Julia (our founder) presented this talk at the Montessori Foundation conference in St. Petersburg, FL. Montessorians need to know more about the science underlying mindfulness because we are engaging children in mindfulness practices all day long! The way we focus our attention fully on a task, limit language on non-verbal tasks, move with precision, aim to perfect our movements, etc. These are all aspects of mindfulness. So what does this mean for our students?
The big takeaways from neuroscience side are:
- Everything the brain does repeatedly it gets more efficient at
- The act of meditation exercises three key brain networks:
- Salience (noticing where our attention is)
- Central Executive (deciding to turn our attention to something)
- Default Mode (when our mind wanders)
- Strengthening these networks may protect against mental illness and promote resilience
- The salience network involves not only noticing where our attention is but also making sense/meaning of what happens in our lives; this requires purposeful reflection
Table of Contents:
00:05 - What is mindfulness?
01:07 - Mindfulness takes effort
01:32 - Types of practices
01:40 - Basc Meditation instruction
02:21 - Physiologic results of meditation
04:22 - Transformation with discomfort
06:42 - Three key brain networks
09:18 - Experience-dependent plasticity
11:41 - Key brain areas
14:05 - Self-regulation
15:50 - Protection against mental illness
16:31 - Meaning-Making
21:49 - Negativity bias
22:19 - Mindfulness buffers stress
25:19 - Mindfulness throughout the day