Listen to thisThese classroom-tested exercises help students develop tools for emotional self-management. Based on research into the relationship between emotions and physiological responses, these strategies help children reduce stress and achieve more effective communication and improved decision making in the classroom and in their daily lives.
In an environment in which children have almost unlimited access to sophisticated information, observers are concerned that those children are growing up too fast. Child psychologist David Elkind, in The Hurried Child (1989), discusses how children today are pressured and over-programmed. James Comer of Yale suggests that this is the first generation in history where information is going directly to children without a significant adult presence to help filter out what is inappropriate (O'Neil, 1997). Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way me Really Are (1998), says that for much of history children were excluded from participation in and knowledge of the adult world. Now busy parents try their best to limit children's participation in adult activities, but are often helpless to insulate them from knowledge of complex adult experiences. The general tenor of these messages is compelling: Children are growing up too fast and, as a result, are more stressed, isolated, and vulnerable than children of a generation ago. This phenomenon has created more stress for adults as well.
Under such conditions, it is essential that schools play a strong role in helping youth develop a foundation of emotional balance and resiliency. Increasingly, educators are designing programs and exploring strategies that will help young people prevent and cope with the myriad stresses and strains that result from coming of age in such a fast-paced world. One such program is Heart Smarts developed at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California.
Heart Smarts is based on the following principles:
Learning is as much an emotional as it is an intellectual experience.
An educator’s experience and expression of care toward students is primary in facilitating a healthy classroom environment.
Students need tools, strategies, and facilitated opportunities to help them access the full capacity of their minds and their hearts.
What’s working
At the center of the Heart Smarts curriculum is the idea that as students
acquire tools and strategies that foster greater emotional
self-management, they internalize their locus of control, learn improved
decision making, and experience greater expressions of care both in and
outside the classroom. HeartMath conducted research into the effects of
mental and emotional states on the heart and brain, hormonal balance,
and the autonomic nervous system (McCraty, 1997). Research reported in
The American Journal of Cardiology shows how positive emotional
states such as appreciation create ordered or coherent rhythms in the
heart, in contrast to stressful emotional states such as anger and
frustration, which produce jagged or incoherent rhythms (see Figure 1, McCraty, Atkinson, Tiller, Rein and Watkins, 1995).
Figure 1
Physicians know that more than half the cases of panic disorder originate not in psychological distress but in a chaotic cardiac arrhythmia that communicates incoherence to the brain. HeartMath research shows that feelings such as care, appreciation, compassion, tolerance, and love are literally heart-felt: They communicate order and coherence to the brain and thinking process. The result is what neurophysiologists term “cortical facilitation”. To put it succinctly, when we feel good, we think better.
Electrical information from the heart cascades up into the brain via the vagus nerve, among other conduits. The coherence of the heart rhythms can change the coherence of brain wave patterns (as measured by EEG) (McCraty, 1997; Pribram and Roz man, 1997). Unhealthy responses can then be triggered in the emotional brain, causing “neural highjacking” of higher brain functions in the cortex, where the capacity for language, learning, memory, creativity, and problem solving reside.
Strategies and tools of the Heart Smarts program
Core values
First share what values you hold worthy so that your students have
examples and can respond more authentically to this activity. Then ask
students to identify what values or guiding principles are important in
their lives. Typical answers are respect, friendship, fun, humor,
inspiration, honesty, doing well in school. Pin the core values on the
wall, occasionally revise them, and frequently refer to them throughout
the year. You can also work with students to identify core values for
the student group or class. These values can be used to create a
classroom mission statement or classroom pledge to be recited daily.
How emotion and perception affect the body
The teacher begins this activity by first sharing a personal experience
illustrating how an emotional state affected the body. For example,
becoming angry at someone’s comment that triggered tight muscles in the
shoulders and constrained breathing, or relaxing after receiving a
heartfelt card from a friend that brought about feelings of calm and
physical relaxation.
After student responses are drawn out, the teacher poses questions exploring how well they are able to think, perform, or identify with their core values when experiencing specific emotional states (i.e., anger, worry, peace, enthusiasm) that are affecting their physiology.
The discovery of stress and emotion
Students are asked to identify different stresses and emotional states
in their lives. Many teachers begin this unit by asking students to take
a stress survey of the three most common stressors people experience.
Students identify stressors from their own lives and those of other
students and adults. Answers are tallied and reflected on afterwards.
Students then name specific emotions they regularly experience,
including common ones such as fear, anger, peace, joy, boredom, and
excitement. The list is posted, frequently reviewed or referred to, and
then expanded as the year progresses.
The balance sheet
Students individually review the past two or three days of their lives,
comparing the times when they struggled, or those times when they were
upset, drained of energy or nonproductive, to the times when they
excelled, or those times when they felt emotionally positive, aware of
their core values, or productive. Afterwards, they are asked to draw a
conclusion, summarizing the quality of the last few days. Were those
days fulfilling and productive, average, or not fulfilling and
nonproductive? Did they end up with more energy or did they drain too
much energy along the way? The activity is repeated over time. The
result is increased self-awareness and recognition of patterns of
behavior.
Freeze-Frame
Freeze-Frame is an easy-to-use tool to help students reduce stress
and anger and enhance decision making, communication, and emotional and
physiological balance (Childre, 1994). The goal is to freeze or stop a
stressful response as it occurs and find a more proactive response. As
with anything new, it takes some practice to form this habit, but the
end results are worth the effort. The attractiveness of this tool is
that it can be used anytime or anyplace to maintain self-composure.
The tool has several steps. Once they are learned, they become automatic:
Recognize your stress and Freeze-Frame it, like pushing the pause button on a VCR.
Make a sincere effort to switch your focus to the area around the heart and pretend you are breathing through your heart to help focus your energy in this area.
Recall a positive, fun feeling or time you have had in your life and attempt to re-experience it. Hold that feeling for 15 to 20 seconds.
Using your common sense and sincerity, ask yourself what would be a more helpful response, one that would reduce your stress.
Listen to what your heart says and follow it.
Applications of this tool extend to all phases of life, including performance in academic courses, peer and adult relationships, and to the numerous pressures that students face on a daily basis.
Authentic communication
Students examine the mechanics of communication and the role emotion
plays in improving or inhibiting the effectiveness of speaking and
listening. The teacher begins by sharing an example of a conversation
characterized by quality communication and one that is characterized by
poor communication. Following the teacher’s lead, the students share
their own experiences. Afterwards, the students highlight what they
thought were the crucial elements in making those communications
successful or not. Common answers include: do not interrupt; make good
eye contact; understand the words and feelings; experience empathy,
compassion, respect, or care toward the other person; be present; be
calm. Students begin practicing listening skills through role playing,
first demonstrating poor communication skills in skit form, then showing
successful communication skills. As an assignment, the students are
encouraged to observe and report back on a number of at-home or school
conversations over the next few days, evaluating the relative
effectiveness of those communications without judging the participants.
An additional assignment asks students to use the Freeze-Frame tool
before interacting with someone with whom they have difficulty
communicating. The goal is to lessen emotional reactivity or stress and
determine if self-control can foster improved communication. The
students then report the results of their efforts.
Care/overcare
Students are taught to distinguish between care and overcare, the
condition that arises when feelings of empathy and concern become
burdened by expectation, attachment, anxiety, or worry. To help them in
this understanding, they are asked to identify areas in their lives
where they sincerely feel care, and areas where their care leads to
overcare. Common concerns that bring about overcare are test anxiety,
academic and athletic performance, popularity, peer-acceptance, poor
parent relations, and friends who are suffering. Students learn that
overcare can be an emotionally draining experience that affects decision
making, school effort, quality of communication, and perception. Through
the Freeze-Frame tool, they learn how to convert these feelings into
more intelligent and balanced caring responses. Finally, to make the
concept of care more tangible, students identify situations at school,
at home, or in the community that could use some kind of attention or
care. Then they help create an action plan and begin a service project.
These service projects enable students to see firsthand the power of
care and how important that feeling is to everyone’s health and
well-being.
The Heart Smarts curriculum has been introduced into a variety of school settings. The most comprehensive and sustained program has been at Palm Springs Middle School in Dade County, Florida. Educators at Palm Springs contacted HeartMath in 1996 to explore a Heart Smarts intervention for middle school students. Lorie Russell, the school counselor, observed that many students were distracted at school by various social pressures, anxiety, and depression that diverted their attention from focused academic learning. This was true even among students with high ability. In 1996, a Heart Smarts program was designed and implemented for gifted students, those in need of special help academically, and those for whom English is their second language. Using the Achievement Inventory Measure Survey (AIMS) as a pre- and post-test, significant gains were recorded in areas such as locus of control, peer empathy, work motivation, and parent compliance. There was a corresponding decrease in the influence of challenging behaviors (McCraty, Atkinson, Tomasino, Goelitz and Mayrovitz, 1999). A second phase of the study was launched in 1997 at nearby Du Puis Elementary School with 15 middle school students tutoring 55 second and third graders in the Heart Smarts tools they had learned. The success of the pilot program led to further expansion at Palm Springs Middle School. Now there are four Heart Smarts classes being offered that participate in cross-age mentoring programs with neighboring schools. Russell observes, “Cross-age mentoring is a key to this program working. Weekly, our students have to figure out a way to teach these concepts to kids at a lower age level. As a result, they have had to internalize these skills in order to teach them.”
Findings from this study, recently published in Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science (McCraty et al., 1999), show a significant decrease in physiological recovery time from stressful encounters for the Heart Smarts group compared to a control group. One student’s experience illustrates the powerful effects of Heart Smarts strategies:
When my dad died, I had a lot of bad nights. If he is not here, then he is with me in my heart. That is better than anything I could do otherwise. I talked to my mom about it and she said that is right. So I have been feeling a lot better about the situation since then.
Techniques such as these are not meant to replace good teaching practices or excuse children from applying themselves to the academic tasks given them. But without some healthy feeling about themselves, some anchor of success, and the necessary tools to help them cope with stress and conflict, students” capacity to learn will be compromised as will their development into healthy and responsible adults.
Ten-year-old Keith of Los Angeles cuts to the heart of the matter when he speaks about his effort to gain more self- management:
I almost joined a gang without knowing it. The gang
was kids from age 10 to 14, about 40 or 50 kids. I knew the leader. We
were sort of friends. I would get into trouble a lot at school. They
look for kids in trouble. That’s where HeartMath stepped in. It taught
me a lot – Freeze-Frame and staying in my heart. Normally, I would flip
out and lose it. There goes my brain and I’m possessed. Anybody want to
fight, come on, I’m ready! Now, instead of looking for fights, I avoid
them. I Freeze-Frame as hard as I can. What’s done is done, let it go. I
didn’t think it would work but it does. Everybody has power in their
heart. Some people just don’t bother to use it.
References
Childre, D. L. (1994). Freeze-Frame. Boulder Creek, CA: Planetary Publications.
Coontz, S. (1998). The way we really are. New York: Basic Books.
Elkind, D. (1989). The hurried child: Growing up too fast too soon. Boulder, CO: Perseus Books.
McCraty, R. (1997). Research overview: Exploring the role of the heart in human performance. Boulder Creek, CA: Institute of HeartMath.
McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., Tiller, B., Rein, G. and Watkins, A. (1995). The effects of emotions on short term heart rate variability using power spectrum analysis. The American Journal of Cardiology, 76. pp. 1089-1093.
McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., Tomasino, D., Goelitz, J. and Mayrovitz, H. (1999). The impact of an emotional self-management skills course on psychosocial functioning and autonomic recovery to stress in middle school children. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 34, 4. pp. 234-256.
O'Neil, J. (1997). Building schools as communities: A conversation with James Comer. Educational Leadership, 54, 8. pp. 6-11.
Pribram, K. and Rozman, D. (1997). What new research on the heart and brain tells us about our youngest children. Presented at the White House Satellite Conference on Early Childhood Development and Leaming, San Francisco.
This feature: Goelitz, J. and Kaiser, J. (2000). Heart Smarts: Developing the head and the heart through social and emotional learning. Reaching Today’s Youth, 4, 3. pp. 25-28.
