“Kudos to my daughter, Phanisree an 8th Grader and team for winning NJ FPS (Future Problem Solving) State Bowl First Prize” conducted today i.e. 11th-March-2017 at Keane University, NJ. The team is going to the International Competition to be held at University of Wisconsin in June 2017. Excellent job done in Empowering the Communities by Promoting emotional wellbeing overcoming high levels of stress

I am posting a note from her below.

NüYü 2.0

Promoting emotional wellbeing overcoming high levels of stress – how might Community Middle School (Plainsboro, NJ) 8th grade students, the NüYü 2.0 team, spreading mindful coping strategies through 2016-17 (started his last year!) and beyond?

NüYü is a community problem solving team comprised of 18, 8^th grades from Community Middle School, Plainsboro, New Jersey. We have been an organization for two years now and have won first place in the FPS (Future Problem Solving) State bowl for two years now. Our goal is to promote mindfulness, the state of being aware and present, to the educational community. Although we do compete in FPS the reason we started our project was to help our community. We have presented at multiple teacher professional development days in our school, EdCampNJ/EdCamp Encore (a conference where teachers all over NJ come together to exchange ideas), hosted our 2^nd annual wellness where, in which over 280 participants attended. Along with that, we ran our Pather “Pause” Challenge, a 4-week mindfulness session to the students in our school. This year, since we are old enough to have our own twitter we created an account. Through this account we have been able to create long lasting relationships with some very prominent figures in the educational community, for example, the Commissioner of Education for NJ whom we meeting with towards the end of March. We are also attending NJAGC (New Jersey Association for Gifted Children) We know we have been making a huge impact in the educational community because a school in Spain reached out to us to learn about Mindfulness, and we Skype then every week to teach them what we know. We have also been reached out to by multiple schools across NJ and many teachers across the state who have taken time out of their schedules to meet with us. We were featured in a recent Edutopia article and Dr.Dzung Vo, the author of “The Mindful Teen” (a resource for teenagers to learn and use Mindfulness) is also one of the people we are meeting via Skype call. Today, we won 1^st place in the FPS NJ State bowl qualifying us for the International Competition, FPSPI in Wisconsin. At this competition there will be teams from all across the world; Singapore, Australia, China, etc just to name a few. This will our second time attending the International Competition. Being part of this team has allowed all of us to make a difference in our community and change the lives of so many people. NüYü is a team that has formed special bonds, strong lasting relationships, and has changed my team completely causing us to become the extraordinary young adults today. We have an amazing coach, Dr.Rebecca McLelland Crawley, whom we call Dr.MC affectionately, has supported us the whole way and has been there with us when we needed her the most. She has dedicated her personal time just as we have to make sure that our team is always at its best.

www.nuyuchallenge.weebly.com  (Website)

@nuyu_team (Twitter handle)

@bec_chirps (Dr.MC)

Related Article: Social-Emotional Wellbeing of Students

Recommended Reading

Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

MINDFULNESS reveals a set of simple yet powerful practices that you can incorporate into daily life to help break the cycle of anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and exhaustion. It promotes the kind of happiness and peace that gets into your bones. It seeps into everything you do and helps you meet the worst that life throws at you with new courage.

The book is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBCT revolves around a straightforward form of mindfulness meditation which takes just a few minutes a day for the full benefits to be revealed. MBCT has been clinically proven to be at least as effective as drugs for depression and is widely recommended by US physicians and the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence – in other words, it works. More importantly it also works for people who are not depressed but who are struggling to keep up with the constant demands of the modern world.

MBCT was developed by the book’s author, Oxford professor Mark Williams, and his colleagues at the Universities of Cambridge and Toronto. By investing just 10 to 20 minutes each day, you can learn the simple mindfulness meditations at the heart of MBCT and fully reap their benefits. The book includes links to audio meditations to help guide you through the process. You’ll be surprised by how quickly these techniques will have you enjoying life again.