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Home > Primary > Free Remote Wellbeing Resources (Primary) > 1.2 Week 1

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AFL Season Launch

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2018 Toyota AFL Premiership Season Launch - Don't Believe In Never - Bankstown Bullsharks

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Persistence

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Michael Jordan Nike Commercial - Maybe it's my fault

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Persistence

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Michael Jordan "Failure" Nike Commercial

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5 Finger Calming Technique

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Take 5 Breathing: A Breathing Exercise for Kids

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Guided meditation Scripts for Children

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When you read a guided relaxation script to your child, you’re helping him see the benefits of relaxation or meditation at an early age.

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Buddhist Meditation Scripts - Edit out references to Buddha and Lotus when reading

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Head Space Calm

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On - Off Meditation

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Rainbow Breathing

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Rainbow Breath - Learn To Raise Your Energy | Meditation For Kids | Breathing Exercises | GoNoodle

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Emotions

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Sesame Street: Name That Emotion with Murray!

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Bring it Down - Younger  Children

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Learn To Bring Down Stress | Guided Meditiation For Kids | Breathing Exercises | GoNoodle

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Animation teaching Mindful Breathing

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Go Noodle

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Mindfulness Activities for the Classroom

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by Catharine Hannay, founder of MindfulTeachers.org

Here are a variety of useful activities and resources for practicing and teaching:

mindfulness and meditation,

kindness and compassion,

generosity and gratitude,

social responsibility, and

social-emotional skills.

I've gotten a lot of requests to use the activities in various contexts, and I've found some of this content copied onto other sites without permission. Please link to these resources; please do not copy them to your own site.

If you're looking for different types of mindfulness activities and complementary practices:

If you're looking for particular types of teaching resources for mindfulness and values-based teaching:

If you're interested in best practices in teaching mindfulness:

If you're looking for a variety of different perspectives on mindfulness:

If you found these resources useful, you might also be interested in theSelf-Care Resources for educators and other helping professionals.

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Resources for Practicing and Teaching Mindfulness - Mindful Teachers

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by Catharine Hannay, founder of MindfulTeachers.org Here are a variety of useful activities and resources for practicing and teaching: mindfulness and meditation, kindness and compassion, generosity and gratitude, social responsibility, and social-emotional skills. I've gotten a lot of requests to use the activities in various contexts, and I've found some of this content copied onto other sites without permission.

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Chocolate Mindful Eating Script

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Smiling Mind Introduction to Mindfulness

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4 Exercises to Test How Fast Your Brain is

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4 Exercises to Test How Fast Your Brain Is

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Mindfulness vs Mindlessness

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Yoga for Kids - Vol 2 (All Sitting Postures)

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Mind the Bump

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Yoga for Kids - Vol 1 (All Standing Postures)

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Neuroplasticity and Meditation

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Mind in a Jar

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Mind in a Jar - Planting Seeds of Mindfulness  MOVIE!

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5/6 How to Explain the Brain during Mindfulness

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Explaining how mindfulness and the brain works can seem a daunting task, yet it can be one of the best ways to show how mindfulness works for us and how it helps our brain to function properly.

If you are in a hurry, you can scroll down to the big infographic.

So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness occurs when we pay attention to what is happening in the here and now. We observe our emotions, our thoughts, our surroundings, in an even-minded, nonjudgmental way. We apply this same focus of attention to situations both good and bad. This is being mindful.

Learning to be mindful of what's happening in the moment helps children make sound decisions rather than be ruled by their emotions.

Negative emotions can be tough for anyone to deal with. Fear and anger can hit us unexpectedly and when we do not have a prior plan for dealing with these feelings, we can be thrown off balance and react badly.

When a 4th grader reports that she felt she "was going to die" from test anxiety, she's telling the truth. The responses of her autonomic nervous system are the same whether she's taking a math test or sensing actual physical danger. - Mindful Schools

Here's what science has to say about it.

An impulsive reaction, triggered by emotions like fear or anger, rises up from the amygdala and hippocampus-the most ancient parts of our brain. These parts evolved to respond with defensive action to threatening situations.

If we can delay this reactivity, the newer pre-frontal cortex of the brain can respond from a place of reflection and thoughtfulness. The PFC (pre-frontal cortex) is associated with maturity, including regulating emotions and behaviors and making wise decisions.

Mindfulness practice, as you may have guessed, diminishes the reactivity from the amygdala and strengthens the pre-frontal cortex. ¹

THE GROWING BRAIN AND MINDFULNESS

Author and anger management clinic director Dr. Ronald Potter-Efron explains that the newest parts of our brain-and the last parts to develop as we grow-likely evolved in response to an increased propensity to live in groups. "As we have learned to live together collectively, the human brain has been spurred to grow accordingly." ²

A lot of growth is taking place in the adolescent brain, and this growth is happening at the same time that the brain is reorganizing itself.

"Part of this reorganization process," says neurobiologist Dr. Arlene Montgomery, "includes the pruning of disused neural connections. This growth and pruning are affected by environmental experiences and reshape the adolescent brain." ³

This is one of the reasons mindfulness in childhood and adolescence can be so effective: the pathways that foster empathy and impulse control are being used and strengthened, which will serve the child throughout his or her life.

The amygdala determines emotional responses by classifying sensory input as either pleasurable or threatening. Input seen as threatening is blocked by the amygdala, prompting an immediate reflexive reaction: fight, flight, or freeze. ⁴

The amygadala does not see a difference between perceived threats and actual dangers. It often triggers "false alarms" and potentially problematic reactive behavior. We sometimes freeze in stressful situations, like public speaking or when taking a test. Though neither of these activities are life-threatening, we disconnect from rational thinking and become impulsive and reactive.

Even if we have conflict resolution skills stored in memory, we might not be able to access them due to the stress response, as the amygdala hinders access to memory recall and storage.

When we have the time to consciously process sensory input, we allow the prefrontal cortex to analyze the information. Instead of an immediate, impulsive reaction, we get to choose the best response instead. ⁴

Practicing mindfulness calms the amygdala and reconnects us to our calm, clear prefrontal cortex, so that we can make thoughtful choices for how to respond. Mindfulness helps us regain access to our executive functions: the intention to pay attention, emotional regulation, body regulation, empathy, self-calm, and communications skills-even when under stress arousal.

Mindful thinking happens when the prefrontal cortex can process the information. Following your breath or counting to ten when you're angry or sad gives time for the amygdala to allow the information to flow to the prefrontal cortex to be properly analyzed.

Mindful Schools reports that research has found improvements in anxiety, cognitive functioning and self regulation among children trained in mindfulness, suggesting that the corresponding parts of the brain may be changing as well.

A basic mindfulness exercise is to teach children to focus on breathing. Being able to control their breathing can help them become less reactive when stressed. Focused breathing helps calm the body by slowing the heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and improving focus. Controlled breathing can override the fight, flight, or freeze response set off by the amygdala, and instead enable mindful behavior. ⁴

My two-year-old son has learned to control his breath and to focus on his breath when he is frustrated-to my great astonishment. He is often able to calm himself when something doesn't go his way and he gets agitated. He even reminds me to calm down when I'm anxious. He says "Daddy" and does a long inhale and a longer exhale. It's pretty amazing. I started teaching him mindfulness with this simple breathing exercise.

HOW TO EXPLAIN MINDFULNESS AND THE BRAIN TO CHILDREN

The Amygdala - The Jumpy Superhero

The amygdala is like the brain's super hero, protecting us from threats. It helps us to react quickly when there is danger. Sometimes it's good to react-when there's a real physical threat, like when you see a football coming your way. The amygdala simply decides that there's not enough time to think about it and makes us react quickly: you move your head away from the path of the football. In this way, the amygdala can decide whether we get to think about the information our body gathers through our senses or not.

But there's a problem. The amygdala can't see a difference between real danger and something stressful. You could say it's jumpy and that it makes mistakes.

When we're angry, sad, or stressed the amygdala thinks there's real imminent danger. We then simply react without thinking. We might say or do something we regret immediately. We might even start a fight or just freeze when we're offended, or supposed to take test, or speak in front of the class. Fear and stress shuts down our thinking in this way.

The Prefrontal Cortex - The Smart One

The part of our brain that helps us make good choices is called the prefrontal cortex, or PFC. You could call it the smart one, as it helps you make smart choices and decides what is stored in your memory.

To make good choices, the PFC needs to get the information our body gathers through the senses-sights, sounds, smells, and movements. The questions is: will the amygdala allow the PFC to analyse the information early enough?

Remember: the amygdala, the jumpy superhero, often times hinders the information from going to the prefrontal cortex and we make rash choices. This can happen when we're angry, sad, negative, stressed, or anxious.

What we want to do is to help the jumpy superhero calm down. But how?
Here's the trick.
When we're calm, the amygdala is calm and sensory information flows to the prefrontal cortex and we can make better choices. Even our memory improves when we're calm and happy. We're able to remember better and make new, lasting memories.

So, how do we calm down so that the PFC, the smart one, has time to get and analyze all the information for us so that we make better choices?

Mindfulness Practice to the Rescue

Mindfulness helps us to calm down, and this, in turn, calms the amygdala so that it allows the information flow to the prefrontal cortex-that part of our brains that helps us make good choices. When we're calm, we can more easily be mindful and make good choices.

Scientists have figured out that the prefrontal cortex is more activated following mindfulness training and our high-level functions like the intention to pay attention, emotional regulation, body regulation, our communication skills, empathy, and our ability to calm and self-soothe are more available to us.

Pretty cool, right?

The more we practice mindfulness the more we'll experience calm moments, even if we weren't trying to be mindful.

How to Do It?

When you feel overwhelmed, stop for a moment, take a few deep breaths and exhale slowly. Name the emotion you are experiencing.

Focus on your breath for five breaths. See where you can feel your breath most easily-your stomach, your chest, or your nose.

Control your breathing for a short while. Do deep belly breathing for five breaths. Put your hands on your belly and feel how it expands as you breathe in.

Multiple short mindful moments per day trains your brain to become more mindful even when you don't try to be mindful. In other words, the more you train, the easier it will be to be mindful and self-soothe when you're actually in a stressful situation.

May you be happy and healthy!

Chris Bergstrom
P.S.
I'm super excited about this!! If you'd like to get notified when our "Brain Based Mindfulness Calm Down Kit with Amy, Tex and Hippo" is available then sign up below and I'll email you when it's done. It will help you explain the brain in a playful and engaging way with printable characters and offer activities that can be used immediately with kids to help them self-regulate; focus, feel better and calm down :-)

You can sign up below:

Chris Bergstrom is a bestselling mindfulness author, a leader in the field of mindfulness, the founder of BlissfulKids.com, a blog dedicated to children's mindfulness, and a dad who is thrilled to practice mindfulness with his son. He is a certified mindfulness facilitator and trained to teach mindfulness to students in K-12. He's also known as "the dad who tried 200+ mindfulness activities" and has taught meditation for more than 15 years.

Sources:

1 Mindful Schools - http://www.mindfulschools.org/about-mindfulness/research/
2 Healing the Angry Brain - http://www.academia.edu/5660269/Healing_the_Angry_Brain
3 Neurobiology Essentials for Clinicians: What Every Therapist Needs to Know - Montgomery, A. (2013). Neurobiology Essentials for Clinicians: What Every Therapist Needs to Know. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. 198.
4 Mindup - http://thehawnfoundation.org/mindup/
5 The Whole Brain Child, Dan Siegel - http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolutionary-Strategies-Developing/dp/0553386697/ & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vESKrzvgA40

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Mindfulness and the Brain-How to Explain It to Children - Blissful Kids

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Explaining how mindfulness and the brain works can seem a daunting task, yet it can be one of the best ways to show how mindfulness works for us and how it helps our brain to function properly. If you are in a hurry, you can scroll down to the big infographic.

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Kids Matter

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Be You is the national mental health in education initiative delivered by Beyond Blue, in collaboration with Early Childhood Australia and headspace. Be You supports educators from early learning services and schools to develop a positive, inclusive and resilient learning community where every child, young person, educator and family can achieve their best possible mental health.

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Be You is the national mental health in education initiative delivered by Beyond Blue, in collaboration with Early Childhood Australia and headspace. Be You supports educators from early learning services and schools to develop a positive, inclusive and resilient learning community where every child, young person, educator and family can achieve their best possible mental health.

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Benefits of Meditation

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The Benefits of Meditation ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Head Space Kindness Older Children

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5/6 Looking After Your Brain

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Look After Your Brain - Brainsmart - BBC

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Ted Talk Mattieu Ricard

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Matthieu Ricard: The habits of happiness

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What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment.

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Calming Down Techniques

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Friendship Bracelets for older children

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SaraBeautyCorner - DIY, Comedy, Makeup, Nail Art

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DIY Friendship Bracelets. 5 Easy DIY Bracelet Projects!

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!0 minute Yoga for Young Children

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Kid President Thankful

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Kid President’s 25 Reasons To Be Thankful!

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Yoga dance - Foundation Level

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Effects of Stress on the Brain

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Ted Talk - Andy Puddicombe

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When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment. (No need for incense or sitting in uncomfortable positions.)

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Breathing Buddies

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10 Mindful Movements Thich Nhat Hanh

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แผนงานสร้างเสริมสุขภาพจิต

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Gratitude Practices for the Classroom

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by Erin Sharaf of Mindfulness + Magic

Emerging research on gratitude shows many benefits for teachers and students. Positive outcomes include:

Fewer emotional and physical symptoms

Stronger relationships and communities

Happier (by up to 25%)

More alert, enthusiastic, attentive

Promotes altruistic behavior and self-esteem

Less importance on material goods

More positive attitudes towards school & life

Here are a few ways you can start sharing gratitude practices with your class.

Each participant is invited to say something they are grateful for. Gratitude shared is gratitude magnified so this is really something that can help shift the collective mood in a positive direction.

This can work well if you have participants who might be shy about sharing personal information in front of the group. Invite everyone to write down something they are grateful for on a small piece of paper. Place the piece of paper in a jar without signing a name to it. Pass the jar around and have each student pick out a piece of paper and read it aloud.

Invite each student to write a letter to someone describing all the ways they are thankful for that person and why. This is a powerful exercise in and of itself, but if they'd like to, they can go and read the letter to the person they wrote about. This experience will be unforgettable for all involved and the positive benefits can be long lasting.

Each student can have his/her own small book or pieces of paper or it can even be done electronically. Invite them to write down 3-5 new things each day that they're thankful for. To make the exercise more potent, students can write down why they're grateful for each thing. Keep it up for at least 2 weeks.

This can be done in different ways:

In a circle, each person can be invited to say something they're grateful for about the person to their right.

Or you can put each person's name into the gratitude jar, pass it around and invite each person to pick a name and say something they're thankful for about that person.

The sky's the limit on this one. Have fun!

You could have the kids make cut-outs of their traced hands on construction paper.

They could write something they're grateful for on the hand, or on each of the fingers, and make all the hands into a big gratitude tree.

You could invite them to draw or color a visual representation of what they're grateful for.

You could have this be a recurring activity and give them themes like "family" or "nature."

7. Model Gratitude

Modeling can perhaps be the most important teaching tool. If it's a beautiful day give voice to that! If a student helps out another, publicly say Thank You. Kids are more likely to value gratitude and explore it if they see that it's a meaningful personal practice for you.

8. Explain Your Gratitude

Make "Thank You" into a full sentence including how you benefitted from the gesture, and encourage your students to do the same. For example: "Thank you for sharing your lunch with me as I might have been hungry otherwise." This has more power than a simple "thank you."

We are often our own worst critics, and this unfortunate habit can start at a young age. Students might not be comfortable sharing publicly, but you can invite them to close their eyes (if comfortable doing so) and take a few moments to appreciate some of their own qualities and capabilities. If they have trouble, you can invite them to imagine what a loved one or dear friend might appreciate about them.

Gratitude Prompts :

My day is better because...

The best part of my day was/is

Can you think of a time when a friend (or parent, teacher, or coach) noticed something you needed (e.g., lunch), or remembered something you care about (e.g., collecting coins) and then provided you with those things? How did you know they helped you on purpose? How did you feel after they helped you?

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9 Simple but Powerful Gratitude Practices to Share with Your Students - Mindful Teachers

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by Erin Sharaf of Mindfulness + Magic Emerging research on gratitude shows many benefits for teachers and students. Positive outcomes include: Fewer emotional and physical symptoms Stronger relationships and communities Happier (by up to 25%) More alert, enthusiastic, attentive Promotes altruistic behavior and self-esteem Less importance on material goods More positive attitudes towards school & life Here are a few ways you can start sharing gratitude practices with your class.

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Grade 5/6 Remembering Lists

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Story About Being Present

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Breath Medition

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😊 🌺 Breath Meditation for Kids 😊 ❤️‍ Mindfulness for Kids

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Cardboard Circle Weaving

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Follow us on Instagram for more fun ideas for kids!

Scroll all the way down to watch the video below to see this fun Cardboard Circle Weaving in action. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more fun videos!

Have you tried weaving with the kids? We made this cool weaving loom from a log once which was a big hit and wanted to try our hand at circle cardboard weaving.

The one thing we found is that circle weaving is different from loom weaving in that you need an odd number of "spokes." We started off with an even number shown below which means you can see some of the beginning strings in your finished weave.

They still look beautiful and the kids were very proud of their work so we're sharing the how-to here. Just note if you want to do circle weaving the formal way, start off with an odd number of spokes.
Easy Cardboard Circle Weaving - Materials:
- Various colored yarns in different textures (we used both thin and chunky yarn)
- Cardboard
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Tape
- Assorted colorful and wooden beads
Instructions:
Step 1. Find various circle objects in your home and trace them out on cardboard. Cut out the circles.

Step 2. Follow the steps below to get your circle weave started.

1) draw spokes on your wheel with a pencil and add a cut notch. You can be exact and use a ruler if you want. As noted above, we gave our wheel an even number of spokes so you can see some of our beginning yarn peek out in the final weave, but if you don't like that look, start with an odd number. 2) Tape a piece of yarn to the back of your circle. 3) Run it across and then to the adjacent cut. 4) and 5) Repeat until you have strings that follow your pencil lines. 6) Tape your ending yarn to the back.

Step 3. Tie the yarn you want to start weaving with through the center.

Step 4. Go around the circle over and under as shown below.

Step 5. Add beads along the way. Add new color yarn by simply tying it to the one on the loom.

Step 6. When you're done, tape the yarn to the back of your circle.

This is an easy kid-friendly way to circle weave that's also enjoyable for adults to do side by side with kids. The chunkier yarn is easier for little hands.

There are more precise ways to create a circle loom (with instructions on tying off, etc. which you may want to search for) but this method worked for us as an easy and quick way to weave with the kids.

I love how this project requires simple materials you probably have on hand. And it's a great way to recycle cardboard!

You can opt to glue on pom pom's like we did to make this an even cuter wall hanging.

What are your favorite ways to weave with the kids? Check out more weaving projects here!

Check out our updated video (Dec 2018) to watch this Cardboard Circle Weaving craft in action right below:

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Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive a small affiliate commission. Regardless, we give our promise that we only recommend products or services we would use personally and believe will add values to our readers.

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Scroll all the way down to watch the video below to see this fun Cardboard Circle Weaving in action. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more fun videos! Have you tried weaving with the kids?

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Yoga for Younger Students

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5 minute yoga for kids at home and  at schools

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Relaxing Music for Younger Children

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Relaxation For Children - Music for Learning, Quiet, Positive, Harmony - PURE RELAX

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Gratitude Quotes

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This is a collection of gratitude quotes. If you want to get your thanks on, or flex your attitude of gratitude, these quotes should help you out.

With these gratitude quotes, you have a collection of wisdom at your fingertips. This collection includes words of wisdom from a variety of sources including Aesop, Cicero, Paige, Oprah, and more.

What Gratitude Quotes Teach Us

While the quote may vary, they teach us a few key things about gratitude. They teach us that appreciation is a deep need within us.

They teach us that a little thanks can go a long way. They also teach us that there is always something to be grateful for, or, on the flip side, that things can always be worse.

They teach us that gratitude can be tough to express, as we struggle to find the right words.

Perhaps the most important lesson of all, is that they teach us that gratitude is the key to our own joy and happiness. If you don't have enough joy or happiness in your life, just maybe, gratitude is the missing ingredient.

Top 10 Quotes on Gratitude

Here are my top ten favorite gratitude quotes:

1. "At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." - Albert Schweitzer

2. "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." - William Arthur Ward

3. "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." - Cicero

4. "Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep." - Felix Frankfurter

5. "Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful." - Buddha

6. "Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside. No matter what is going on outside of us, there's always something we could be grateful for." - Barry Neil Kaufman

7. "One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough." - Hafiz of Persia

8. "Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone." - Gertrude Stein

9. "Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving." - Kahlil Gibran

10. "What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life." - Oprah Winfrey

Best Quotes on Gratitude

Here is my collection of gratitude quotes organized A - Z:
"Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude."
- Proverb
"A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude."
- Ruth Benedict
"Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude."
- Sallust
"Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary."
- Margaret Cousins
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
- John F. Kennedy
"Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation."
- Brian Tracy
"Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines."
- Satchell Paige
"Every professional athlete owes a debt of gratitude to the fans and management, and pays an installment every time he plays. He should never miss a payment."
- Bobby Hull
"Friendship based solely upon gratitude is like a photograph; with time it fades."
- Carmen Sylva
"Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy - because we will always want to have something else or something more."
- David Steindl-Rast
"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world."
- John Milton
"Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you."
- Eileen Caddy
"Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature, and we are but too willing to ease ourselves of it, or at least to lighten it as much as we can."
- Philip Stanhope
"Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect."
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought. It must be born with men, or else all the obligations in the world will not create it."
- Edward F. Halifax
"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul."
- Henry Ward Beecher
"Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse."
- Henry Van Dyke
"Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy."
- Jacques Maritain
"Gratitude is the sign of noble souls."
- Aesop
"Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind."
- Lionel Hampton
"Gratitude isn't a burdening emotion."
- Loretta Young
"Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."
- Melody Beattie
"Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth."
- Sophocles
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend."
- Melody Beattie
"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude."
- Denis Waitley
"Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude."
- Joseph Wood Krutch
"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice."
- Meister Eckhart
"It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation."
- Roberto Benigni
"Joy is a heart full and a mind purified by gratitude."
- Marietta McCarty
"Joy is the simplest form of gratitude."
- Karl Barth
"Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing. Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love. Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, one learns."
- Marc Estrin
"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
- Marcel Proust
"Maybe the only thing worse than having to give gratitude constantly is having to accept it."
- William Faulkner
"Next to ingratitude the most painful thing to bear is gratitude."
- Henry Ward Beecher
"No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude."
- Alfred North Whitehead
"One can never pay in gratitude: one can only pay 'in kind' somewhere else in life."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child."
- Carl Jung
"One of the surest evidences of friendship that one individual can display to another is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratitude, and amending the error."
- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
"Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts."
- Henri Frederic Amiel
"The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children."
- Nancy Friday
"The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated."
- William James
"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."
- Eric Hoffer
"There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it."
- Seneca
"To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude."
- Albert Schweitzer

"We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness." - Ellen Goodman
"When you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears."
- Tony Robbins
"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."
- G. K. Chesterton

Please feel free to share your favorite quote, insight, or action on gratitude.

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The ancient art of meditation has moved out of the temple and into our daily lives. It's practised by top class athletes, even taught in some of the most powerful corporations in the world.
Thubten Chokyi
You don't have to be Buddhist to meditate. You just have to be a person with a functioning mind.
NARRATION
New discoveries in science suggest it may indeed have benefits...
Dr Graham Phillips
8 per cent. That's enormous.
Dr Chao Suo
Yeah.
NARRATION
..boost memory and treat depression.
Ross Bunn
I decided I was well enough to come off the medication.
NARRATION
And meditation may even slow the ageing process.
Prof Elissa Epel
The studies are very promising. They actually do suggest there are benefits.
NARRATION
From brain scans to blood tests, from the psychological to the biological...
Dr Graham Phillips
It depends what your definition of pain is.
NARRATION
..I'm going to investigate the hard evidence to see if meditation lives up to the hype. And I'm going to put my own brain to the test and undertake eight weeks of mindfulness meditation. Will it make me less stressed? Will it improve my memory?
Dr Graham Phillips
I did better at that?
NARRATION
Will it change the structure of my brain?
NARRATION
Londoner Nick Brewer is a yoga and meditation teacher. But life hasn't always been so serene. For 10 years, Nick ran a drug empire, smuggling cocaine out of Colombia.
Nick Brewer
Essentially, I was quite a wealthy young man. I had a property asset, a holding company, a nightclub, restaurants and all the toys that go with it. You would have looked at me as being quite a successful entrepreneur unless you knew what I do for a living.
NARRATION
In 2004, he was arrested in South America and sentenced to prison there.
Nick Brewer
It was probably one of the worst places you could ever imagine in your entire life. It was poor, it was broken, it was corrupt. You're anxious about absolutely everything. You're anxious about staying alive, about where your next plate of food is gonna come from, if you've got any money, if you haven't got any money. You know, if you were gonna get raped, killed.
NARRATION
A year into his sentence, Nick was shown a book by his cell mate.
Nick Brewer
You know, I asked him what he had and he says, "I've got a book on yoga." So obviously at the time, I said, you know, "You must be some sort of weirdo."
NARRATION
Soon he was hooked and began practising yoga and meditation every day.
Nick Brewer
It was the sitting practice and the yoga practice that helped me to find some kind of serenity in there.
NARRATION
Nick transformed his life.
Nick Brewer
I have a very happy life, extremely humble. I have a lot of amazing clients that I teach. So the last five years has been completely transformational.
NARRATION
Like Nick, I guess, I'd never really contemplated whether meditation could do anything for me. But the more I hear about the research, the more keen I am to see whether it has any effect. So I'm going to try it myself for two months. Step one - learning how it's done.
NARRATION
I'm off to see Dr Richard Chambers who's a clinical psychologist but also an expert in mindfulness. He's going to teach me how to meditate, apparently.
Dr Richard Chambers
Mindfulness is a type of meditation where we focus our attention on the present moment - on the body, the breath, that kind of thing.
NARRATION
Mindfulness meditation is the most well researched type of meditation.
Dr Richard Chambers
And just taking a few moments to check in and just notice the state that your body is in, checking in with the mind.
NARRATION
Some scientists say it can boost physical and mental health and improve cognitive abilities.
Dr Richard Chambers
And when the mind inevitably wanders, just noticing that and see if you can bring it back gently without any further thinking. Most of us focus our attention on daydreams and distraction and rumination and worry and a whole bunch of stuff. If we can train ourselves - and we can - we can actually build a mindful muscle to train ourselves to be focused and present. Just enjoy the moment more.
NARRATION
Key to building this so-called mindful muscle is strengthening the prefrontal cortex. If the brain were an orchestra, the prefrontal cortex is like the conductor.
Dr Richard Chambers
When we notice our attention has wandered and we bring it back to the present moment, we activate the pre-frontal cortex. It's forming new synapses, new connections, and getting thicker and stronger, kind of like a muscle.
Dr Graham Phillips
And will I feel at a sense of wellbeing or more relaxed or...?
Dr Richard Chambers
Why don't we wait and see what happens for you? I mean, I'm going to predict yes. But one of the best ways to learn mindfulness is through the doing.
NARRATION
For me, to take meditation seriously, I need some hard evidence that it's changing my brain for the better.
Dr Graham Phillips
That's the weapon.
Dr Neil Bailey
It's the weapon. We'll put one of these on you. It's an EEG cap.
NARRATION
So I've come to see neuroscientist Dr Neil Bailey. He's about to put me through a raft of rigorous tests to get a measure of my brain power at the beginning of the eight weeks meditation.
Dr Neil Bailey
Alright, Graham, it looks like we've got some brain activity.
Dr Graham Phillips
Fantastic. Contrary to popular opinion.
NARRATION
First up, an EEG to measure my brain's electrical activity.
Dr Neil Bailey
When we activate it, it will give you a gentle electrical shock.
SFX
Zap!
Dr Graham Phillips
That's annoying.
Dr Neil Bailey
Is it annoying but not painful at all?
Dr Graham Phillips
Oh, depends what your definition of pain is.
NARRATION
The tests will measure my memory, my reaction time and my ability to focus.
Dr Neil Bailey
You're to respond to the meaning of the emotion of the word and try and ignore the emotion on the face.
Dr Graham Phillips
OK, so an angry face could have the word 'happy' underneath.
Dr Neil Bailey
Exactly.
NARRATION
Electrical activity in the brain is produced as neurons communicate with each other. The synchronised signals are brainwaves. When you meditate, alpha and theta waves increase and activity in some parts of the brain decreases, allowing me to focus. The idea is after eight weeks, the brain activity changes I experience during meditation will have a lasting effect on my brain. According to Dr Bailey, I'll be better able to concentrate, make faster decisions and remember more information. Most extraordinary though, my brain may even become more energy efficient.
Dr Neil Bailey
You're performing better, but your brain is exerting less energy. You're getting a decrease in neural activity. You might be able to do just as well in your job but be exerting less mental energy. So when you get home, you're less tired.
NARRATION
Beyond enhancing my brain's performance, I also want to know if meditation can have an even more dramatic effect and actually change its physical structure.
Dr Graham Phillips
I must say, I hate being locked in confined spaces. Not looking forward to this.
NARRATION
So I've come for an MRI to have some before and after brain structure scans.
Technician
This next one is going to go for about six minutes. Try not to think of anything. Just let your mind go blank.
NARRATION
Recent research from Harvard University showed that just eight weeks of meditation can physically change the structure of the brain.
Dr Neil Bailey
Everything we do affects the brain. So any skill we learn, anything we practice, will change the way our brain is structured. So over time, if you're repeating a practice - for example, mindfulness - it's going to strengthen certain connections in the brain and change the grey matter, for example, volumes of the brain.
NARRATION
Grey matter is the darker tissue of the brain where most of the nerve cell bodies are. The Harvard research found that grey matter increased in key areas, such as the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and temporoparietal junction.
Dr Richard Chambers
And these are parts of the brain that help us to remember, to focus, to learn, to inhibit impulses and regulate our emotions. If we sat there daydreaming for 20 minutes, we'd be strengthening a different part or different parts of the brain and we get to choose what we want to strengthen. We've got a use it or lose it brain.
NARRATION
Now, it is early days for a lot of this research, but the possibility of meditation changing the structure of my brain certainly sounds exciting. I have to wait eight weeks to find out my results. I'd better start meditating.
Dr Graham Phillips
OK, the end of week one. It's now breathing meditation and that's more challenging. You're just focusing on that one thing, your breath, which I find very easy to get distracted from that.
NARRATION
But can meditation change the body as well as the brain? A handful of studies show it may be good for our health by reducing inflammation and stress hormones.
Prof Elissa Epel
So far, there's an interesting growing list of some of the different ways that meditation affects the body.
NARRATION
The question US researcher Dr Elissa Epel wants to answer is, can it also slow down ageing?
Prof Elissa Epel
Been looking in particular at ageing markers. By now, the field has a pretty good collection of very interesting studies that do suggest that there are benefits to our rate of ageing.
NARRATION
Signs of ageing can be seen inside the body's cells, specifically in the tiny caps at the end of each chromosome known as the telomeres.
Prof Elissa Epel
Our telomeres protect our genes. Now, what happens as we age, our immune cells divide and the telomeres shorten. Those protective caps get shorter and shorter. So we want to keep those intact.
NARRATION
Basically, the shorter the telomeres, the faster the ageing. Several studies have compared the telomeres of meditators to non-meditators.
Prof Elissa Epel
It looks like telomere length, the measure of how our immune cells age, stabilises more and doesn't shorten in the meditation group.
NARRATION
Other studies have measured telomerase, the enzyme that protects those precious telomeres.
Prof Elissa Epel
Those studies have suggested that telomerase can go up and telomere length can be better maintained during those periods. And, you know, we wait for lots of replications before we say something is true or a fact, but the studies are very promising. Very suggestive.
NARRATION
We've seen how meditation can change you biologically, but how about psychologically? One of the most widely studied areas of meditation research is the effect on mental health. Ross Bunn has been coping with depression for years.
Ross Bunn
I wasn't really comfortable in my own skin. I was very sort of agitated. Quick to anger. I didn't really feel I knew who I was. I was not doing the things I loved and enjoyed. I wasn't seeing my friends or family anymore and, um, my relationship was, well, strained, really. It was very difficult.
NARRATION
Ross was given medication, but he didn't like the side effects.
Ross Bunn
It really didn't make me feel very well. I still didn't feel like myself. I still wasn't sleeping. I was still very agitated. I just felt pretty detached from everything and everyone.
NARRATION
Ross is one of a growing number of people using meditation to treat their depression.
Ross Bunn
I actually practice mindfulness whilst hiking. I find it's quite easy to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and then just noticing the world around me and how my body feels.
Dr Neil Bailey
People who practice mindfulness show better mental health than 70% of the population on average. People with depression and anxiety have even larger gains than that.
Dr Richard Chambers
The data shows that that reduces depressive symptoms, but the big finding is that it halves the rate of depressive relapse. For people who've had three or more depressive episodes, if they learn mindfulness as part of their treatment, they're half as likely to get depressed again down the track.
NARRATION
Indeed, for some, meditation could be an alternative to their medication.
Dr Richard Chambers
A paper that came out last year, a meta-analysis, has found that it's as effective as antidepressants for preventing relapse, which is a pretty significant finding.
Dr Graham Phillips
Did it make a difference to you?
Ross Bunn
Yes. Absolutely. It probably would have been about eight months or so, I decided I was well enough, able enough to come off the medication.
NARRATION
Dr Richard Chambers believes mindfulness meditation works because it breaks the cycle of depressive thoughts.
Dr Richard Chambers
Depressive thoughts that maybe go through people's minds that they don't normally notice, they're just running in the background like an app and reducing people's mood. So mindfulness helps them to notice that and then just to recognise it as a thought rather than taking it seriously, believing it, trying to push it away, which then gets the attention very much caught up in that kind of rumination. Just noticing it, let it go, bring the attention back to the present.
Ross Bunn
Doing the meditation really helps break that rumination cycle. And overall, that allows me to focus on all sorts of things. If I need to focus on work, my mind's not wandering away thinking about something else. So it's training my brain to focus. That's the main aim.
NARRATION
So, how exactly does meditation train the brain?
Prof Elissa Epel
One of the things that many types of medication do is exercise our attention muscle, and boy, that's an important muscle.
NARRATION
This so-called attention muscle may exert some control over one of the brain areas tied up with emotion - the amygdala.
Dr Neil Bailey
When the amygdala gets activated, that's when we feel fear and anxiety and that sort of thing, so its purpose is to give experience an emotional salience. In something like depression or anxiety, it becomes over-active and so it's constantly activated and providing that sensation of anxiety or fear or hypervigilance.
NARRATION
After meditation, other parts of the brain appear more in control of the amygdala.
Dr Neil Bailey
What happens is, in theory at least and from what we can tell from the brain scans, when you've practised a lot of mindfulness, both the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, those regions exert more regulation on the amygdala and dampen the effect of that anxiety or fear coming up.
NARRATION
Meditation's list of benefits does seem remarkable and some are concerned media hype is falsely overselling them. After all, the research is still in its infancy.
Prof Miguel Farias
The few studies that have looked at it haven't found that mindfulness was any better than other forms of therapies, which in itself is not a bad outcome, but there simply isn't enough research.
NARRATION
Professor Farias believes certain people should exercise particular caution.
Prof Miguel Farias
All kinds of meditation were originally designed to rattle your sense of self. If there is something which has traumatised you in your life and you've forgotten about it, by meditating you may become aware of it and this will exacerbate all the symptoms. It can actually increase stress. It can lead to greater levels of anxiety, panic attacks in some people.
Ross Bunn
There were times where it would dredge up past experiences that I really didn't want to go back to and it was really quite disturbing and confronting at the time too. I never expected for that to occur.
NARRATION
Professor Farias also believes there may be an inherent bias in the research.
Prof Miguel Farias
99% of the researchers have only been looking at the potential benefits, at the positive effects. They haven't really been asking people about adverse effects.
Dr Richard Chambers
If you've got a psychotic disorder, if you're really anxious or if you're getting it taught to you badly, maybe it's not going to be so good.
Dr Graham Phillips
Gee, when you're going through a stressful time, you've got a lot on your mind. It is really hard to get all that stuff out when you're meditating. I'm finding it really hard at the moment.
NARRATION
It's time for a catch up with Dr Richard Chambers.
Dr Richard Chambers
So, I might just check in. How's your practice being going?
Dr Graham Phillips
I'm a scientific type, you know. I'd like to do a lot more experiments before I draw any conclusions, but I'm feeling more relaxed than I have been for some time and I notice the stress, but it's not like I'm sucked into it. I can just sort of cruise through, which is very good.
NARRATION
Reducing stress is one of the most commonly reported effects of meditation.
Dr Richard Chambers
You know, the stress isn't actually in the situation. The stress is in our relationship with the situation.
NARRATION
But stress is a complicated thing.
Prof Elissa Epel
We can't avoid stress. Stress is an embedded part of life and in fact, engaging in new things and challenges is very good for us. But we need to make sure that we have enough reserve in our days or, at the least, in our weeks.
NARRATION
And that's where meditation might help.
Prof Elissa Epel
Meditation and mind/body activities are a wonderful way to build our kind of physiological and psychological resiliency.
NARRATION
To get a better idea of how meditation works on a bigger scale, I've come to Nan Tien Temple to meet meditation teacher Chokyi. She believes it has an important role to play in society.
Thubten Chokyi
When I first started meditating, I remember I was telling everyone this is the cheapest form of dealing with stress, anxiety that's available to you. It's totally free. Really. Because it's just you and your mind.
NARRATION
Chokyi is part of an international project teaching meditation to inmates in New South Wales correction centres.
Thubten Chokyi
People get into prison and in one way, you can say it's a bit like going into retreat, you know? Because you go into a closed environment, a lot of things are taken away from you and the one thing you do have on you is time on your hands.
Venerable Robina Courtin
So, what you're going to now is you focus all your awareness strongly on the sensation at your nostrils as you breathe in and out. You just feel that. Take one more breath and you'll feel it, OK?
SFX
BELL CHIMES
NARRATION
She believes it improves mental health and aids rehabilitation.
Thubten Chokyi
And it doesn't take very long to see the effects in a prison environment.
NARRATION
Former inmate Nick Brewer experienced these benefits firsthand.
Nick Brewer
There were deep shifts in my psychological patterns and thought patterns about the way I felt about myself and life and it started a whole rehabilitation process.
Venerable Robina Courtin
I think every one of us, whether we're in prison or out, we look at our lives by not knowing what's going on inside ourselves until the words vomit out the mouth or until the fist does the punch. You know, you kind of... you get into trouble in life.
Thubten Chokyi
They learn more about themselves. They learn, what is it that triggers me? You know, what triggers me to anger? What triggers me to act out in selfish ways or ways that do harm to others?
NARRATION
Professor Farias studied the effect of meditation on prison inmates in South America. He believes it helps in some ways but it's no magic bullet.
Prof Miguel Farias
We did find they became less stressed. They had a lower probability of having psychological problems. On the other hand, we also found out that there weren't differences in terms of aggression or interpersonal behaviour, which was something we were looking for.
Nick Brewer
My old self is very alien to me now. I can relate to the old Nick, the character, but what I did, you know, is dead.
NARRATION
It's eight weeks later and my personal trial has come to an end.
Dr Graham Phillips
Who would have thought I'd ever take part in a group meditation session? There you go. Anyway, my eight weeks is up now. I'm off for my results.
Dr Graham Phillips
Ah, Neil!
NARRATION
I'm back to Monash to find out if all the dedication has paid off.
Dr Graham Phillips
I'm keen to see if I've made a difference to my brain.
Dr Neil Bailey
Yeah. Let's see.
NARRATION
Three hours of cognitive tests and brain scans later...
Dr Graham Phillips
It wasn't bad this time! I've got to wait a week for the results, apparently, though.
NARRATION
And it's results time with Dr Bailey and MRI expert Dr Chao Suo.
Dr Neil Bailey
Overall, you did better in three of the five tasks. Better behavioural performance.
Dr Graham Phillips
Oh, that's fantastic!
Dr Neil Bailey
Not only that, you exerted less brain activity. So you spent less energy to do better. This one in particular was your memory task.
Dr Graham Phillips
I did better at that?
Dr Neil Bailey
You did better at that.
Dr Graham Phillips
I felt like I was guessing. That was a very hard task.
Dr Neil Bailey
It was very hard.
Dr Graham Phillips
That's annoying.
Dr Neil Bailey
It was actually one where we were distracting you with that tiny electrical shock.
Dr Graham Phillips
I remember it well.
Dr Neil Bailey
The same time as you were trying to remember stuff.
Dr Graham Phillips
It feels like I... it's easier for me to intervene if my brain is doing something I don't want it to do.
Dr Neil Bailey
Yeah. That's cool. And that's actually a really interesting point for this next slide. Your reaction time to unexpected events. You cut your reaction time by 400ms.
Dr Graham Phillips
Really? That's almost half a second.
Dr Neil Bailey
Yeah.
Dr Graham Phillips
That's huge!
Dr Neil Bailey
It's massive. If you're driving a car and a pedestrian steps out in front of you, 400ms is probably a life-saving amount of time.
Dr Graham Phillips
That's very good news! I feel like I passed!
Dr Neil Bailey
Yeah.
NARRATION
I was better at the tasks, but had my brain physically changed?
Dr Graham Phillips
So, what do my brain scan results show?
Dr Chao Suo
Alright. Let's start with the structure changing. The three brain regions that has been reported before.
NARRATION
There were indeed changes in my grey matter density in several parts of my brain.
Dr Graham Phillips
They're big changes in the scheme of things!
Dr Chao Suo
Yes, yes. That's very interesting finding. Yeah.
NARRATION
The most dramatic change was in a part of my hippocampus known as the dentate gyrus, where new brain cells are produced in adults.
Dr Neil Bailey
22.8% increase.
Dr Graham Phillips
That's enormous!
Dr Neil Bailey
Yeah, it's huge. It's really large. It means something's definitely going on. You've got what we call neurogenesis happening.
NARRATION
In other words, new brain cells were growing. And there's more. My hippocampus is also exerting more control over something called the default mode network, which is associated with anxiety. These changes are not usually seen in someone my age.
Dr Neil Bailey
Younger people show that pattern more than older people.
Dr Graham Phillips
It's as if my brain is getting a little bit younger.
Dr Neil Bailey
Yeah. You've reversed the ageing process a little bit in your brain.
Dr Graham Phillips
Who can complain about that?
NARRATION
Now, sure, my personal experience is not a proper scientific study, so we can't say for sure these brain changes were the direct result of meditation. But hey, I'm impressed and certainly feeling happy with my younger, heavier brain.

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The ancient art of meditation has moved out of the temple and into our daily lives. It's practised by top class athletes, even taught in some of the most powerful corporations in the world. Thubten Chokyi You don't have to be Buddhist to meditate. You just have to be a person with a functioning mind.

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