Englert 1

Alysia Englert

COE Integrative

Dr. Moorman-Stahlman

6 May 2020

Final Essay

My intention for this project was to bring stress release, balance, and peace to

people through beginner meditation practices. Meditation is a means to relieve stress

and therefore improve an individual’s physical health. I currently try to meditate every

day and have seen the effects of my mood and behaviors first hand. I chose this project

because my natural science connective course discussed different stress relief options.

One of the stress relief options we discussed and learned about was meditation. In my

humanities connective course, we discussed mental illness and its effect on creativity. I

learned how creativity could be a stress relief for some of the struggles different artists,

composers, and writers went through, so I believe meditation could be another potential

outlet to calm the students. In my current social science connective course, we are

learning about the factors of race, ethnicity, environment, and financial means affect

health. In one chapter, our book discussed the effects of stress on illness. I wanted to see

if students will also benefit from meditation with stress reduction and decrease bad

behaviors.

One article I read was about “mindfulness training and classroom behavior

among lower-income and ethnic minority elementary school children” (Black pg 1). It

discussed the effects of a five-week mindfulness-based program for students. Seventeen

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teachers observed kindergarten through sixth-grade students to evaluate their behavior.

I planned to do weekly meditations over several weeks to copy this setup. They noted the

student’s behavior pre-intervention, immediately post-intervention, and seven weeks

post-intervention. Teachers observed students’ self-control, participation in activities,

caring/respect for others, and attention span. I wanted the parents and myself to do

observations on the students to see if their behaviors changed. The reasoning behind

this research was to see if programs, like meditation, could create a non-disruptive

classroom which would benefit student learning. This study chose mindfulness to

promote positive behavior because it has been “associated with improved

self-regulation, attentional control, and reduced psychological stress in youth” (Black pg

1). The results concluded that the behavior of the students improved and lasted until

their last observation seven weeks post-intervention. This research study has helped

shape my meditation project because it found that behavior has improved with students

in kindergarten through sixth grade. I intended to work with kids second through fourth

grade that come from a difficult background, which is why this article was helpful to

plan my project. I hoped to see the same positive behavior increases through

observation of these students as well.

Another article I found discussed the effects of “meditation and brain science to

help combat discipline problems” (Cavazos, pg 1). Crooked Creek Elementary school in

Indiana partnered with a local college professor to implement “educational neuroscience

elements in the classroom” (Cavazos, pg 1). The school wanted to teach students and

teachers about the essential functions of how the brain works to have a deeper
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understanding of bad behavior. This gives teachers the background to more effectively

reach students that are not choosing misbehave. At the end of the first year, the research

concluded that no students were suspended and school office referrals decreased. This

article provided more information about meditation and how the body works which

helped to shape my project. One thing that I learned was that the body clears negative

emotion in 90 seconds. Still, we continue to stay mad because “we keep thinking about

it, replaying it and generating more negative emotions” (Cavazos, pg 13). Another thing

I took away from this article was that movement, time, and breathing are three ways to

de-escalate conflict and reduce stress. I used this information to plan long term stress

relief into each lesson. The students would learn how to focus their breath so they can

ground themselves when they start to get upset. I also took away the idea of movement

and worked that into my project with the walking meditation.

To begin planning my project, I reached out to Julie Stites, a houseparent at

Milton Hershey, to set up a weekly meditation session with her children. Eight students

range from second to fourth grade in her house. I hoped to alleviate some stress from

past trauma and current issues to teach these children how to find peace and relaxation.

She was able to get the program approved to meet every Sunday for about thirty

minutes. Each week I planned to do a meditation lesson as well as discuss how we can

implement aspects of meditation into our daily life. I created a course that focuses on a

different meditation topic each week, like loving-kindness, focus, anxiety, etc.

There were some challenges with planning to begin with; it was challenging to find a

group of students to do this meditation project. I wanted a group big enough to see
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different personalities, but small enough to get to know each student personally.

Another big challenge was finding time to meet. We had initially planned to meet one

Sunday, but Julie forgot to put the meeting on her calendar, so we were unable to meet.

It turned out that there were a lot of conflicts during February, which made it difficult to

have a meditation practice. The week after spring break, we had rescheduled to meet

again, but the coronavirus had canceled school and sent some of the children home. At

this point, I had to rework my project idea, so I decided to do a video series instead. I

planned to send the videos to Julie, as well as friends and family. I realized that it was

challenging to decide what to film for a meditation video. I wanted it to be exciting but

still useful. I completed one beginner meditation video and sent it out for feedback.

During this time, I got a lot of feedback explaining that a podcast would be a better

platform to make my guided meditations because the video would stop when their

computer fell asleep. I went back to the drawing board again to adapt my meditations to

a podcast series. One of my challenges was adapting to the coronavirus, but I think the

final product was worth it.

For my new podcast meditation series, I planned to do five different meditations

for the podcast. I choose to do a meditation on finding the breath, a body scan, a

meditation to fall asleep, a walking meditation, and an eating meditation. I created my

audio meditations using the program SoundTrap online. I first became familiar with this

program through one of my music education classes, where we created a song using

SoundTrap. Through other projects, I learned how to use this program and thought it

would be perfect to create my audio meditation. I was able to record the script directly
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into the program and then import peaceful music. I used free scripts from

mindfullnessexercises.com to record for each meditation. I adjusted the sound clips of

the script to fit with the music, and then I faded the music in and out to finish each

podcast. I choose the music from a public domain catalog of peaceful music. When I was

looking for songs, I wanted them to be calming and develop slowly. I made sure that the

songs did not have drastic dynamic changes or add too many new sounds throughout

the piece. I wanted the music to be in the background and not something that would

continue to recapture someone’s attention.

I was thrilled with the overall outcome of the meditation series. One meditation

that worked exceptionally well as a podcast was the walking mediation because it was

easy to put headphones in and go for a walk. After completing the walking mediation,

one person said, “it was nice to just think about how my body moves.” Another

mediation that worked well as a podcast was the meditation to fall asleep. This is a

meditation that can be used over and over again in order to fall asleep. I received a lot of

feedback about the usefulness of this meditation. My one friend said, “I was kind of

skeptical about this whole meditation thing, so I decided to try the sleep one, and I was

surprised that I fell asleep right away.” Another person reached out to me and explained

that “the sleep meditation help[ed] to turn off [her] brain at night”. I received a lot of

feedback from friends and family that my project was very useful. My roommate told me

that my meditation was peaceful and how much she didn’t realize she needed it. I found

this to be impactful since she knew I meditated each day, but was not interested in

trying it before. Still, there were a few people who told me that they were unable to sit
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still and meditate. I encouraged them to try a different meditation to see if they had a

different experience. One person who did not like the sitting meditation took my advice

and tried the eating meditation. He told me that “it was completely different then the

first one [and he] was able to focus on the food instead of worrying about sitting still and

not thinking about anything.” I am pleasantly surprised by how many people gave

meditation a try with my project. I think, at the least, they have all learned to take a

second and stop every once in a while.

I initially anticipated that I would analyze the children’s behavior throughout the

weeks of meditation practice. I thought I would be able to see improved behavior and

concentration based on my research. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus, I was

unable to implement my project in person, so I could not observe the children’s

behavior as anticipated. However, I learned a lot from this experience about adapting

and planning. A lot was going on in the world that put up some barriers, but I learned

how to problem-solve to continue with my project. I valued my meditation time more

than I had before. I realized that I started to take my meditation practice for granted,

but I was able to dedicate more time and appreciation to it from working on this project.

I liked that I was able to create my own practice that I can provide as a resource to

anyone. Today, guided meditations can cost a lot of money, so it is nice that I can

introduce someone to a free series of meditations to beginner practice. I think this

project brought to light that meditation is not about sitting down and being quiet, but

instead, it is about valuing how you are feeling at that moment.

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Appendix

Mediation Video​ ​-​ ​https://youtu.be/7hyhFE1MKDY

Guided Mediation Podcast -

https://open.spotify.com/show/0njyrlFF8Un7NtjKHcpdFJ?si=nc38Py5cQOmelfhxU3K

8cA

31 January​ - I contacted Juile Stites and got approval from her supervisor for my

project.

16 February​ - I sent Julie my project proposal so she was aware of my lesson plans for

each mediation practice.

19 February​ - I sent Julie a list of my availability for the remainder of the semester to

plan our weekly meetings.

26 February​- I reached out to Julie again to follow up on setting a date and time for

our first meeting. We planned for this Sunday. She sent me her address so I could go

there for the practices.

1 March​ - I went to Julie’s house for the first meditation practice. Unfortunately, she

had forgotten and no one was home.

9 March​ - I resent my availability to Julie so we could pick the dates and times for

meditation practice.

10 March​ - I followed up with Julie today by giving her a call. She did not answer and

told me she would send new dates that evening.

17 March​ - I reached out to Julie to let her know that LVC had gone to distance

learning and that I would keep her updated with regard to my project.
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1 April​ - I posted my first meditation video on YouTube. I shared this video with my

family and friends to receive feedback before producing the rest of my content.

5 April ​- I posted my first podcast guided meditation online.

9 April​ - I posted four more guided meditation practices online.

Works Cited

Black, David, and Randima Fernando. “Mindfulness Training and Classroom Behavior

Among Lower-Income and Ethnic Minority Elementary School Children.”

Journal of Child & Family Studies,​ vol. 23, no. 7, Oct. 2014, pp. 1242–1246.

EBSCOhost​, doi:10.1007/s10826-013-9784-4.

CAVAZOS, SHAINA. “Schools Combine Meditation and Brain Science to Help Combat

Discipline Problems.” ​Education Digest​, vol. 82, no. 1, Sept. 2016, pp. 10–16.

EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=117510096&site=eh

ost-live.