Mindful Sloth Exercise: Cultivating Focus and Awareness in the Classroom
This activity can help students develop attentional skills, improve memory, and increase overall cognitive functioning. Here is a practical exercise and activity with scripts that teachers can use with students to deepen students’ focus and awareness in the classroom.
Practical Exercise and Activity to deepen your student’s focus and awareness in the classroom
Scripts of Impactful Mindfulness Practices
The Mindful Sloth
Mindful walking can be a great alternative for students who have a hard time sitting down and closing their eyes. In this practice, students will notice how their body feels as they are taking one step after another. They can walk in the classroom or outside, as long as they walk slowly and pay close attention to how their feet, calves, knees, and quadriceps feel as they take each step. This is not easy to do and requires patience.
Say: Today we’re going to pretend to be sloths but not just any kind of sloth, we’re going to be mindful sloths and we’re going to practice slow mindful walking. Just like you can focus on your breath over and over again, you can focus on your body over and over again. In this practice you will walk slowly and pay close attention to how your body feels with each step.
You can notice how the weight of your body feels on both feet and then, as you begin your step, you can notice how it feels to shift your weight to one leg. Then notice the muscles in your calves, the way your knee bends, and your quadriceps as they contract and stretch. As you can see there is a lot to notice when you mindfully walk, so to do this well you need to walk slowly. And as soon as you notice that you are no longer paying attention to the way your body feels as you walk, stop, take a deep breath, and bring your awareness back to your body.
In a moment I’m going to ask you to stand up but I would like you to do it very slowly, noticing how the muscles and tendons in your body support your bones as you stand up. There are so many things that need to happen all at once for you to even just stand
up, so once you are up, you can feel some gratitude for having a body that allows you to do this. (If you have students whose body does not allow them to stand, you may wish to have them focus mindfully on a movement that they can do.)
To begin, slowly stand up, paying close attention to everything in your body that allows you to do that. Now close your eyes and take three mindful breaths at your own pace. Good.
Now open your eyes. In a moment you will walk normally to a place far enough away from other students so you can practice mindful walking without getting distracted by others. Once you get to your place, you can start slowly and mindfully walking. We will do this for two minutes. Remember that when you notice that you are no longer paying attention to your body, stop, take a deep breath, and return your awareness to your body. Let’s get started.
Reflection Questions:
Did you find mindful walking easy or hard? If easy, what made it easy? If hard, what made it hard?
What thoughts came to you as you were mindfully walking? How fast did you catch yourself not paying attention to your body?
Were there other distractions that took you away from paying attention to your body? If so, what were they?
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