Mindfulness in the Classroom

Over the course of my time at Ohio State I have taken quite a few classes just for fun... Crazy, I know. One of these such classes was called, "Spirituality in Education." I thought that the class might focus on more abstract ideas that will come up as a teacher of young children who often ask questions that may be too large to really answer. Instead, it sort of turned out to be a yoga/holistic life style class. While I really enjoyed it, there wasn't much that I believed could be drawn on for further use in my classroom, other than an overwhelmingly supportive, accepting and inquisitive approach to discussion and learning. Today however, I was perusing the Huffington Post and saw an article on the effects of mindfulness in the classroom. In essence, "mindfulness" is sort of a "be here now" type of attitude. It focuses in on being within the present and accepting the tranquility that comes with that frame of view. It seems that researchers have found that using "mindfulness practices" within the classroom has a very positive effect on students, especially those with ADHD and anxiety disorders! I found this really surprising, mostly I think just due to the fact that some teachers are employing these techniques to begin with. This is a really exciting discovery for me, as I maybe didn't waste too much money on my hippie teaching class after all!

So, what do you guys think? Would you be willing to use some yoga/positive thinking techniques in your classroom? What about even if you didn't use them in your day-to-day lives personally? I'm really curious as to what your guys' views are on the "holistic" perspective in pedagogy.

Here's the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/mindfulness-adhd_n_4254783.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ir=Education