INTRODUCTION

Students should learn about mindfulness and meditation as a form to increase happiness in high school. High School students often deal with stress and don’t know how to deal with it.  Facilitating space for meditation is an excellent vehicle and ought to be included in every high school curriculum.  Meditation is versatile and can be done in many different ways and is not limited in its use. Even those who don’t go to school, every single human can benefit from meditation. These benefits can include a reduction of anxiety,  helping to deal with an addiction, reducing depression and stress, feeling more relaxed and calm.  By practicing meditation, you are helping your brain and body to relax, your mind is at peace, and you become more aware of the things that go on in your life.

Mindfulness and its correlation to health

Practicing mindfulness and meditation can lead high school students to conduct more healthier lives causing greater happiness. High school students tend to become very stressed because of school and personal problems. Various causes of stress on teens are different for a variety of students but getting good grades, the people in school, social life, getting ready for colleges or thinking about the future are definitely among the top stressors. Stress can cause frustration, mood swings, feeling overwhelmed, and agitated behavior. All of these symptoms will effect the high school experience and performance. 

When practicing mindfulness or meditation students can have a moment of stress relief as well as feeling more relaxed, creative, open to learning, better learning, and better sleep. All of these things affect our health and the way we perform in school.

Want to know how you can practice Mindfulness? 

• Keeping a journal 

• Listening to music that calms 

• Showing gratitude to ones self and others

• Meditation

• Start your day with a purpose

• Mindful workout

The Effects of Practicing Meditation

A research made by Gaelle Desbordes in 2012 shows how those who learn and practice meditation can still benefit from it even while they are not doing it at the moment, she does this by comparing scans of the brain taken when the person was watching images with emotional content from before and after learning/practicing  meditation. 

The results showed that the before scan had activation in the amygdala which is an immediate response to an overwhelming emotion while the scan made after learning and using meditation was less affected. Through this research, it was clear that mediation does not only help you when doing it but it also helps you long term for as, long as you keep practice it. 

Practicing Gratitude Mindfulness Results In Happiness

Gratitude mindfulness helps students increase awareness of their position and results in a more positive self-image which leads to happiness. High school students often tend to compare themselves with other classmates as it seems that they lead a perfect life:  traveling, having fun and perfect grades. High schoolers often feel as if there was a person that always achieves better than them in every field resulting in a bad self-impression. 

Students don’t tend to validate themselves and do not appreciate the little things surrounding them. However, this can be changed if they are introduced to gratitude mindfulness. From the research article conducted by Joel Wong and Joshua Brown they emphasized that “it seems, practicing gratitude on top of receiving psychological counseling carries greater benefits than counseling alone, even when that gratitude practice is brief.”, Many assume that the only way for someone to be mentally stable is by attending counseling however Mr. Wong and Mr. Brown debunks that statement, as it has been proven that gratitude mindfulness has a greater impact than counseling can achieve. 

As humans we always place so much energy into things we want to get and achieve that we don’t take into consideration the small or big things others do for us, Gratitude helps us reverse our priorities to help us become more aware of the people that care for us and to appreciate what we have and what we do. In other words, it makes us feel better about ourselves and improves our self-image as we come to appreciate ourselves and value everything we do and have and we come to “accept all the blessings we receive” and helps us pursue the things that make us happy.  As early as possible students in every corner of the world can benefit from the practice of mindfulness.