1.4: Rapid Reset Activities for Kids (and us) to Restore Calm and Connectivity.
Updated: Oct 20, 2022
Our fourth meeting with Sustainable High-Performance a.k.a. Super Coach. This time neuroscience meets our extended "stay at home" time with the family.
This email got started four days ago at 3:30 AM. As I awoke, I realized that, while I am taking care of my elderly mother these days, many of you are taking care of your young families. So…
Let me introduce what the folks at Resources for Resilience™, in Buncombe County, call Rapid Reset Activities. All of their material is wellness oriented and designed for students in K-12. But it works for everybody.
With these Rapid Resets we’ll see how ordinary activities like sweeping the floor or walking (done while noticing our physical sensations) can bring us back from stress to calmness and connection. We will be speaking to the amygdala in a language that it understands. Shifting our attention from our stressed thinking to what our bodies are experiencing here and now gives the amygdala the message that we are okay. And we will feel our minds getting calmer and more spacious… ready to learn new things… or do the next thing that’s needed.
Rapid Reset Activities include doing some chores… and some things that are more like games e.g.:
Do Some Heavy Work
Bring your attention:
to the sensations that come with lifting, pulling, or pushing something heavy,
to the sensations that come with sweeping the floor or raking leaves,
to the sensations that come with shoveling snow or digging a hole in the ground,
to the sense of pressure in your arms, shoulders, legs or your whole torso.
Take your time.
What do you notice?
Where do you notice positive or neutral physical feelings?
What do you notice now about your breathing, heart rate, or muscle tension?
Name six colors you see… whether you are inside or outside.
--- or ---
Have someone call out a color… such as “Yellow!” and…
in a relaxed way, breathing easily, and taking your time…
take a minute (or a long 20 seconds) for everyone to look around and…
give a nod or a smile to “Yellow”… wherever it is quietly present around you.
Where in your body do you begin to notice positive or neutral physical feelings?
What do you notice now about your breathing, heart rate, or muscle tension?
Here is a video reading of the complete document.
The basic Rapid Reset Activities document can be accessed at: https://tinyurl.com/y3a6fqrd
Coming soon… More Rapid Reset Activities.
May we do what we can for those in our care -
and find life in more and more moments of each day.
yrs, Peter Buck
PS: An afterthought… At the start of this series, I noted that, most of us are already in touch with things we love to do that are healing and life-giving. To access their greatest gifts, we just need a fresh way to understand and appreciate them. --- The Rapid Resets make it easier to see how “ordinary” things offer gifts too. Received with that same sense of exploration and appreciation… they can be healing as well. PB