Health & Wellness Newsletter (Winter 2020)

BRUNSWICK

The Brunswick Breath

❖ Knowing & living by our values

❖ Upper Schoolers take safety screening to heart

❖ What do feelings look like?

&

Health Wellness The Brunswick Breath Our Winter 2020 Health & Wellness focus starts with a new coin of the phrase, The Brunswick Breath.

To wit — Brunswick boys across every division are breathing deeply this winter thanks to visits from a Greenwich mindfulness expert, psychologist Alina Boie, Ph.D. Boie visited both the Upper School and Middle School to share the science of mindfulness and demonstrate how just eight seconds of breathing exercise, done consistently, has been shown to improve both grades and emotional well-being.

“Our breathing is an anchor,” Boie told students in Baker Theater. “You have your breathing everywhere you are.”

❖ Ambassadors of composting

❖ Get some sleep

❖ Food for power

❖ A sandwich dance

❖ Five guys of fitness

WINTER 2020

Alina Boie

Upper School boys are asking for more; for the first time ever the school offered voluntary sessions on mindfulness during exam week.

Over on King Street, Lower School and Pre School boys, too, are taking in the air thanks to a visit by Boie to the faculty.

“They have been working hard doing big belly breathing,” said Sarah Burdett, Brunswick’s chief integration officer.

❖

Tal Ben-Shahar

Boie was one of two well-being experts Brunswick welcomed this winter.

The other was Harvard happiness scholar Tal Ben-Shahar.

Ben-Shahar addressed Upper Schoolers in Baker Theater on Nov. 21 and spoke to parents later in the day; in both talks he described a pandemic of stress and unhappiness worldwide.

But the solution, he said, isn’t less stress.

Instead, he said, common-sense solutions lie in what he described as the “five pillars” of a happier, healthier life: Giving ourselves “permission to be human,” finding more time to recover from hectic modern chores, embracing failure, cultivating genuine face-toface relationships, and practicing deliberate gratitude.

“We’ve now had two different speakers talk to the boys about the power of mindfulness and the way it gives you some control over how to manage stress,” said Burdett.

Click here to purchase Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

The cost of cool

❖ Flu Information

Mindfulness session during exam week.

1

BRUNSWICK

Health&Wellness

WINTER 2020

DIGITAL WELLNESS

“Knowing and Living By Our Values” It was a moment of mindfulness that kicked off a Jan. 23 community forum in Baker Theater: The Truth About Tech: How Tech Keeps Kids Hooked.

“Sleep — it is so critical for literally everything,” said Horowitz, adding: “Nothing good comes from a teen or tween having a phone in their bedroom at night.”

Led by the non-profit advocacy group Common Sense Media, the forum gave parents thoughtful advice about how to use tech more intentionally, avoid the risks of constant connectivity, and focus on being great digital role models for our kids.

The panel also recommended that families tune into the news less often, maybe once per week, and not use social media to find it.

It featured a three-person panel, including two from Common Sense Media: New York City Director Samira Nanda Sine and New York Education Director Tali Horowitz. The two were joined by Giancarlo Pitocco, a former Facebook employee who left the company after the 2016 election and founded Purposeful Digital Wellbeing.

Pitocco opened the forum by asking parents to turn off their phones and take a moment to “cultivate the kind of energy we’re looking to have in our everyday lives.”

He then led the group through a full minute-and-a-half of silence, “so as to be present as we talk about our digital wellbeing and our healthy relationship with technology.”

In the hour-long conversation that followed, the panel reminded parents to lead by example on digital wellness and to talk about it often. They also offered their thoughts on everything from the “digital junk food” of many online social interactions to a kind of arms race that tech companies have waged in pursuit of our time and attention.

One concrete recommendation: keep phones out of the bedroom. A simple, old-fashioned alarm clock is still on the market, panelists said, and offers a time-tested wake-up call without the tempting distraction of a phone.

On social connection, they said to prioritize face-to-face interaction and described social interaction on social media as “digital junk food.”

Pitocco, in particular, explained the “attention economy” of the modern world, where consumers use services like Facebook, Instagram, and Google but pay nothing for them.

“The way (these companies) are making money is by harvesting as much of our time and attention as possible,” Pitocco said.

“That becomes part of their inventory to sell to advertisers.”

“The game is to extract attention,” he said. “They run out of inventory if you don’t spend time there. It’s this competitive race, to take over your time and attention.”

Pitocco offered a useful definition of digital well-being, and he described five urgent areas that need to be addressed around digital wellness in the home: attention, values, boundaries, quality leisure time, and solitude.

“I say that well-being is making sure technology is used in service of your needs, your values, your aspirations, and not as a distraction from those things,” he said.

Values, in particular, he said, can act as a powerful filter when it comes to interactions with the digital world.

“Knowing and living by our values protects us from the bias, the influence, and the manipulation that’s engineered into these products that we keep in our pockets,” he said.

Upper Schoolers take safety screening to heart Brunswick’s increased focus on Health & Wellness for the 201920 school year is leading with the heart.

In early December, Upper Schoolers were offered optional electrocardiogram (ECG) testing.

More than 150 students took advantage of the chance to screen for major abnormalities, such as an enlarged heart, known to cause sudden cardiac arrest.

Brunswick is the first school in Fairfield County to offer heart screenings for students. The service was provided by Who We Play For, one of the largest heart-screening nonprofits in the

country, offering all Upper School students the opportunity at a very low-cost fee of $20.

Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death on school campuses, according to Who We Play For, and is also the number-one killer of student athletes.

Marc Strileckis, Brunswick associate athletic director and head athletic trainer, said the screening can pick up underlying heart conditions that can only be seen if an ECG or echocardiogram is done.

“After looking at the statistics, we wanted our families to know if their son was at risk,” Strileckis said. “If anyone needs further testing, we’re even happier that they found out this way, rather than having something more traumatic happen.”

2

BRUNSWICK

Health&Wellness

WINTER 2020

COMMUNITY FEELING

What do feelings look like?

It’s a question second-graders are considering as Lower School teachers have begun to infuse RULER social-emotional learning into the classroom this year.

Developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, RULER is an evidence-based approach for integrating social-emotional learning into schools. It’s rooted in decades of research showing that social, emotional, and academic development are deeply intertwined.

RULER is an acronym for the five key skills of emotional intelligence: Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions. PreSchool and Lower School teachers are integrating the RULER approach in myriad ways — planning is underway, for example, for a school-wide Community Charter, a document formulated by the community that lays the groundwork for how everyone wants to feel as learners, as friends, and as community members. Examples might include “challenged,” “safe,” “supported,” or “curious.”

In the early grades, the book The Color Monster: A Story About Emotions by Anna Llenas has become a favorite. Secondgraders are thinking about what feelings can look like through images and emojis; they have discussed how our bodies and faces can offer clues to how we, or others, are feeling. Matching these feelings to a word has been a valuable exercise, indeed.

“How to express emotions, how to read others’ emotions, giving feelings a name; all of this is really important, especially for boys,” said Lower School Head Katie Signer. “The kids have responded so beautifully. They are so engaged and so committed to the work.”

Other good choices for reading on this topic: Alexander and the Terrible No Good Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein, The PoutPout Fish by Deborah Diesen and The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

As you read with your sons, don’t hesitate to ask them what color they think a character might be feeling and why!

Teachers have also begun using a Mood Meter to teach RULER skills, integrating conversations about emotions in day-to-day practice and using books and stories to teach different feeling words. Boys in third and fourth grades have begun to work with the Feeling Words Curriculum, broadening their vocabulary to help them better understand and label feelings.

Click here to purchase Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett

Ambassadors of composting A Brunswick contingent abandoned the usual routine for a day last fall and instead made its way up into Litchfield County, hot on the trail of the food scraps Brunswick boys have been carefully setting aside after they finish their lunches.

Boys have been composting food scraps since school started in September; by the end of every lunch shift, bins are chock full of scraps ready to be born again as nutrient-rich composted soil and mulch.

The magic happens offsite.

Curbside Compost, of Ridgefield, Conn., picks up the scraps weekly and delivers them to composting facilities, including one in New Milford, Conn.

And yes, in case you are wondering, the trip home was indeed odiferous.

“We really did smell,” Burdett said, adding: “It was a pretty funny adventure on a Monday.” * * * Brunswick boys kicked off recycling challenges on National Recycling Day, Nov. 15. A contest between the Upper School and Greenwich Academy resulted in a huge haul of recyclable cardboard in the form of empty rolls of toilet paper and paper towels, while Middle School boys collected plastic film for recycling and Lower School boys recycled pens, markers, and mechanical pencils.

In all, four Brunswick boys ventured into the field for the factfinding mission, along with Chief Integration Officer Sarah Burdett and Upper School science teacher Oliver Bierman-Lytle.

The boys will put together a presentation on what they found.

“The boys were fascinated by how much these farmers know, and how incredibly scientific it is,” Burdett said. “It’s completely different when you see what the end result can be.”

3

BRUNSWICK

Health&Wellness

WINTER 2020

Get some sleep “Sleep-In” Thursdays have begun anew, giving students the chance to get some extra shut-eye during the dark days of winter.

The shifted schedule had been a staple of the Brunswick winter calendar for the past five years; it gives busy Upper School boys the chance to catch up on much-needed sleep.

Students are excused from advisory on Thursdays, and need to arrive in time for their first-period class, or if they do not have a first period class, they may arrive as late as 9:10 a.m.

The need for sleep in teenagers is well documented; because of the growth in adolescence, teens actually need more sleep per night than younger children.

“Sleep-In” Thursdays continue until Spring Break, which begins March 5.

More Sleep Resources: Click here to purchase Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, Ph.D. Click here for a fascinating infographic: Parents, Teens, Screens, and Sleep in the United States

Food for power ’Wick Bruins have been getting the lowdown on good nutrition from a certified sports nutritionist who also works to power up professional athletes with a better diet.

Gianna Masi, a certified sports nutritionist with the New York Rangers and the New York Knicks, visited Brunswick twice last fall to give Bruins advice about a good diet, including how to get nutrients from high-quality food and what to look for in supplements to make sure they are safe.

Hip Hop Fundamentals with Lower School students

A sandwich dance Lower Schoolers also got the message on the power of food, though for this group it came in the form of some joyful hip hop dancing.

Hip Hop Fundamentals of Philadelphia visited the Lower School on Jan. 23, helping some of ’Wick’s youngest visualize what certain kinds of foods do to our energy levels.

A weary pizza dance showed the kind of sluggishness that can result when we eat junk food, while some joyful moves of hummus sandwich dance showed how good nutrition can power our days.

The group was brought to the Lower School by the Brunswick Parents’ Association Assemblies Committee, which aims to bring experiences to ’Wick students they might not otherwise get.

The show brought Lower School boys some messages about daily food choices, but part of the message was that it’s okay to sometimes have pizza, and also that many kids don’t have that many choices at all.

It was the first time Hip Hop Fundamentals has visited Greenwich.

This is the first time Brunswick has invited a nutritionist to speak to boys about healthy eating; going forward, such talks will be scheduled four times a year.

“This is all part of our Health and Wellness push,” said Marc Strileckis, Brunswick associate athletic director and head athletic trainer. “Our boys need to understand the foundation of good nutrition, and get away from supplementation and what’s seen on TV. There are no magic potions.”

Masi went over topics like how to build a plate of food, nutrients that are needed throughout the day, hydration, portion size, and even what kind of snacks to eat before and after your workout.

4

BRUNSWICK

Health&Wellness

WINTER 2020

“The cost of cool” On January 28, Sacred Heart, Greenwich Academy, and Brunswick School co-hosted an informational event on vaping, featuring Community Health and Wellness educator Amy Rosenfeld, MS RD CDN. Participants learned about what to look for at home (different devices teens are using), the health consequences, trends of student use, how companies are marketing toward teens, and tips for talking to teens about vaping. Click here to watch a Vaping PSA by the Greenwich Youth Committee.

Amy Rosenfeld, MS RD CDN, presenting at the January 28 vaping informational event

Five guys of fitness It’s high time for a shout-out for the Middle School gym class — and most especially the five guys of Brunswick Middle School Athletics who have boys’ health and wellness on their minds just about every minute of every day.

Indeed, building a Bruin begins long before Upper School, and the Brunswick Middle School athletic program prides itself on laying the groundwork for a proud tradition.

“We love our program,” said Johnny Montanez, director of Middle School physical education and assistant director of athletics. “Five guys. We really have invested ourselves in this program.”

The five guys who make it all happen: Montanez, Athletic Trainer Ryan McGrath, Director of Middle School Athletics Power Fraser, and P.E. teachers Steve Polikoff and Jordan Grannum.

Montanez said the Middle School is lucky to take advantage of Brunswick’s full complement of athletic facilities to teach their budding Bruins just about every sport imaginable — from football to pickle ball, from rowing to wrestling to swimming and water polo and of course, ice hockey.

“Our goal is for these kids to love physical activity so they can continue to live a healthy and physical life,” said Montanez. “The latest research shows those who are physically active in adolescence are more likely to continue that through adulthood.”

The lessons extend beyond sports.

“We try to give them life lessons on how to persevere, how to handle defeat, how to deal with different personalities on the team, how to get along with people, how to lift other people up,” McGrath said. “It’s okay to lose — what are you going to do next time to improve?”

FLU PRECAUTIONS There have been multiple cases of the flu at Brunswick in all four divisions.

The flu (influenza) is a contagious respiratory illness caused by the influenza viruses. It is easily spread when someone with the flu coughs, sneezes, or touches a surface handled by others.

Current flu symptoms begin suddenly and can include: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Fever Cough Sore throat Runny or stuffy nose Body aches

■ ■ ■ ■

Headache Chills Tiredness Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea are common for young children

In school, staff are disinfecting commonly touched surfaces frequently and also reminding students about handwashing and covering their noses and mouths when coughing or sneezing.

Students and staff should remain home until they have been symptom and fever free for at least 24 hours, without the use of anti-fever medications.

If you have any questions or concerns, please call the Health Office.

More Resources on Both Flu and Coronavirus Please see these links for more information from the CDC. Flu Season: cdc.gov/flu Coronavirus: cdc.gov/coronavirus

5