According to the website, many of the benefits of mindfulness for children are the same as the benefits for adults, including:
- Improving physical health (e.g., reducing pain, lowering blood pressure, improving symptoms of conditions like psoriasis and fibromyalgia).
- Improving mental health (e.g., helping to address substance abuse issues, stress, anxiety, and depression, and improving sleep).
- Enhancing important social and emotional skills (e.g., the ability to feel in control, to make and maintain meaningful relationships, to accept reality, to manage difficult feelings, and to be calmer, more resilient, more compassionate, and more empathetic).
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Increasing intellectual skills (e.g., improved sustained attention, visuo-spatial memory, working memory, and concentration; (Weare, 2012).
However, there are some benefits specific to children, including:
- Improved cognitive outcomes (e.g., better attention and focus, higher grades).
- Improved social-emotional skills (e.g., emotion regulation, better behavior in school, higher empathy and perspective-taking, and better social skills).
- Greater well-being (e.g., lower test anxiety, lower stress, fewer post-traumatic symptoms, and less depression; Mindful Schools, n.d.).
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