(electronic music)
(light music)
- Hi, I'm Shelli Kurth and I'm here today with my colleague
Dr. Nicole Assisi with our next installment
of how to stay sane in these times
of unprecedented parenting.
- Indeed, and Shelli and I are both working moms
with teaching experience in elementary through high school,
as well as college,
leading schools, coaching parents, coaching executives,
and teaching yoga and mindfulness.
And we thought we'd put all these things to good use
in this time of the coronavirus quarantine
to support parents, homeschooling parents like you, like us,
to deal with the challenges that come up
in these unprecedented times.
So our goal for today is to help keep your learner thriving
and to help keep you sane.
- These days of quarantine have been tough
for a lot of us.
We're cooped up inside for a lot of the day
with new responsibilities and full houses,
and we're trying to find those moments of joy
and the things to be appreciative and grateful for,
but still often need to do things to keep us calm
and keep us sane.
And I am excited to share with you two
of my favorite parts of keeping a little sanity
in my sometimes insane house
through movement and presence
and really using intentional movement and mindful moments
to keep my day going smooth and to keep me feeling centered
and ready for the stresses that can impact my attitude
and my well-being.
My favorite thing is the movement piece and exercise piece.
If your body feels better, then your mind feels better.
Scientists have found that regular participation
in aerobic exercise has been shown
to decrease overall levels of tension,
elevate and stabilize your moods, it improves your sleep,
your self-esteem.
It's important and you can get great results
from just five minutes a day.
You can get those antianxiety effects.
I know it's not possible for everyone
and it's certainly not possible every day,
but if you can get outside and take a walk,
take a jog, take the kids on a bike ride
or pull the wagon around the block,
even five minutes can have a real impact on your mood.
But if you can't do that, you can do fun things
in the house.
We have jumping jack contests.
We set a timer for five minutes and try
to do those jumping jacks.
And I'll tell you, that is harder than it sounds.
Challenges, you can do volleyball,
play volleyball with a balloon in the house,
something to get some laughter happening,
something to get some movement happening.
It really will affect your attitude for the rest of the day.
I am honored and lucky to get to be a yoga teacher,
and I use some yoga postures in my daily well-being.
But that's intimidating for a lotta people.
I'm gonna tell you right now, you do not need
to be a lifelong practitioner of yoga
to get some of the amazing benefits of mindful movement.
I'm going to teach you today a posture
that I think is so relaxing and so wonderful
to regenerate my body and to make me feel better,
and you can use it.
It's really friendly for the house and the kids like
to do it too.
I call it legs up the wall.
And here's a picture of me doing it
with my legs up the wall.
Of you might wanna choose legs up the coffee table.
I do it like this.
Anything that you have and anything that your body
says yes to, you have to do something,
make sure it doesn't hurt, make sure it's good for you.
But if you get yourself with your legs elevated
in that kind of a posture where your blood
is rushing down, you're getting new blood into parts
of your body you haven't.
And if you think about it, this is the inversion
of what you do most of the day, sit and stand.
So you're giving your body a break from that repetitive sit,
stand, sit, stand.
Even doing this a little bit, a little bit of time every day
or just when you're really feeling like you need it,
it can change your attitude.
It gets that circulation of your blood,
cleans out, cleans out all that stuff you need to clean out,
and cleans out your mind.
So using exercise to connect your body and your brain
is so important, and Nicole's gonna talk
a little bit more about it.
- Absolutely, yeah, thank you, Shelli.
You know, there's actually a really strong link
between movement and learning.
And so as you are, to the best of your ability,
embracing homeschooling, distance learning,
having your child at home,
getting your kids moving is super important.
Research shows that exercise actually stimulates
some brain chemicals known as norepinephrine and dopamine,
which energizes you, it elevates mood,
but it also helps with memory and student learning.
So there's some really strong research
and a connection between movement and learning,
and that research actually shows that movement,
moving your body as an activity should become as important,
as important as actual book work.
So again, there's a lot of research there
that the traditional sit and get format
that students are getting in school actually
isn't helping them connect their brain and their body
in the best way.
So you're kind of at the leading edge of research.
And if you're interested in learning more about that,
Eric Jensen has a great book that is called
"Teaching with the Brain in Mind."
And specifically chapter four of his book
is available through ACSA online for free.
And so read a little bit more
about this brain and body connection.
So knowing how important it is,
how do you get your kid to move?
One really simple thing that we do
throughout the day is we roll the dice.
And here's an image more specifically
of what I mean by that.
But my son will roll the dice and based on that,
we choose a row and a column in this chart
and we just move.
So whether it is doing five jumping jacks,
or whether it is stretching, or jumping over the line,
these are really quick, take less than a minute,
and just get that blood flowing.
Remember, getting the blood flowing
and getting that exercise releases the norepinephrine,
the dopamine, it helps with mood,
it helps stimulize and energize you,
and it helps you with memory.
So if you, like me, are finding moments of frustration
educating your child and when you feel that tension,
we'll talk more next week how to deal with that
from a communication standpoint
and how to relieve some of that stress
in like a parenting and interpersonal perspective,
but get moving is usually a great first step.
But there are things that you can do
that are also a little bit longer.
If you have an elementary-aged child
and are not feeling very creative or inspired,
I know often I'm not around movement,
what we love to do at home is something called GoNoodle.
GoNoodle is an online app that has different dance videos,
different jumping and running exercises,
things that you can just do in your living room
with your kid.
My son loves it, and those videos are usually
between three to five minutes and just enough
to get that heart rate going up.
If you want something more calming
and are thinking about yoga,
Cosmic Kids Yoga is a great yoga program
that offers online yoga lessons for your kid.
But what if you have an older kid?
Rather than going to a default site,
we encourage you to just sit down with them
and figure out, what do you like, what do you wanna do?
Have you thought about exploring martial arts?
There are some great videos out there.
Are you thinking about yoga?
A friend of mind has two kids that just built
a CrossFit area in their backyard, really cool idea.
My son actually started exploring something
called capoeira, which is Brazilian martial arts.
Lots and lots of stuff out there,
but get creative, explore some different things.
Most importantly, move that body
and get those good hormones and that energy
and those chemicals flowing through your body.
- My teenagers have, we take turns building a workout.
We're lucky enough to have a yard,
and they have done some really hard workouts for me.
So today, I can barely lift my coffee cup.
So my arms are very sore.
I, you know, I stress and Nicole and I have talked
a lot about this.
These tools are not meant to make you feel
like one more thing that you have to do.
We really want you to just know that it's out there
if you're feeling stressed or feeling like the days
aren't going smoothly, that maybe some of these tools
might be helpful.
Being intentionally present and aware
is sometimes called mindfulness.
"Mindfulness is the awareness that arises
"by paying attention on purpose,
"in the present moment and nonjudgmentally."
And that, while it's easy to say, it's a lot harder to do.
I think some of the things that really help me
and are super easy and you'll think,
"That doesn't feel very mindful,"
but it's the beginning
of really having intentional mindful moments,
is think about your body and what feels stress,
what feels like it's carrying the stress in your body today.
I feel it often in my shoulders and in my jaws.
And so when I'm thinking about it,
I might do some shoulder rolls or shoulder drops
and fill my intention with relaxing those parts
of my body that are feeling stressed.
My jaw, loosening up my jaw.
I think about my tongue because sometimes I'll feel
like my tongue is really in like full action.
How do you relax that?
That's being really mindful
and really intentional.
Something else I love to do,
this really helps before I go to bed,
is I do what I call a full-body scan
and I go from head to toe and relax all
the different parts of my body.
It's really simple to do.
You just close your eyes and feel your breath moving
through your body and pay attention to all
of the different things that you're feeling.
And I begin, I actually begin with my feet
and I move my attention through all of those parts
as slowly as I can, paying attention to everything,
relaxing as fully and completely as I can.
And every time my attention wanders,
I just notice that it's happening
and then I gently and I kindly direct my attention
back to relaxing.
Neuroscience tells us that noticing the drifting attention
and then returning our focus to wherever we want it
over and over again is how we create the new pathways.
So it's okay, your mind's doing its job
when it wanders.
It's giving you something to think about,
and you're doing your job building that muscle
of a mindfulness to bring it back to the task at hand,
to that attention.
Mindfulness evokes that relaxation response
that we're really looking for,
which is the opposite of the body's fight, flight,
or freeze response.
It's shown to help with depression, with pain,
with anxiety, and again,
highlighting that idea
that the brain and the body are connected.
So when you hear the word mindfulness,
you no longer have to feel like that's for somebody else.
You can embrace that as something that you can do
right here, right now by focusing for one brief moment
on where you feel that tension in your body
and what you can breathe love into right now.
Because right now, we're okay, we're here together.
- Thanks, Shelli.
It's really great advice.
And you might be saying,
"Okay, okay, but I never get a quiet moment.
"My kids are always there.
"What do I do?"
And part of the trick is bringing your attention
without judgment, just to whatever you're doing
in the moment.
And I know Shelli mentioned this last week,
but all of us are washing our hands a ton.
And why not during that moment,
just be completely present as you're washing your hands?
What does it feel like to have the soap in your hands?
What is that texture?
What does the water feel like on your hands?
Is it cold?
What is the temperature like?
And that is something you can do with your kids.
Just have them slow down
and really just be in the moment.
One of my favorite mindfulness practices
or sort of presence-building activities
is to go for a walk with my son
and to pick one of the senses.
Again, remember your senses, they're smell, sight,
taste, touch, sound.
And pick one of those, maybe it's sound,
maybe it's sight, and for two to three minutes,
just take notice of that one sense,
and what are you noticing?
Are there flowers that you're seeing for the first time?
Is there something unique about the colors?
If it's sound, what does the wind sound like in the leaves?
And what I found is that having that kind of quality
of presence helps you to slow down a little bit
and blocks out all of the other to-do lists.
So if it's hard for you to be present
and clear your mind, maybe try to focus your mind.
You can do that same exercise when you're eating,
before you take that first bite,
or maybe there's a sweet treat that you're giving your kid.
Notice the texture first before you ever put it
in your mouth.
What does it look like?
What does it smell like?
What does it feel like first in your mouth?
And then once you bite it, is it crunchy?
Is it gooey?
And just, again, putting attention to one moment in time
helps your mind from racing and can really help
with anxiety and stress.
It's really great for children as well
just to focus their attention.
Now if you want something a little bit more structured
or you're looking for a guided meditation for kids,
we talked about this earlier,
but Cosmic Kids Yoga has a playlist of guided meditation,
and we've actually provided you with a link
in the comments section so that you can just click on that
and I think there's 10 or 15 of them to choose from.
And that'll walk you through a guided meditation
if you want you and your child to do something
a little bit longer.
But one other thing to try
is bringing your attention to the present moment
in your daily communication.
Next time you're in a meeting, chatting with a family member
or to your child, focus your attention on listening.
Just be completely present and just notice
every single word.
Your mind might start to wander, as Shelli mentioned,
but even bringing your mind back,
having that full attention and presence in a conversation
is really important.
And the most important thing is to trust yourself
and trust that when it's your turn to talk,
you'll figure out what to come up with.
But in the moment, just listen.
Because not only does it help you be present,
but it also actually makes the other person feel heard
and improves your quality of connection and conversation,
which is actually something
we'll talk about next week, right, Shelli?
- Yeah, next week, we're gonna talk about problem solving
and communicating effectively,
which, if your house looks like my house,
is a really good thing to focus on for awhile.
We're so grateful that you're here with us today.
I hope that you found some bits and pieces
that will help your day go smoother and calmer.
And remember, you're doing great.
This is tough stuff.
You've got this.
And together, we're in this with you.
So thank you so much and have a great week.
(light music)