Mindfulness activities for teens can be of great help when dealing with the murky waters of teenage life. We all remember our teenage years, some days were better than others and it was pretty hard. All the hormones are starting to move around, the responsibilities are getting a bit bigger, and the pressure of modern day social media doesn’t help either.
Mindfulness is a state of mind that helps connect you to the world. You may also find yourself a lot more grateful for the life around you which is something really special. Simple mindfulness activities can really help to increase this state of mind and can help a lot of teens who are struggling with the pressures of daily life.
Mindfulness Activities For Teens
Mindfulness activities are a great way to relieve stress. They’re also fantastic to help you focus on the important things in life like gratitude and living in the moment. Teenage life is tough and so teen mindfulness is a great way to just shut off and connect with yourself and the present rather than worrying about the past or the future. It’s very important to remember that there is no right or wrong to mindfulness and it’s completely dependent on what floats your boat and works for you.
Here are a few tips and activities you could try. Some of them are simple mindfulness exercises for beginners so they’re easy enough to do when starting off.
Examples of Mindfulness Activities
- Deep breathing – This is the type of mindfulness that most people are familiar with and different breathing exercises can help you connect with the present and just stop for a second. By breathing in a certain way, you’re actively focusing on your breathing and shifting your focus away from things you may be worrying about. An example of this would be box breathing – what is that? It’s pretty simple and anyone can do it which is always good news.
- Breathe in through your nose for four seconds
- Hold your breath for four seconds
- Exhale for four seconds
- Repeat this at least three times.
- Meditation – What’s important to remember is that meditating isn’t necessarily just sitting on your floor in a certain position with your hands together – it’s all about connecting with the present and switching off. So, focus on one thing like your breathing or the senses around you and if your mind starts to wander, you’ll want to bring it back to whatever you’re focusing on. It’s hard at the start to discipline yourself to keep focus on that one thing and it can feel slightly uncomfortable but once you get into the flow, it’s manageable.
- Grounding yourself – This is an easy enough mindfulness exercise for teens and it can be done through the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Grounding yourself is pretty simple with this technique. Here’s how you’ll want to go about it:
- Think of 5 things you can see
- Four things you can feel
- Three things you can hear around you
- Two things you can smell
- One thing you can taste around you.
With whatever emotion you’re feeling, this technique will take away some of that teenage angst whilst shifting your focus to the things around you. It’s also a great way to deal with conflict and to calm down after or during an intense situation.
- Listening to music – By giving your whole attention to your favorite song (yes, even if this does mean dancing around your bedroom with a toothbrush) you’ll most likely forget whatever was going through your head. Try and focus on how the music makes you feel when you have your whole attention turned to it. It could also be a good idea to make a playlist for your mindfulness songs that help you switch off and focus on the present.
- Coloring – We’ve all seen the books around the stores like “Color yourself to inner peace” but did you realize they actually work? This is a very approachable way to mindfulness and it’s easily done at any time. Make sure you put all your focus towards the coloring. Focus on what you’re coloring, how you’re coloring, and what colors you’re using.
What is Teen Mindfulness?
Mindfulness for teenagers is known to strengthen your brain against anxiety, which is good news. The art of mindfulness is all about paying attention to what is happening at this exact moment in time – putting all your focus into reading this article for example could be practising mindfulness to some extent.
When practicing mindfulness, you should focus all your attention on your senses and pay close attention to what you see, taste, and smell. You’ll also want to pay attention to how your body is feeling – are you feeling relaxed or tense?
Another really important part of mindfulness is realizing what’s going on in your head and noticing your thoughts but not judging them. If you feel your mind wandering then nonjudgmentally bring your thoughts back to your original point of focus. Trust us, it sounds easier than it actually is.
Practicing mindfulness can really help you calm down when you’re angsty or upset or if you’re just having one of those days which teenagers have quite often. This is actually a life skill that will help you manage your emotions in the future so teaching mindfulness to teenagers is important as we target these skills early on.
How Do I Start?
Anyone can start mindfulness and you only need a few minutes in your day to be able to do it – that’s only five minutes less on Tiktok. As we’ve introduced to you above, there are lots of different mindful exercises for teens to choose from like listening to music, breathing, and meditating. So getting started is easy, find five minutes in your day to trial an exercise and crack on.
Lots of people like to practice mindfulness right after they wake up to clear their thoughts ready for the day whilst others prefer to do it at night to clear their thoughts after a busy day – it’s whatever works best for you.
Once you’ve started, you just have to be disciplined to keep going and sticking with it. You may not see a difference after one day and we understand that this can be quite frustrating but once you get into the habit of doing it, it gets much easier and you’ll start to see a difference. Some people like to keep a mindfulness journal to keep track of their mindfulness journey which is a really nice idea.
Effects of Mindfulness Activities for Adolescent Groups
Practicing mindfulness with teens has many benefits that will help them in their day to day lives as well as their futures. Some of these benefits include:
- Managing mental health conditions – Mental health conditions like anxiety or depression have been increasing in the past few years, especially amongst teens as they battle new emotions and develop into adulthood. So, mindfulness can be a great way to start addressing and combating these emotions in a healthy way.
- Improving social behaviors – Being around people may get slightly easier due to these mindfulness activities as your teen will be able to handle their emotions as well as understand their emotions. It also means that they’ll be less agitated by things that some people say as they’ll know how to cope with it.
- Improved attention span – It’s true, mindfulness truly does work. Lots of research has gone into it to make sure that it does work and they’ve proved that it improves attention span, even in ADHD kids which is brilliant. It’s been proven that people who regularly practice mindfulness have a much better attention span which is always good news.
- Managing emotions better – As well as improving attention span, it’s been proven that mindfulness helps people stay a lot calmer when they’re under stress. They are also less prone to getting upset and get along much better with others and are also a lot more patient. These kids know how to tune into their own emotions and so making friends through tuning in to their emotions too is a much easier process.
Mindfullness for Teens
So, mindfulness for teens works and it can help make your life a lot easier. Managing being a teenager can be really hard and so teen mindfulness is often the way forward to control those emotions and get your head around them. Remember, the mindfulness that works for you may not work for someone else so it’s all about what works for you.