The end of the year is fast approaching. That means there are plenty of fun activities coming up, but also stress for students who have to face final exams, performance anxiety, and the uncertainty that comes with change.
Fortunately, physical and health education programs consider students’ need to learn how to understand stress and include this life skill within their healthy lifestyle components.
Seeing as stress significantly affects physical and mental well-being, it’s critical that programs teaching healthy life habits teach students how to handle it from a very young age. That way, they can develop coping skills they’ll use for their entire lives.
Understanding stress in children
Demers’ (2012) study of the impact of a yoga program on fifth-graders revealed a concerning reality: stress is omnipresent in children’s everyday lives, and especially at school.
Children are often more vulnerable to stress than adults because they lack control over situations. They find themselves more affected by novelty, unpredictability, and fear of being unable to handle situations.
Although stress is a normal part of human survival and motivation, it can sometimes cause overly intense reactions. In this case, it’s called “bad stress” (Dolan, 2009; Plancherel, 2001; Servant, 2005). Children who experience overly intense stress reactions may experience sleep disturbances, behavioral problems, trouble concentrating, increased irritability, or regressive behaviors.
Relaxation is a powerful tool for calming mind and body alike. Tousignant, Aspiros, and Brunelle (1999) group relaxation techniques into two categories: primarily mental and primarily physical.
Exploring mental relaxation
Primarily mental relaxation aims to reduce mental tension through techniques like meditation, visualization, and mindfulness.
Visualization is a powerful way of reducing stress by allowing the mind to focus on soothing, positive imagery. Its benefits are backed up by studies, which show that it significantly reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol and improves both quality of life and mental well-being.
Take advantage of our guided visualizations that let you use your imagination to carry you away to a variety of relaxing places.
While they remain poorly documented in children, mindfulness-based techniques are drawing more and more interest from educators and education researchers. Mindfulness involves using different senses to focus on the present moment. It works best on children who are at least 8 or 9, because it calls for certain core skills like following instructions, staying focused, and controlling breathing.
Exploring physical relaxation
Primarily physical relaxation techniques aim to reduce mental tension by relieving physical tension. This is done through stretching, gentle gymnastics, massage, and Jacobson’s progressive relaxation, for example.
Did you know that the Gaïa application is based on Jacobson’s progressive relaxation? It helps you focus on each muscle group and learn to intentionally release built-up tension for maximum relaxation.
Cardiac coherence is another predominantly physical relaxation strategy that involves regulating the breath to synchronize the heartbeat to a regular rhythm. By repeating this breathing exercise several times a day every day, you can reduce stress and feel calmer.
Let us guide you through our Stress Management content, which helps you tackle the topic with your students through a cardiac coherence exercise you can try out with them.
Reducing stress with yoga
Yoga is an excellent blend of physical and mental relaxation that offers a multitude of benefits for stress management.
Research has shown that yoga not only improves neuromuscular and cardiorespiratory function (Galantino et al., 2008), but also improves attention, enhances concentration, and facilitates emotional control (Bridges, 2006; Brouillette, 2008; Gupta, Khera, Vempati, Sharma, & Bijlani, 2006). It’s also said to have benefits for socio-emotional skills like compassion and acceptance (Santangelo White, 2009; Tummers, 2005).
Although some parents may object to its inclusion in physical education classes because of its distant connection to Hinduism, yoga is not a religion and can be framed as a series of poses to develop balance and flexibility while combining meditation and breathing.
Roütine
Enjoy the relaxing and soothing effects of the Moon Salutation
Wörlds
Give your yoga session an animal touch with Animal Poses
Use the Community search engine to discover even more yoga content!
One of the keys to teaching stress management is to integrate these habits into well-established routines during class. This lets you explore a variety of stress management strategies so students can figure out which one(s) are most effective for them, and serves as an opportunity to show the importance of using these types of strategies in everyday life.
