Stress Reduction for Teens
6 sessions, 1.5 hours each
This is a class that teaches you the skills to help manage and lower your stress and find calm in your day-to-day life.
Skills learned include: how to handle strong emotions, mindful meditation in various forms, basic yoga, body scans, how to respond rather than react in stressful situations and how to prioritize competing to-do’s.
Topics discussed include: the mind/body connection, reacting vs. responding, communication patterns, and how we perceive the world.
“Ms. Perry created a safe, comfortable, stress-free environment for us students to express ourselves and learn to be in tune with what our bodies and minds need and want. It was a pleasure to be one of her students and learn from her.”
— Allyssa, former teen student
What Do We Talk About in Class?
This class might be for you if…
You are ready to commit the time to course schedule
You are interested in learning new ways to think and work with stress
You are ready to make some changes in your life and how you use your time
This class might not be for you if…
You don’t have the time to participate in all classes
You are not ready to make changes in the way you live and use your time
You are currently in crisis (for e.g. suicidality, major medical or addiction issues), if this is the case, please seek professional help and support.
Overview of
Each Class Session
This is a general overview of each session, but it is subject to change depending on circumstances. In addition to what is noted below, each class we will learn new mindfulness practices, as well as practice the mindfulness tools that we have learned in the prior classes.
Session 1
This week we will be introducing ourselves, discussing the basics of stress and its impacts in our lives. We will also get into some of the basics of meditation, including mindful eating, mindful breathing, and the body scan. Additionally, we will talk about the research that is at the core of this course.
Session 2
Starting off this class we will discuss our perceptions, and how they affect the way we deal with the world around us. We will go back to the body scan and then have a chat about how stress feels in the body.
Session 3
And this week is when we start with a bit of yoga (nothing fancy, I promise!) we will also give sitting and walking meditation a go. We will continue our discussion about being in the present and how to bring that awareness into our daily lives. Our last activity will be a learning a way of prioritizing all of the “to dos” and worries in our lives.
Session 4
In week four, we will talk about how our bodies react to stress and how mindfulness, exercise, sleep and reduced screen time can help mitigate those effects. At this point, we are going to start talking about how what we have learned so far has been working in our lives.
Session 5
Self -talk and self-sabotage will be part of our discussions this week. We will look at the triggers for some of our thought patterns/ emotions/ and behaviors that no longer serve us and how we can use mindfulness to help change these patterns. Lastly, we will learn a method for working with strong emotions.
Session 6
Our conversations will continue to look at ways that we can integrate the tools we have learned into all of the aspects of our lives. This will also be a class to dive into questions and confusions about any of the practices. We will wrap up by talking about how to continue our commitment to these methods after the end of the class.
The class curriculum was created by Gina Biegel, and is based on the adult Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program. It is founded on years of research by Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues at UMass Memorial Health as well as her own research.