Due to the high levels of stress experienced by teenagers in school, schools have developed programs which incorporates mindfulness to help students relieve stress. In order to determine how useful these programs are to the students, researchers from the University of Washington have examined several activities which are implemented in schools.
The pilot study recruited eight teenage female students as participants to find out whether the programs will help to improve headaches that the participants often suffer from due to stress. The girls attended three weeks of mindfulness and art therapies. At the end of the three weeks, the participants reported having less headaches than they did before the study.
During the study, participants were also exposed to different mindfulness activities such as square breathing and mindful eating. The students also met the researchers to discuss about how stressed they feel before and after each session. Participants reported that they enjoyed learning about the breathing techniques but disliked focusing on what they are eating.
Despite experiencing less headaches after attending the mindfulness and art therapy sessions, the participants did not feel that they experienced less stress. However, they felt that their moods were improved and that they were able to manage their tasks better.
This study shows that it is important to work directly with teenagers to develop an effective program that alleviates the stress of students. If they dislike what they are doing, it will not help to relieve the tension that they experience. Given that teenagers have been found to experience even higher levels of stress than adults do shows that is it crucial to and develop methods to improve their mental health before their physical and emotional wellbeing worsens.
Category(s):Mindfulness, Stress Management
Source material from Science Daily
