Judith Newman, Prevention: Since the 1970s, Hawn, 67, has been a practitioner of meditation and living mindfully. Through the Hawn Foundation, she has brought the concept of mindfulness to 150,000 children around the world. Today children in her MindUp program learn how they can reduce stress and anxiety by understanding where negative emotions live in the brain and taking charge of their own feelings. (She also released a book on the program, Ten Mindful Minutes, just out in paperback.)

With a reclining Buddha watching over us, Hawn and I met up in her glass-walled New York City penthouse. The living room is Indochined and feng …

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Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun: One of my fondest memories from a recent visit to Seymour elementary in Vancouver was joining the students in Carrie Gelson’s Grade 2 class in morning meditation.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, we concentrated on our breathing and listened to the fading tone of a bell sounded by Gelson. It brought a few moments of blissful calm in an otherwise bouncy room of little kids.

This breathing exercise is a regular event at Seymour, one of several B.C. schools that practices the MindUP program created several years ago by Goldie Hawn. Seymour teacher Janice Parry, a Mind Up trainer with …

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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 …