Mindfulness with Teenagers and Young Adults

With mental health problems on the rise, it is said that around half of all lifetime mental health problems start by the mid-teens and three-quarters by the mid-twenties, according to documentation published by Public Health England, 2019.

While 95 percent of the human brain has developed by the age of six, scientists report that the greatest spurts of growth after infancy occur just around adolescence.

How can mindfulness help?

According to Mental Health Foundation, mindfulness can be used as a tool to manage your wellbeing and mental health. Some people call mental health ‘emotional health’ or ‘wellbeing’. We all have times when we feel down, stressed or frightened; most of the time those feelings pass, but sometimes they develop into a more serious problem, and this could happen to any one of us.

It’s important to maintain your mental health but being mentally healthy doesn’t just mean that you don’t have a mental health problem. With good mental health, you can:

• Make the most of your potential
• Cope with life
• Play a full part in your family, workplace, community and among friends

While research is still growing in the area of mindfulness, evidence has suggested the benefit of mindfulness to health and wellbeing, with results showing positive effects on several aspects of whole-person health, including the mind, the brain, the body, and behaviour, as well as a person’s relationships with others.

Mindfulness has also shown to help with a number of conditions, including stress, anxiety, depression, addictive behaviours such as alcohol or substance misuse and gambling, and physical problems like hypertension, heart disease and chronic pain.

Action for Children

IMRAN HUSSAIN, Director of policy and campaigns

On hearing the news of the Government’s initiative to trial mindfulness within schools in 2019 through to 2021, Action for Children’s director of policy and campaigns, Imran Hussain, said:

‘Every day our frontline services see children and teenagers struggling to get to grips with how they fit into the increasingly complex modern world - contending with things like intense pressure at school, bullying or problems at home, all while being bombarded by social media.

It’s really encouraging to see the Government taking action to tackle the children’s mental health crisis by trialling different approaches in schools. We know from our own school programmes how vital it is to step in early with support to stop problems in their tracks. Crucially, services like these can lessen the anxiety, pain and anguish that some teens go through, but also reduce their need for intensive support further down the line’.

Key Elements of The Teenagers and Young Adults Programmes:

• A formal Mindfulness based 4/6-week programme for children
• Adaptable for working in informal groups or working 1:1
• A child friendly fusion of Mindfulness Now, MBSR and MBCT
• Personalised or group specific audio recordings
• Flexible enough to meet the needs of individual children and different age groups

Key Components to the programme:

• Learning and encouraging an awareness of our inner and outer worlds
• Incorporating the attitudes of mindfulness in our everyday lives
• Learning the ability to inhibit or control impulsive/ automatic
responses, and create skilled mindful responses
• Learning how to separate ourselves from our thoughts

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