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KIDS<br />
Mindfulness could<br />
be key to helping<br />
kids drift off<br />
The Uplift<br />
Sleep is important for all of us, but<br />
for children, it truly is the fuel that<br />
powers their curiosity, concentration,<br />
and playfulness – and a new study<br />
from the Stanford University School<br />
of Medicine has discovered a key way<br />
kids can boost their shut-eye.<br />
A group of ‘at-risk’ children from<br />
low-income families took part in a<br />
mindfulness curriculum at school.<br />
This taught them how to relax and<br />
manage stress by using mindfulness<br />
techniques, without specifically<br />
instructing them on how to get more<br />
sleep. Teachers taught the class about<br />
stress, how to spot it, and techniques<br />
on how to help keep it under control.<br />
Following the lessons, researchers<br />
found that, on average, the children<br />
slept 74 minutes more per night than<br />
they had before taking part.<br />
Although the findings can be applied<br />
to kids from all backgrounds, working<br />
specifically with ‘at-risk’ children<br />
meant that researchers were able<br />
to target what was keeping them up<br />
at night, with principal investigator<br />
Victor Carrión highlighting how<br />
much more challenging it is to relax<br />
when you don’t feel safe.<br />
Moving forward, the study shows<br />
that when we learn to identify the<br />
signs of stress, we can start to tackle<br />
it with deliberate actions – and how<br />
a curriculum incorporating simple<br />
mindfulness techniques could have<br />
a much larger impact than first<br />
thought. Writing | Kathryn Wheeler
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