Recognizing Anxiety and How to Breathe Through it-- Embodied learning by Julee Sims

 Recognizing Anxiety and How to Breathe Through it

Embodied learning means to understand an experience and learn through our body.  It happens when we experience something with our body, and then create a meaning from that experience. It can also be referred to as embodied pedagogy. Nguyen and Larson (2015) define it as, “learning that joins body and mind in a physical and mental act of knowledge construction.” (Merrium and Baumgartner, 2020).

The body tends to be overlooked as a resource of learning because of our mindset of mind over body (Merrium and Baumgartner, 2020). It’s a very Western way of viewing education where learning is considered, “a change in a mental state, from one of ignorance, to one of knowledge” (Merrium and Baumgartner, 2020). Some people believe that learning only takes place in our mind, but our body is connected to the mind. Our emotions, nerve endings, and memories all contribute to embodied learning.

Embodied learning is deeply connected to our emotions. Amann created a four-part model of embodied learning that included kinesthetic, sensory, affective, and spiritual learning (Merrium and Baumgartner, 2020). These categories help explain why we have gut feelings about situations, get butterflies in our stomach when we are nervous, and feel exhausted after an intense situation. Our body is responding to knowledge gained in previous experiences that have taught it how to react. For example, many people feel nervous speaking in public. They may have had a bad experience in the past that now causes their stomach to feel upset when they must speak in front of a crowd. This reaction was learned from the way their body reacted to a past experience with a fight or flight reaction. This can cause adrenaline that we are not using, so we feel sick to our stomach, our heartbeat increases, and our breathing is elevated. There are many reactions, these are just a few examples.  When we can recognize our body’s reactions and recall what we have learned from our body in past experiences, we can utilize a form of embodied learning call kinesthetic learning to do things such as lower our stress levels.

This program helps you learn how to identify and deal with anxiety. Participants will view a presentation that will educate them on how to recognize the signs of anxiety by their body’s reactions and combat their anxiety through breathing exercises. They will learn about two types of breathing methods and how the body physically responds to these breathing patterns. It encourages them to make it part of a routine so their body can learn new patterns to help deal with moments of anxiety when they arise. They are essentially learning how to educate their body on how to deal with anxiety. 

References:

Mosunic, C. (2024, January 4). 7 deep breathing exercises to help you calm anxiety. Mental health is hard. Getting support doesn’t have to be. https://www.calm.com/blog/breathing-exercises-for-anxiety

Merriam, S.B., & Baumgartner, L. (2020). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.