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The Learning Curve Podcast, a feature of the School of Education at University of Aberdeen.
Welcome to The Learning Curve, the official podcast of the University of Aberdeen’s School of Education. Join us as we go beyond the syllabus to explore the bold ideas, high-impact research, and personal ambitions of our staff, students, and leaders.
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TLC S1E8 Mindfulness
Shannon: Welcome back to the learning curve, friends. I'm Dr Shannon Babbie, and this is a University of Aberdeen podcast. Today we're continuing to explore the unique areas of expertise within a school of education. Today we're focusing on a practice that is increasingly central to both teaching and learning, which is mindfulness. Joining me today is an expert in this field, Colette Savage. She'll be discussing the mindfulness program and its application in educational settings for both students and teachers. Thank you for joining us, Colette.
Colette: It's a pleasure to be here. Shannon, thank you so much for inviting me.
Shannon: Please explain to the listeners who you are and what you do here at Aberdeen.
Colette: I'm Colette Savage, I'm the Programme Director for the MSc in Mindfulness, here, at the university, and I also run a variety of online mindfulness courses, and some modules for the undergraduate teachers here in the School of Education.
Shannon: Explain to our listeners what exciting projects you're focusing on right now.
Colette: So, currently I'm working on two research papers where we're looking to use mindfulness and bring it into the educational forum, and bring insights and awareness around the role of the body in teacher practice. And it's a very interesting project because the teacher standards in Scotland, for instance, don't really include and embrace the role of the body. And yet we have done some research and found, you know, one teacher that we worked with that in just simply bringing awareness to the fact that the body is signalling her in the classroom. She is now actually embedded that in her teacher practice and is using it to be more in tune with the pupils in the classroom.
Shannon: Mindfulness is often talked about, but what does it really mean in the context of a classroom or a school?
Colette: Okay, well, firstly, that is a six million dollar question because mindfulness has got so many understandings, interpretations, and perhaps even misinterpretations. And it is a kind of an umbrella term, but in the context of the classroom or a school, mindfulness is a wonderful tool to enhance well-being in terms of enabling children, pupils to have more self-regulation, particularly in terms of their emotional regulation. And obviously that underpins their ability to learn. It makes it easier if they can focus, which is the other element of mindfulness, which is particularly relevant in the classroom, which is the ability to pay attention. And actually, there is research showing us that that ability is starting to wane because we do tend to be distracted a lot, and children are often involved in the use of screens. There's lots of stimulation. And so our ability to actually maintain our attention is fundamental to learning. And it's now we're at the point where it's something we actually have to engage with and practice rather than assume. So that's just a few of the examples, but it is very impactful in the classroom. Children love the little practices. They love to actually rest their mind and just sit still, even though that sounds counterintuitive because they're always so busy because they're always stimulated in a number of classrooms I've been into recently, they have really enjoyed the opportunity to just sit still and rest their mind.
Shannon: So what are the key benefits for teachers?
Colette: Well, actually, in terms of teachers, there is lots of benefits. Obviously there's their mental wellbeing. Teaching is very stressful. It's very demanding. It really requires a lot of cognitive flexibility, emotional flexibility. So mindfulness can give us a lot of tools to develop an ability to stay aware and present in the classroom to deal with the challenges without losing ourselves and our emotional reactions. Or stressful feelings or or stressful thoughts. So in terms of teacher wellbeing, that's just some examples. And also for the teacher to be able to take a moment and breathe, because that is not only a physical rest. It is actually a mental rest.
Colette: So just taking some moments to breathe. It also resets your nervous system. And it may be many people are aware of this, but one of the most impactful elements of mindfulness is the breathing practices, because they naturally activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which will then relax you. So instead of trying to think yourself into relaxation or sit down and say, I'm going to relax. Actually, just taking a few conscious, mindful breaths will do all the rest for you. All you have to do is do this consciously and mindfully, and the body will deliver the relaxation you're looking for.
Shannon: I know Aberdeen has a highly regarded mindfulness program. Could you tell us more about it and how it's designed and who is the intended audience?
Colette: So our MSC program here at the University of Aberdeen is actually quite different from. There are altogether five universities as far as I'm aware, offering mindfulness programmes, and many of them are clinically based. So they appeal to students coming from a healthcare background. Usually in our MSc, we welcome students. We actually welcome students from all over the world and from so many different professional settings. And we have students coming onto this course who are specifically working in the medical field, who are consultants, who are doctors, GPS nurses.
We have people coming from social work settings, educational settings, both at primary, secondary and higher education. People from the finance industry looking for ways to bring mindfulness into their workplace. And I have someone currently from a banking background where that bank worldwide Bank, has a mindfulness program built into their whole, whole organization. And she's come on the course, for instance, to find out more so that maybe she can be a champion of that and perhaps get more involved in it. I have people from all over the world.
And I think what's different about our program is we can accommodate so many different interests because the program is designed with a blend of academic evidenced information, which we need in a professional arena and this experiential element. And we feel it's important to balance the both because then you're both informed and an experienced practitioner of mindfulness, and the experience is essential to deliver mindfulness or speak even about mindfulness to other people in any professional setting. And I think that's why we have a geographically wide variety of students because we are fully online and also from such a range of backgrounds, it makes it a really interesting course to both deliver, and also for the cohorts that attend the course. They love the diversity of our students.
Shannon: Colette, how does practicing mindfulness positively impact well-being and learning?
Colette: Well, there's a lot of impacts. It is important to note that the research is very correlated at the minute. And because it is really an emerging academic field, but there is strong evidence of the effects. But we will need to keep continuing with the research to build a more robust understanding. So in terms of wellbeing, one of the important elements is our self-awareness. And both physical, mental and emotional. And mindfulness speaks to all of those.
Just even paying more attention to your body. You will pick up more quickly, more early things that might be out of alignment-sensations that you might need to pay attention to in terms of emotional well-being, being able to have tools that specifically allow you to regulate your emotions reduces the stress in your body, the amount of cortisol, adrenaline. So clearly impactful in terms of your everyday living and your physical and emotional health.
And of course, in terms of your mental health. One of the big areas is the area of depression and the importance of being able to cognitively focus your attention on something positive, rather than lots of negative, self-referential thoughts. You know, all the self-criticism that we have. Many people are used to have been brought up with and tend to continue. But actually, rather than thinking that's just the way life is, Mindfulness can help you be able to cognitively switch your attention and live just a calmer, more peaceful life.
And then finally, of course, the emotional regulation of self-regulation elements. So once you have the awareness and you can pay attention. Then you can regulate whatever you need to regulate. So if you tend to fly off the handle or you tend to be really impatient, any of those things you can learn to regulate through mindfulness and why you would want to do that is it facilitates a more peaceful life and enhances your well-being. In terms of learning, it's similar but different. In that self-awareness, you start to understand where your gaps are, where your strengths are. You can pay attention when you need to, and you can work with emotional regulation in terms of stress for exams and brain freeze. And all of that can be really addressed within mindfulness techniques.
Shannon: And what does the research say about its long term effects?
Colette: There are many long term effects, both physically in terms of blood pressure, in terms of your ability to rest and relax and reduce stress mentally. It gives you mental resilience, but you do need to keep practicing all these things and emotionally it sort of moves you more towards equanimity and not these highs and lows of. Especially in an uncertain world that we're living in right now. Maintaining kind of a peaceful, equanimous position is it takes a lot of practice. But imagine the impact of not being reactive to all the information that's being sent to us at the minute and bombarded, bombarded actually to us from so many different areas of life.
Shannon: Is there anything you wish I had asked you about? And if so, what is it and how would you answer?
Colette: Well, I think the one thing that I think is always important to let people know about mindfulness. It is an innate capacity in everyone. It's just a matter of nurturing it and remembering that you have it, practicing it so that you can utilize it. But it is innate. It's not specific to any religion, any wisdom, tradition, any area or any kind of type of person in the world. It's an innate capacity in everyone. Children have it in spades. Just look at children. They're able to pay attention, stay in the moment and they don't carry with them lots of judgments and reactions. They react very fast, but they let it go very fast and they're on to the next thing. So really, they teach us that we're all born with this capacity.
And the other thing I think people don't realize is a lot of the usefulness of mindfulness is really contextualized within compassion. Because if you're paying attention to yourself and you tend to be self-critical, remembering all the self-compassion practices helps you deal with those new awarenesses that you get. And I find with our students, self-compassion and compassion has now become a very prevalent focus of the dissertations because we need more compassion in the world, both for ourselves and for others. So, and that compassion is built on our mindfulness abilities.
Shannon: Colette. Thank you. This has been a very insightful conversation, and thank you for sharing your expertise on this very important topic.
Colette: Well, thank you, Shannon, for inviting me. It's always great to have an opportunity to share the wisdom and the benefits of mindfulness with everybody because as I said, everybody has the capacity. There's a lot of misinformation really at times. But if you can remain open and just see what's there for you and enjoy it, it really has great potential in everyone's life. Thank you.
Shannon: Listeners, today we learned about the Mindfulness program here at Aberdeen and its positive impact on the well-being of both students and teachers. And thank you for listening.
Join us next week as we go ‘Inside Outdoor Education’ with Dr Liz Curtis and Dr Cathy Francis, who will be here to discuss the unique benefits of learning outside the classroom. You won't want to miss it. Until next time, keep learning.