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Mindfulness Research Paper

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Mindfulness meditation means to be aware of the present moment while acknowledging your thoughts, and emotions. It’s the 21st century and we are always so busy trying to achieve what society labels as the “perfect life”, that we lose sight of what’s really important to us. The minds of high school students are always filled with random thoughts, denying them the order needed for optimal functioning. For students who get easily stressed and distracted, mindfulness can make them more focused, decrease stress and improve memory. Mindfulness also has many physical benefits like enhancing one's general health, boosting neuroplasticity, and facilitating their recovery from traumatizing events. Lastly, mindfulness had social advantages such as increasing …show more content…
As found in these studies, mindfulness decreases rumination, which is the act of being lost in thought about negative events as opposed to their solutions. A research paper from Harvard University found that our minds are lost in thought 47% of the time, which means we spend 40 years of our lives in thought and unhappy. But, when being mindful, one focuses on only the important things, thus decreasing rumination.Clearing the mind also makes it easier to pinpoint the causes of stress and get rid of it. Research shows that after practising mindfulness, the grey matter in your brain’s amygdala, a region known for its role in stress, can become smaller. Mindfulness encourages students to deal with stress instead of avoid it. Lastly, when being mindful, it becomes easier to hang onto important thoughts and memorize information. In a 2011 study, a group of participants underwent a month of mindfulness training, while another group had no training. After testing,they found that the group with mindfulness training had a much greater memory than the group without. This means that mindful practise can allow high school students to be able to memorize information better. Thus, integrating mindfulness into high schools will improve the emotional well-being of …show more content…
Many individuals who have been through a life threatening event or terminal illness have been observed by friends and family to not really be who they used to be anymore. However, a study of MBSR (mindful based stress reduction) in Chinese breast cancer survivors provided evidence that mindfulness can enhance post traumatic growth and decrease stress and anxiety in cancer patients. Accordingly, mindfulness can help high school students deal with any traumatic experiences and help them be themselves again. The reason mindfulness works so efficiently is our brain's ability to change and adapt over time. This is called neuroplasticity. It has been found that being mindful impacts our brains so much that over the course of our lives, it improves the structure and function of our minds. Mindfulness can be thought of as one of the brains muscles, and by exercising it the brain becomes stronger. By using mindfulness in high schools, students can improve their physical health for more effective learning in the

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