What If Mental Fitness Was Our First Education?

Children practising mindfulness together in a sunlit classroom, representing the idea of mental fitness as part of early education. AI Generated

Take a moment now.

Close your eyes.

Breathe in slowly.

Breathe out even slower.

Repeat, just for a minute.

Without needing to fix anything, solve anything, or force anything

you’ve just shifted your body and mind.

You’ve lowered your cortisol [1].

You’ve calmed your nervous system [2].

You’ve opened a little more space for clarity, attention, and connection.

It’s simple.

It’s free.

And it’s powerful.

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And yet, we still treat these skills, awareness, regulation, connection, as optional.

As something soft.

Something extra.

But what if they were recognised for what they truly are?

Essential. Foundational.

As important to a flourishing life as literacy or numeracy.

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I believe mental fitness should be part of the starting curriculum

not something we hope people find later, after struggle.

The evidence is already here:

Children who practise regular mental fitness strategies show significantly higher levels of wellbeing [3].

Families who practise together report stronger resilience, communication, and emotional regulation [4].

Mental fitness strengthens attention, memory, social belonging, and emotional regulation, the building blocks of learning and thriving [5].

We teach children how to read.

We teach them how to swim for safety.

Imagine if we taught them, just as naturally, just as systematically

how to breathe through a hard moment.

How to pause before reacting.

How to notice big feelings without drowning in them.

How to repair after conflict, and reconnect with themselves and others.

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This isn’t about therapy at school.

It’s about giving children the tools to be human, before the world tells them they have to be perfect.

It’s about building mental strength, flexibility, and kindness from the earliest years

so that when life gets hard (and it will), they already have the scaffolding to meet it.

Not because they never fall

but because they know how to rise.

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If this still feels abstract, I invite you:

Take two minutes today to breathe slowly.

Notice the shift.

Now imagine learning that skill before you ever learned algebra.

Before stress became invisible.

Before disconnection hardened into isolation.

That’s the world we could build.

One where mental fitness is not a recovery tool

but part of the original blueprint.

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The future isn’t written yet.

And together, we can choose differently.

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Here's a gift to you: The free Smiling Mind app and get access to a wealth of resources to help you and your children thrive.

https://www.smilingmind.com.au/smiling-mind-app

Here's my ask: If you want to keep offering essential skills to Australian kids, get behind Smiling Mind's mission to create generational change and sign the petition https://www.smilingmind.com.au/our-kids-count.

-Layla

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Citations

1 McEwen, B.S. (1998). Protective and Damaging Effects of Stress Mediators. New England Journal of Medicine.

2 Thayer, J.F., & Lane, R.D. (2000). A Model of Neurovisceral Integration in Emotion Regulation. Biological Psychology.

3 Smiling Mind. State of Mind Report 2023. (Mental fitness and child wellbeing outcomes.)

4 Smiling Mind. State of Mind Report 2023. (Family resilience findings.)

5 CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning). Benefits of SEL.