Within the Erasmus+ Program, the project partners of EduSafe have started collecting their Best Practices, based on the activities made during the pandemic to support young people through stressful times.
Education In Progress SPAIN has been using mindfulness practice in the educational sector, and with the arrival of the pandemic situation due to Sars-CoV2, that has been more important, especially for managing E+ Trainees in Palma during the lockdown. This is the main content of its Best Practice collection, which you can read soon on EduSafe webpage.
The true definition of mindfulness is ‘to live in the present’, as the present is the only moment we can influence and in which we can be. It’s a concept that derives from Buddhism and has its origin more than 2500 years ago, but only from the 80s it has become a common practice also in Western countries.
Mindfulness can be described as the ability of keeping the full attention on the mental processes and the internal states without judgement but with curiosity and acceptance towards them.
Considering the necessary restrictions during the pandemic, it’s possible to see the impact that this practice has had on the people that practiced it. Mindfulness practice is linked to the management of anxiety and stress, and it also can increase compassion and empathy, which are essential traits to overcome an emergency together. It has also an effect on the feeling of interconnectedness, which has become an important factor in a period of severe lockdowns and restriction to reduce the risk of the feeling of isolation and loneliness.
Managing our emotions and supporting each other can be challenging at the best of times, and mindfulness helps in taking a regular pause, taking a breath and being proactive in looking after ourselves and others. Mindfulness provides us with a means of cultivating greater and more objective awareness of our own emotional landscape, the emotions of others, and of external circumstance.
Considering how the pandemic impacted the stress level of students and workers in general in the world, with an increase of worry and anxiety, and a reduction of focus and happiness, it is then easy to see how mindfulness has been a useful tool during the lockdown.
Thanks to “Empower Adult Education”, a KA122 Erasmus+ project previously implemented by Education InProgress, these mindfulness techniques were taught to 30 people. The feedback of the participants had been very positive: they found a mindful approach useful for empowering the educational methods.
What we want to do now is to increase the opportunity to adopt mindfulness techniques at European level by disseminating and exploiting them thanks to the Edusafe project that made it possible.
Let’s keep on going with EduSafe and stay tuned!
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