind bubble:
Children will then be introduced to a way in which they can notice when thoughts arise and become overwhelming using interactive features on the Stix remotes.
To start they will be told to ‘blow a really big bubble’ whilst holding the Stix in front of their face. As they blow the bubble the remote lights will become brighter to signal their efforts. This bubble will be presented as their ‘mind when it is clear of any thoughts’.
Popping the overactive mind-bubble:
Children are then instructed that whenever ‘a thought comes into your head, shake the Stix to pop it’. The accelerometers in the remotes will detect a shake and the bubble will POP!
The Stix remotes will encourage children to ‘let your thoughts go’ and ‘reconnect with your breathing and body sensations’.
Application to real life:
The activity by letting children know how to apply the techniques learnt to real life situations- ‘Next time you are focussing on a task, you can use this technique if you start to get distracted. When you realise that your mind is overthinking, picture the thought as a bubble floating through the air. Reach out and pop the bubble and watch the thought disappear.’
We've had some amazing feedback in the past from parents who have told us how their children use the bubble popping technique when they are stressed, even when they do not have the Stix!
2. Rainbow Painting
Imagine the Stix together are a giant paint brush that lets you paint the rainbow into the sky. Following each coloured light from the Stix, paint the colours onto the rainbow. This activity encourages children to think about each colour of the rainbow and what emotion this makes them think of, and how that makes them feel.
Black and white rainbow:
This activity begins the same way, pushing focus on the breath. Following on, the instructor will ask children to ‘imagine there’s a black and white rainbow in the sky’. Luckily, they have a giant paint brush and can paint the colours back on the rainbow to fix it!
Questioning emotions and colour:
The remotes will the guide the child through all the colours of the rainbow, beginning with red, as the LED lights turn to the colour being explored. Throughout, the instructor will ask questions that encourage the children to think about the emotions these colours stimulate in them. For example: ‘How does red make you feel?’, What emotion does yellow remind you of?, ‘Where can you sense this feeling in your body?’ and ‘Does it remind you of anything?’.
Studies have shown that colours can affect our mood and stress levels, with different colours evoking different emotional responses. Through rainbow painting, children can explore which colours stimulate calmness or anxiety and discover the memories that they are linked to. This exploration fosters emotional intelligence by helping children understand their emotional triggers in a fun and unserious manner. Additionally, identifying where they sense these emotions in their bodies enhances their mindfulness practice. This activity not only aids emotional regulation but also promotes cognitive development by linking colours to emotions and memories.
When all the colours have been added to the rainbow the Stix will pulsate between colours and the Stix will congratulate children for completing the activity: ‘Well done! You painted the rainbow! Now it’s visible to everyone. I wonder if you’ll find the pot of gold!’.
3. Surfing
This activity encourages children to ride an imaginary surfboard whilst learning to ride waves of emotions. The key aim here is to learn that emotions rise and fall, and that by identifying them we can ride them back to shore.
Emotions as waves: Throughout this activity children will use waves to represent emotions. It will explain this concept with the instructor describing that ‘when you surf in the ocean, you cannot ride a wave if you cannot see it… you must learn to look out for waves so that you can pick the biggest one’. Then these waves are likened to emotions: ‘you need to be able to observe your emotions and understand what you are feeling’.
Riding emotions: Children then follow instructions to ‘climb onto an imaginary surfboard’ and ‘balance your arms out wide’. Questions follow, asking ‘how are you feeling right now’ and what emotion can you feel?. They will then ride their emotional wave and ‘rock side to side’ whilst doing so, taking a breath in…and out, and allowing ‘the wave to bring you all the way to the shore’. As children spot and ride this emotion, they are encouraged to calm down and be acceptant, with the warning that if they fight their emotion, they ‘will crash and fall off your surfboard’. This activity helps children learn to visualise and manage their emotions, making the potentially abstract concept of their emotions more relatable. It also encourages an acceptance of their thoughts and emotions as mental events that come and go, as opposed to fighting them.
Application to real life: Ending with advice on how to apply what they have learnt to real life, the activity is complete- ‘Next time you are starting to feel worried, stressed or upset, close your eyes, and observe the emotion you are feeling. Remember your surfboard is always with you, and you can always ride your emotions back to feeling calm again.’ By teaching children to ride their emotions without struggling against them, they learn acceptance and resilience.
Next week, we will delve deeper into emotional mindfulness with our blog on the mindfulness of the heart section, where children learn the basics of compassion, gratitude, and appreciation. Stay tuned for more insights and activities to continue building mindfulness skills in young minds.