Suzanne East, mindfulness lead at Wimbledon High considers the benefits and the challenges of delivering strong silences to students.
At the start of the Autumn term this year we introduced Strong Silences across the school as a positive and calming way to start the school day. There was, and continues to be, a mixed reaction from both staff and students as to the benefits of this exercise. I suspect that at the start of a busy day it is one activity that often gets forgotten or postponed. However, I would like to take this opportunity to speak out in favour of trying a little harder, both for ourselves and for our students and give strong silences another go.
Lack of time is the most frequent reason I hear given as to why people get out the habit of practising any mindful meditations. In such busy times we have to prioritise our to-do lists and time spent seemingly doing nothing can be hard to justify. So what exactly is the intention of a strong silence and what benefits can it offer?
During a short mindfulness practice, such as a strong silence, we exercise a level of self-discipline in stopping our usual busyness and directing our attention elsewhere. Rather than emptying the mind the aim is to focus on our actual lived reality, perhaps on the movement of the breath, the noises of our surroundings or the physical sensations of the floor and the chair beneath us. This is difficult to achieve, but we know that we can train the brain in such behaviours and, like any exercise, focussing the mind becomes easier with practice. As teachers we know that being able to maintain focus on the task in hand is a vital skill that all children need to learn if they are to work and perform to their maximum. We are frequently warned that modern technologies provide constant interruptions and the brain is always attracted to novelty. Any practice that can help our students to maintain focus in this sparkly and noisy world must be a vital life skill.
Being able to step back from difficult and demanding tasks can also improve over-all performance on these tasks. It is often when we allow our mind to focus on a totally different task that creative solutions seem to appear to us. What we are actually doing here is allowing our brain to look at the bigger picture and see what may elude us when we are too deeply engrossed in a task. It is often in the shower, or when we are happily drifting off to sleep that our best ideas arise. There are many studies that suggest successful individuals build in renewal phases to their working strategies and that this can build cognitive abilities1. Encouraging and reminding our students that they need to stop regularly when revising or writing essays can help them to avoid the frustration and burn out that can occur when they try to force themselves to work too long.
There is also a lot to be said for the simple power of silence itself. In our lives we are constantly under pressure to perform, our opinions are sought and questions are asked; we feel ourselves as being judged by friends, families and those who have authority over us. With age, most of us are able to build an inner confidence and ability to trust our own values and instincts, but this is a difficult skill for teenagers whose prefrontally cortex-challenged brains and hyper-sensitive amagdala’s are all too quick to tell them that they are social failures. A strong silence is a time to sit quietly with yourself, time-in as author Daniel Siegel2 put it in his book Brainstorm, the power and purpose of the teenage brain. To stop telling, showing, explaining, reacting and to just be.
So strong silences have a lot to offer and teach our students about how they can take control of their lives and responses to the challenges that they may encounter. They do not need to take long, they do not need cushions, blankets and uncomfortable postures and could be slotted into our daily routines as an example of how we balance the activities of our day and cater for all of our needs, physical, spiritual and mental. However, one real concern that I do still have is that strong silences delivered without real engagement from teachers could leave students dwelling on negative thoughts, worrying and feeling isolated. We cannot teach these techniques without developing our own practice and understanding the different experiences that can result. Ideally students need to follow a course such as the MiSP’s .b or paws b3 that gives the students the context and framework of mindfulness from which they can then develop their own practice. A strong silence is a powerful tool to add to a day’s routine, but it needs to be nurtured and cared for if it is to really offer these benefits.
1) Chiesa, A., Calati, R., & Serretti, A. (2011). Does mindfulness training improve cognitive abilities? A systematic review of neuropsychological findings. Clinical psychology review, 31 (3), 449-464.
2) Siegel , D.J (2011) Mindsight Practice A: Time-In. In: Brainstorm, the power and purpose of the teenage brain p282-3. Scribe Publications.
3) Mindfulness in Schools Project various articles on the benefits of their mindful curricula https://mindfulnessinschools.org/research/
Twitter: @DH_Pastoral