Mindful Breathing is now mandatory in New York City schools

Take a deep breath. Relax your body. And exhale slowly through your mouth.

Then repeat six times.

In New York City, kindergarten through high school students will be required to do similar exercises in class next fall after Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday that all public schools would be required to offer two to five minutes of mindful breathwork each day.

Mr Adams, who has often preached the benefits of healthy eating, mindfulness and fitness in his own life, pitched the plan as a simple, “low-hanging fruit” path to developing students’ emotional skills and addressing a mental health crisis in young people to deal with. exacerbated by the pandemic, pointing to research showing that breathing exercises can reduce stress and increase alertness.

“Thousands of years ago, other cultures learned to breathe,” Adams said at the announcement at PS 5 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. But in today’s world, he said, “we were never taught.”

“We think it’s just air going through your nostrils and you moving. No, there’s a science to breathing,” the mayor added, before closing his eyes and following a student-led breathing exercise.

The announcement on Tuesday came as some lawyers and families have argued for a more robust local approach to young people’s mental health, and have criticized the proposed removal from the city budget of funding for a program that connects schools in dire need to mental health clinics and provides mobile response teams for students in crisis situations.

But Mr. Adams said the effort was just one sensible, low-cost way to improve student welfare, and would help children learn the valuable but abandoned “principle of something that is one of the oldest things in mankind.”

New York’s required breathing exercises reflect the renewed focus school districts across the country have paid to student well-being in recent years as they grapple with heightened anxiety, depression, self-harm and other mental health issues in children and teens.

In Los Angeles County, for example virtual mental health care will be made free to all K-12 students under a new plan earlier this year. And in Illinois, a new law limits students to five excused days off for mental health school has recently come into effect.

In the nation’s largest school system, Mr. Adams and the school chancellor, David C. Banks, have said that all high school students would soon will be able to receive virtual mental health services for the first time through a new program, although full details have not yet been announced.

“I get a lot of questions about, ‘What are you doing? Children go through a lot. What are your mental health programs?” said Mr. Banks. “There is nothing more important that we can teach our children than mindfulness, mindful breathing.”

Still, some elected officials, teachers and families have called for a more comprehensive approach to mental health needs, and of underprivileged students in particular. New York State comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found that city schools during the 2020-2021 academic year were insufficiently prepared to address the youth psychiatric crisis. Since then, education officials have made several changes, including giving each school access to a social worker or mental health clinic.

Dawn Yuster, the director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children, an education nonprofit, said she remained particularly concerned about the proposed $5 million in cuts to a mental health initiative at about 50 emergency schools, where police intervention for students in emotional crisis is disproportionately high.

The program gives students faster access to mental health services, links schools to clinics, and provides mobile crisis teams that can help with acute problems. A spokeswoman for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposed cut.

Ms. Yuster said she appreciates that breathing exercises and mindfulness can have a “real impact” on students. But she added: “That’s certainly not a substitute for other really critical programs and services that are at risk of being shut down.”