Teaching students how to self-regulate and manage stress

Emotion Regulation
​We all have an emotional temperature.  We tend to like comfortable emotions: joy, surprised, excited, happy, and prefer to stay in our comfort zone.  When we begin to feel sad, afraid, frustrated, or angry our emotional temperature goes up, activating our sympathetic nervous system, and we feel less comfortable.  Therefore, we want to do something to return to our comfort zone, aka self-regulate by activating our parasympathetic nervous system.  The things we do to regulate our emotions can be healthy or unhealthy, determined by the long-term impact they have on our health and well-being. 
Wellness rooms teach healthy coping skills to regulate our emotions, calm our nervous system (bring our emotional temperature down) and allow us to choose how to respond rather than react.
​What we experience creates new neural pathways in our brain.  This process is called neuroplasticity and simply said, it is the brain’s tendency to continue to restructure (rewire) itself based on experience.
When students experience the calming physiological effects of engaging in sensory soothing activities, they learn these activities calm them down (soothe their nervous system) and they will choose to do these activities instead of engage in maladaptive behavior when they become upset or dysregulated.
Rates of anxiety and depression are increasing in children and adolescents.
We know the root of anxiety is fear and may involve ruminating over the past or worrying about the future.  The key is bringing our attention to the present moment or being mindful.  When we are intentional about being aware of our thoughts and emotions in the moment, we are more empowered to respond and cope in healthy ways. 
Jon Kabat-Zinn describes Mindfulness as awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. 
Learning how to recognize our emotions and regulate in a healthy way is a lifelong skill and
can help decrease anxiety and depression. 
We all have to do our own work (emotion-regulation) and the Wellness Room provides
a safe and comfortable space ​to discover the coping skills most helpful for us.  

 Empowered with emotion-regulation
Identifying our triggers is an important step in learning what increases our emotional temperature (e.g. activates our nervous system). 
When we recognize how we feel in response to things happening around us, we gain self-awareness about what we need & when to use coping skills to ​self-regulate.  Recognizing what we need and
giving ourselves permission to follow through,
is a great act of Self-Care.  Self-care has been defined as anything we do to nurture our well-being.
Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl taught:
"Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power
to choose our response. 
In our response lies our growth and our freedom." 
How are you using the space?
Find  your school here