Learning by Being Mindful: Mindfulness as a Learning Strategy Over the past several decades, children and adults have become much more familiar with and familiar with mindfulness. Its benefits for children and adults are well-known, both to induce immediate positive effects as well as to fuel a lifetime of further learning.
Understanding the Benefits of Mindfulness
There are many benefits that arise from the presence of awareness in daily life. Studies show that mindfulness is associated with positive changes in anxiety, stress, hyperactivity, physical wellness, physical rest, well-being, emotional stability, and how alert and calm you feel.
In the interview below, Dr. Bruce A. Johnson summarizes and describes some of the benefits of mindful learning, including:
Modern children are exceptionally adept at learning
Modern children are exceptionally adept at learning traditional and more complex words, cognitively complex sequences, and analytical-based code-oriented concepts. They excel in reading, writing, and speaking languages, music, and dance.
Yet most students can’t remember most of the things they learn. In fact, only 15% of college students can successfully explain the functions of many scientific phenomena to peers and instructors.
Modern children are exceptionally adept at creating different classrooms, displaying different personalities, developing different behavioral patterns, and navigating a complex educational system, including state requirements and personal personal finance.
An adult’s attention span is normally finite, and can be challenged by the chaotic demands of daily life.
A child’s attention span is usually infinite. Often, children who excel in school or extracurricular activities grow up with trouble with attention, or sleep deprivation, or both. They often enter school or learning as the slowest learners.
Lifelong growth is caused by in-class learning
Learning without failure is a crucial part of any lifelong learning strategy. Success in school or any field of learning requires consistency, reward for progress, and tracking of failures. More and more learning strategies are being developed to sustain and motivate learners.
Learning seems as random as nature’s
In the interview below, Mr. Tyson explains in some detail how something that seems random and undifferentiated, such as a tree’s trunk or an insect’s wing, can be traced back to the brain’s processes and thinking processes. Understanding how these processes are associated with change over time helps us to understand how minds work.
Learning by being mindful requires that the user recognize that learning by being mindful is a long-term process, and that it does not happen automatically. Rather, learning by being mindful means that an open mind is constantly receptive to learning new things, and that a closed mind blocks all stimuli and challenges learning opportunities.
Mindfulness is an integral part of learning
Mindfulness can enhance learning processes from an individual to a whole civilization. Mindfulness generates positive emotional and cognitive changes, improves attitudes, and provides opportunities for learning. Learning not only contributes to achievement of academic and professional goals but also helps to solve challenges.
Your mind may be slow at learning, but your conscious mind is rarely slow. Mindfulness is about having an open mind and having an awareness, especially of the present, in order to manage the mind’s capacity to decide the future.
The learned practice of mindfulness is life-long and sustained; it is part of who you are.
At least a few of the benefits of mindful learning are documented in the documentary as shown in the following video:
Mindful Learning: A Journey Through the Mysteries of Learning, Discoveries about Mindfulness, and the Way to the Mind
View the related Mindful Learning Knowledge Page to learn more about being aware, mindful, and wellbalanced in your mind, body, and emotions.