SaTaNaMa Meditation
This is a meditation that can be used any time you need to feel calm. You can do it any place – under your desk before a test or when you feel stressed out.
There are pressure points on the tips of your fingers. When you press these points, it has been scientifically shown that this can calm you down.
When you combine the words, SaTaNaMa, and pressing your thumb and the fingers on your hand (one finger at a time), you are focused on your breathing and on the words.
By focusing on this technique, it helps you stay ‘in the moment’. It is not possible to think about something that bothered you in the past or something that you are worried about in the future, when you are practicing this meditation. You are right here, right now, breathing, pressing on the pressure points and saying SaTaNaMa.
Do this meditation when you want to feel calm, when you want to not worry about a test you are going to take, or when something bothers you from the past or the future.
Calm Palm Exercise
This exercise can help you feel calm by focusing and paying attention to your breathing and the movement of outlining your fingers. When you focus your attention on something like breathing, it can be a tool for calming your mind.
As you do The Calm Palm exercise remember that it is about using your breathe (in an out breathing) as you move around the outline of your hand.
Hold your hand up with your fingers held comfortably apart.
Take the pointer finger of your other hand and begin to slowly trace the outside of your thumb.
Breathe in as you trace up to the top of your thumb.
Breathe out as you slowly trace down the other side of the thumb
So, you’ll be breathing in on the upward trace and breathing out on the downward trace.
Keep breathing in and out, tracing up and down each finger for a total of 5 breaths until you have totally traced all of your fingers and reached the other side of your hand.
The combination of your focus on tracing and your breathing create a mindfulness tool that can be used any time you want to feel calm.
Kids Mindfulness Tools
Kids Books
♦ A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles – Nhat Hanh, Thich
♦ Sitting Still Like A Frog – Eline Snel
♦ Calm: Mindfulness for Kids – Wynne Kinder
Adult Books
♦ Daring Greatly – Brene Brown
♦ The Gifts of Imperfection – Brene Brown
♦ Rising Strong – Brene Brown
♦ The Success Principles – Jack Canfield
♦ Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom – Rick Hanson, Ph.D
♦ Hardwiring Happiness – Rick Hanson, Ph.D
♦ The Smallest Things Make the Biggest Different – Ray Haring, Ph.D
♦ Raising Happy Kids – Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer
♦ Experience Your Good Now! – Louise L. Hay
♦ Wired for Joy – Laurel Mellin
♦ Happy For No Reason – Marci Shimoff
♦ Love For No Reason – Marci Shimoff
♦ The Art of Possibility – Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander