Mindfulness - What are the Physical Manifestations of Stress?

A feeling of peacefulness is evident when we are relaxed and happy
Our heart beat is slow and steady.

Adrenaline is released when we feel threatened.  This threat could be an attack from a mad dog (something that could really hurt us), or it could be just a Mathematics test.  Our brain does
not necessarily rate the level of threat, and that's why doing a test (even when we know there's no chance the test paper will bite us) can still be an incredibly stressful situation.

Adrenaline is released, and the fight or flight response is activated. When you are stressed you can start to feel hot and bothered.  Your heart starts to race and your palms can start to sweat.  You may feel like running away, or feel aggressive and angry.

At Sunnyhills School we are promoting Mindfulness.   So what is Mindfulness?  

         In short, it's about understanding how your mind and body respond in certain situations (often to events outside our control).  It's about being able to read our body and to respond to its signals in a constructive and 'mindful' way.
        Mindfulness is about being aware of how you are affected by things that you experience. The way we respond to these events is felt in our head as feelings e.g. happiness, sadness, fear etc, but because our body and mind are connected, our feelings stretch out from our mind and reach into our body.  Weird, eh?  

             We worked collaboratively to figure out some of the ways our bodies react when we feel angry, frustrated or threatened in any way.

             There will be a school wide focus on Pause, Breathe, Smile.  These mindfulness techniques will be taught to increase calmness; to improve focus and attention; to enhance self-awareness; help develop conflict resolution skills and to increase general wellbeing.

In order to develop an understanding of how our body and mind is connected, we looked at how our body reacts when it is under stress.