Week 7: Counting Down Until The Experiment

This is one of the final weeks before the experiment will take place. I have been doing lots of research for the past few days on which breathing exercises the 3rd grade participants will be doing with the help of both my faculty advisor, Ms. Bocchino, and my on-site advisor, Pilar Tumolo. I had originally settled on a technique called box breathing which involves breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, breathing out for 4 seconds, and pausing for 4 seconds before you repeat the cycle for 5 minutes. I had originally learned about this while I was surfing a few years ago and a local had described it to me while detailing his pregame routine for surfing. This technique was brought to my attention once again when I read Breath by James Nestor and he described it as good for tense situations. The other breathing technique I have been considering is one called “intention setting.” This practice intends to bring clarity to what we want and who we want to be by limiting our fears and anxieties so that we can reconnect with our true intentions. This is achieved by setting an intention as you slowly and calmly breathe. Your intention may also be represented by 1 or 2 words so that you will be easily reminded of it throughout the day. I believe that this is a good technique to use because it could allow students to set the intention of doing well on an exam, but on the other hand this technique could stray too far from the breathing aspect that I think will improve scores on its own. Both the box breathing and “intention setting” are valid techniques of their own, but only one will be used in the experiment next week…