Wellbeing | Breathing

Wellbeing continues to be a key focus for both staff and learners at The Sanctuary. Each Wednesday staff receive an email entitled ‘Wellbeing Wednesday’ with tips and advice around supporting learners' mental health, as well as their own.

Some of the resources that have been sent out are now being integrated into lesson time in the classroom. Learners are discussing positive and negative coping strategies for when they are emotionally dysregulated. More recently, learners have been shown mindfulness video explaining how to cope with their different thoughts that they have. They are encouraged to picture their thoughts like bubbles, that come, pop and go again. For those thoughts that are more worrying, learners are encouraged to do breathing exercises which promote calmness. This deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system and enables us to move away from those feelings of “fight, flight, freeze”. These elements of neuroscience are explained in simple terms to our learners so that they understand themselves better and can gain control over potentially difficult situations.