Tanner Kent: Though he only graduated from Mankato West in 2008, and from Northwestern University this year, Caleb Melby can now add “published author” to an already lengthy resume in journalism.

He delivered The Free Press as a youngster, started a radio show at KMSU in high school and edited the high school newspaper.

In college, he served as executive director of the school’s news web site and wrote editorials for the Chicago Tribune. In the spring of 2011, he worked as a reporter for The Times of Johannesburg, South Africa, and landed an internship with Forbes Media in the summer of 2011 — an opportunity …

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It is a stressful time for university students who are in the middle of writing final exams but now a little relief can be found on campus.

Staff at the University of Calgary’s Wellness Centre say students are all feeling the pressure of finals and dealing with the holiday season.

To help students cope, they have converted a dance studio in the Kinesiology Department on campus into a stress free zone.

The overhead lights are turned off and soothing music is played and a labyrinth is laid out in the middle of the floor for walking meditation.

“Sometimes they don’t even need …

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Almost ever summer over the last ten years, I’ve been teaching low income teens how to use their minds more effectively so that they can be more successful students, but also so that they can be more successful, happier, less stressed individuals.

We cover a lot of ground in my six-week course, but a core element is the practice of meditation. I was hesitant to do this. I wondered whether these restless teens would be able to sit still even for five to ten minutes. And what if they thought it was lame?

As it turned out, the most common comment in the end-of-term evaluation reports was “The best part was …

Tralee Pearce: I haven’t studied enough. I’m going to fail the test. My mom’s going to be mad. Maybe I’ll skip class.

Thoughts like these can quickly gallop out of control in kids’ minds, but what if there was a way they could clear them away? Enter the three-minute breathing meditation, which can be done anywhere, whether it’s on the bus or in a school hallway.

It’s one of the cornerstones of the increasingly popular practice of mindfulness, a blend of Buddhism-inspired calm and cognitive-behavioural therapy. Used as a therapy for adults for about 30 years, it’s now moving into the world of kids …

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Liese Stanley: I’ve been teaching meditation to adults for a while now, but this is the first time I’ve worked with school students.

Session 1

The first surprise is the boy/girl ratio: there’s only one girl but eight boys. We began with a switching off of phones, and we chat about their thoughts and expectations for meditation. I introduce myself and give a bit of background.

They have some really good comments and it turns out that one person has tried meditation before. We begin a meditation within 10 minutes as it feels right to practice rather than talk and I think it will ease …

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Steve Kent: Religious and non-religious people alike can benefit from Buddhism, according to a presenter Saturday at the Museum of Anthropology’s new exhibit honoring Buddhism in the Cache Valley.

In his experience as a teacher at the Cache Valley Buddhist Sangha, associate English Professor Michael Sowder said he has worked with people of all religious backgrounds who practice meditation and study Buddhist teachings.

People with such a wide range of religious inclination can practice Buddhism because its teachings neither endorse nor reject any particular beliefs, Sowder said.

“You can have a religious belief and practice Buddhism at the same time,” he said. “Buddhism will …

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Ben Harris: Practicing Buddhism is more of a lifestyle than a religion for Don Socha and Brigitte Bechtold.

Socha, a lecturer at Central Michigan University, has been formally practicing Buddhism since 2000. He said he met a monk who taught in CMU’s Spanish department who introduced him to groups in Montreal where he went for meditation sessions.

He was ordained Bodhisattva in 2002. He said a Bodhisattva is someone who has devoted his or her life to the Buddhist precepts, such as not stealing and not lying.

“In a sense, we’re trying to alleviate suffering in the world. It’s one of the Four Noble Truths,” he …

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Tina Barseghian: There’s no question that for both kids and adults, our attention is divided. Texts, emails, Twitter, Facebook are all chiming, ringing, beeping, and chirping for our attention.

How does this affect kids? The media has covered the subject in terms of fear of multitasking leading to ADD, losing control to digital devices, and the dangers of not being able to focus. And in most cases, the Internet (and technology in general) has been declared the culprit.

But rather than blaming the medium, David Levy, author of Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age, believes the challenges of multitasking …

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A few days ago I gave a talk at a high school about 40 minutes from my house. Some of the students had made secular “prayer flags,” which had the purpose of expressing their positive thoughts and sending them out into the world.

The prayer flags had been hung where they would brighten up a rather unattractive central courtyard, which now contained a “ger” (Tibetan yurt), designed (I think) in the geometry class. You can just see the ger in the background of the second photograph.

Some of the images were intriguing, and I wish I’d been able to talk more with individual …

Encouraging pupils to keep noise to a minimum has substantial benefits and should become a valuable component of all children’s education, it is claimed.

Dr Helen Lees, from Stirling University’s school of education, said that “enforced silence” was seen as a punishment and often acted to suppress children’s natural ability.

But she said that teaching children about the benefits of “strong silence” – deliberate stillness that gives them the opportunity to focus and reflect in a stress-free environment – can have a significant effect on pupils’ concentration and behaviour.

The conclusions are made in a new book – Silence in Schools – to …

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Goldie Hawn, whose Hawn Foundation develops programs to help children thrive and find happiness, recently appeared on ABC Nightline to discuss her foundation’s work. In particular she talked about MindUp, which is helping kinds by teaching them mindfulness meditation, or what Hawn calls “brain breaks,” and neuroscience.

In the wake of 9/11, Hawn became concerned at learning that US children were among the unhappiest in the world, with rising suicide rates, depression, and one in three children on medication. As a meditator, she became convinced that she could make a difference. She launched the Hawn Foundation, and began working with scientists to help children train their brains to focus, and become happier.

220 schools in the US, Canada, and Britain are now …

Ingrid Wickelgren: When I arrived at the Aspen Meadows Resort for the Second Annual Aspen Brain Forum last Thursday evening, Goldie Hawn was getting out of a vehicle near the entrance. I knew she was about to give the keynote address, but I was startled to practically run into the actress. A grandmother now, Hawn looked fabulous in over-the-knee black leather boots and a chunky silver belt strung around a black miniskirt. It wasn’t so much her looks, though, that made her instantly recognizable. Her trademark laugh and general effervescence mark her like a strobe light, quite visible even in the bright Colorado sun. I watched her stop to…

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Shreya Banerjee: Although many mobs are affiliated with loud noise and violence, a different kind of mob took over the north side of the Long Center for Performing Arts on Wednesday night.

Approximately 150 people gathered to participate in a meditation event held by the group MedMob in conjunction with International Day of Peace.

The participants silently meditated for one hour and then did a sound bath afterwards. The sound bath is an 11-minute interval in which the members chant one word together — with “om” being the most common — as a way to supplement their meditation.

“We spend most of our time hearing bad…

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Elissa Doherty, Herald Sun: Meditate on this: a Melbourne childcare centre seems to have found a way to keep squirming toddlers still.

There are no “ommms”, but there were a few “umms?” when Kensington Community Children’s Co-Operative introduced meditation and yoga classes.

It is one of a handful of centres in Victoria turning to ancient techniques to help modern children relax.

The lights go out and children as young as three channel their inner zen while listening to world music in a twist on traditional meditation.

If they get too antsy, they could read a book, draw, or spend individual time with…

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Mary Barnett: Former athlete and current assistant principal at Orchard Knob Middle School LaKesha Carson said she was used to employing a variety of techniques to de-stress and unwind after a particularly crazy day.

But what she learned last week during the first day of faculty in-service at the middle school was the opposite of everything she has ever done or thought to do.

“As a former athlete I have been all about a good hard workout. So I think of de-stressing as going hard, pumping the weights, running, running, and getting that sweat up,” Carson said.

Slowing down, breathing correctly and just sitting quietly were just a few of the techniques Carson and the entire…

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Paige Henry: Hundreds of public, charter and private schools in the United States have implemented a practice that might seem strange, foreign or even ridiculous to some adults: the Quiet Time Program.

It isn’t a ploy to have kids lay their heads on desks while teachers gossip in the break room.

It’s not an extra session of math or reading exercises either, but it does help students’ academic achievements.

The Quiet Time Program aims to improve the “overall environment of the schools” while giving students an effective way to reduce stress and develop “the full brain.” In other words, it’s a practical, highly effective form of meditation.

The Quiet Time Program began in 2005 when David Lynch, film director and Transcendental Meditation practitioner, founded …

Mail Online: Council’s wellbeing consultant insists classes are ‘not just some hippy idea’ and aid concentration.

Lying down in a circle may seem like a rather unusual way to run a lesson, but teachers say meditation and yoga has helped hundreds of primary school pupils to improve their grades.

The nine to 11-year-olds are taught to ‘channel their energy’ once a week in a class that focuses on relaxation and breathing techniques

During the one hour sessions pupils from across Essex are also taught a series of beginner yoga positions designed to improve their mental health and well-being.

Teachers involved in the trial scheme have reported …

Lawerence Synett: Students in a freshman honors English class at Prairie Ridge High School were asked to assume certain positions, chant and lie on the floor as part of an activity connected to reading the novel “The Alchemist,” drawing a complaint from a father who is a minister and thought the exercise had religious overtones.

Teacher Christine Wascher let students opt out if they felt uncomfortable, but now has stopped what was intended as a new way to relate to the book.

“What she had them do was a mind-clearing visualization exercise that a parent felt was transcendental meditation,” Superintendent Jill Hawk said. “It was an activity to engage them in a part of the book that talks about being one with …

A few boys twitch and are reluctant to close their eyes. It’s not easy to get those aged 10 to 12 to keep still, let alone stop their minds from racing.

But it doesn’t take long before the soothing words of meditation teacher Janet Etty-Leal have lulled this class of grade 5 and 6 students into a different mental space.

Lying in a circle, they are practising a form of meditation known as mindfulness that has become core curriculum at Yarraman Oaks Primary School. This school in Noble Park is one of a growing number that have embraced the technique to improve focus and stress management.

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The U.S. Constitution may prohibit mandatory prayer in public schools, but it doesn’t prohibit schools from allowing students to pray on their own initiative, says City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who wants to encourage the practice.

“Students are free to pray alone or in groups as long as the activity is not disruptive and does not infringe on the rights of others,” according to a resolution adopted unanimously in Council yesterday at Blackwell’s request.

It calls for Council’s Education Committee, headed by Blackwell, to schedule hearings on prayer in Philadelphia public schools.

“We want to discuss the policy, see if it needs to be amended and certainly let the citizens know that the issue does exist,” Blackwell told reporters. “There is a way people …