An address I’m scheduled to give today at a high school in New Hampshire, where the students have been making secular prayer flags, in order to “send their positive thoughts into the world.”

Good morning.

It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here, and I’d like to thank you for having me. I’m delighted to hear that you’ve been putting your positive thoughts on flags and sending them out into the universe. Of course I don’t believe that your thoughts will literally be sent out on the wind, but I see great significance in what you’re doing.

To print your positive thoughts on fabric you have, of course, to have had a positive …

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 …

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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Louise Brown: They come to the guidance counsellor with headaches and tears and insomnia and nerves and grades dragged down by the expectations that weigh on their teenaged shoulders.

In one of the most academically high-octane schools in Canada, the epidemic of student stress reported by one in three Ontario students has reached a point staff no longer can ignore.

Concerned at the growing number of students diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety disorders — and more who seem headed that way, especially in Grade 9 — North Toronto Collegiate has launched an unusual program to teach teens how to handle the stress thrust on them… Read the rest of this article…

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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Principal …

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 …

A remote diocese in Australia is leading the way by allowing regular periods of silent meditation in the classroom

If you want your children to feel more relaxed and less stressed, give them silence, not iPods.

This unthinkable idea came to mind after listening to Ernie Christie and Dr Cathy Day, two educationists from Queensland, Australia. They were addressing an audience at Regent’s College, London, on the benefits of allowing children to experience regular periods of silent meditation in the classroom.

A pilot study in 2005, involving teaching meditation to five- to 17-year-olds, had shown that children are not only capable of meditation, they actually enjoy it. The benefits to children’s wellbeing …

‘Mindfulness’, the process of learning to become more aware of our ongoing experiences, increases well-being in adolescent boys, a new study reports.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge analyzed 155 boys from two independent UK schools, Tonbridge and Hampton, before and after a four-week crash course in mindfulness. After the trial period, the 14 and 15 year-old boys were found to have increased well-being, defined as the combination of feeling good (including positive emotions such as happiness, contentment, interest and affection) and functioning well.

Professor Felicia Huppert of the Well-being Institute at the University of Cambridge said: “More and more we are realising the importance of supporting the overall mental health of children. Our study demonstrates that this type of training improves …