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- 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.
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