Jessica Turner It’s smiles all round as non-profit organisation, Smiling Mind work to improve mental health with new book Smiling Mind: Mindfulness Made Easy.
Celebrating one million downloads, leading mental health app for young people Smiling Mind launches its first book this month with proceeds from sales going back into free mindfulness resources; and aiding delivery of Smiling Mind’s in-school program where it has already reached more than 10,000 Australian school classrooms.
“Discovering mindfulness and meditation has made such a huge positive impact to our own messy lives that we wanted everyone to have the chance to experience it,” says Jane Martino who together with co-founder James Tutton in 2012 founded Smiling Mind with the goal of improving the mental health of young Australians, and offer tools to learn mindfulness meditation free of charge.
“I discovered mindfulness after I had already faced some of life’s biggest challenges, and it helped me so much I couldn’t stop thinking about what things would have been like if I’d had such an amazing superpower in high school or at the start of my career.”
Now taking Smiling Mind offline, the hardcover pocketbook offers advice on how to embrace mindfulness and manage anxiety and stress – even for people who might not think meditation is for them.
“This book is the perfect guide for anyone who thinks they’re too busy, or they’re too stressed, or they’re not the right kind of person, to take a moment to embrace mindfulness and put their worries into perspective,” says James.
“In high school I was too busy being a ratbag to sit and meditate. I was every mother’s worst nightmare – an encyclopedia of anti-social behavior. Through finding mindfulness as an adult, I have been able to engage with life with less stress, more care, empathy and an open heart.”
Smiling Mind’s mission is to provide accessible, life long tools based in mindfulness meditation. Creating happier, healthier and more compassionate young people. Their vision is for Mindfulness Meditation to be on the Australian Curriculum by 2020 – complementing the general capabilities of ‘personal and social capability’ and ‘critical and creative thinking’ and can be included in pastoral care, wellbeing and mental health curricula.
Smiling Mind: Mindfulness Made Easy (RRP $16.99), published by Hardie Grant, is avaialable in all major bookstores and online, with an audio and e-version also available.
