Mindfulness- A Tool to Manage Difficult Emotions | Interactive PowerPoints

This mindfulness bundle is designed for 5th-9th grade. If you are looking for something for younger grades, please try this similar product on emotions.

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Mindfulness is a proven tool that can help people deal with emotions in a healthy way. Many students have difficulty accepting emotions, and by desperately trying to do away with any painful emotions, they actually make the problem worse. This can lead to complications like depression and anxiety. These lessons help students understand why pushing away painful emotions can actually make them persist more, how to recognize and accept emotions, and how to live more in the present by practicing mindfulness techniques.

This includes many animations, visuals, and interactive portions, and is not the typical text-heavy PowerPoint. It's designed to keep your students engaged and retain the information longer by using visual metaphors. Many of these elements are more typically used with younger students, but older students can benefit greatly from it.

Overview of Bundle

1st PowerPoint- Why Emotions Get "Stuck"

•This lesson focuses on why emotions or thoughts sometimes get stuck with many visuals, metaphors, and animations to help the students understand.

•Students are taught about the transient nature of emotions and how even painful emotions are natural, necessary, and even helpful.

•Students learn that by attempting to ignore or push away all painful emotions, it can actually make the problem worse. When they don't accept emotions, the brain will continue to send the signal and sometimes these thoughts can spiral out of control.

•The PowerPoint ends with an interactive portion where the students answer some quiz questions about emotions.

2nd PowerPoint- Accepting Emotions without Judgment

•This lesson focus on the first part of mindfulness, accepting emotions without judgment.

•Students are taught through visuals and animations how we can often attach judgments to our emotions (I shouldn't feel angry. I should be happy right now, etc), and how this can keep us from having healthy emotions.

•Students are taught that strong emotions often cloud our judgment and that it can make certain judgments attached to our thoughts seem real (I'm a failure, etc). It's best to wait until the emotion passes before making decisions.

•Several interactive portions help the students learn to recognize how they experience emotions.

•The PowerPoint ends with an interactive portion where the students practice recognizing judgments and accepting thoughts.

3rd PowerPoint- Daily Mindfulness Techniques

•This lesson teaches students daily mindfulness techniques they can use to help spiraling thoughts.

•5 Mindfulness practices are included: Mindful Breathing, Mindful Walking, Mindful Eating, Mindful Listening, and a Body Scan.

Thank you!

Eve Coates

Notes on 1st Presentation:

Mindfulness is a proven tool that can help people with anxiety and depression, however, it’s very important to stress to the students that they should seek professional care if they are experiencing serious depression or anxiety. Please make sure you emphasize this.

Notes on 2nd Presentation:

There are two optional activities in this presentation that are designed to help the students recognize how they experience different emotions. In the first activity, a volunteer is asked to stand in front of the class and tell a story while the other students look bored. Please choose a student who you know will be comfortable with this. If there are none, you can be the volunteer, or you may skip this part.

The second activity says a random preselected student’s name will appear on the screen and they will be required to sing a solo. No one will actually have to do this, it’s just designed to create a little anxiety in the students as they anticipate who will be chosen. Again, skip if you don’t think this will work with your class.

Notes on 3rd Presentation:

There is an option to do a mindful eating exercise. If you’re able, please bring enough raisins for each student to have one. This can be done at a later time or you can simply tell the students to try it at home if you’re unable to bring raisins.

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