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Effects of Sports on Enhancing Mindfulness among Children: Issues and Evidence from India

                  Kaushik Bhadra

                  Debika Mitra

Abstract

Research on the effects of sports on mindfulness among children is sparse across the globe. This paper critically discusses the inter-linkages between mindfulness and sports among children through systematic literature review, and subsequently, empirically seeks answer to the question as to how India has emphasised on promoting sports at the school level in order to boost mindfulness among the students. Results broadly reveal that availability of playground facility in both the public and private schools in both rural and urban regions is much lower than the desired level, which restricts sports activities at the grassroots level, and understandably impedes the scope of improving mindfulness through sports. 

Introduction

There is a general consensus among researchers across the globe that sports and mindfulness are strongly interlinked to each other. However, across the globe, sparse research with sporadic efforts can be found relating to the interface between mindfulness and sports among children. n this context, the study assumes characteristic significance in contributing to this strand of literature. 

Mindfulness, across the globe, has evolved as an adaptable practice and lacks precise definition at the practical realm. An enormous number of studies have provided varied definitions of mindfulness. Of late, with fast changing world, a greater need for providing children with strategies to combat stress and pressure has emerged to be evidently imperative. Empowering children through proven methods to cope up with such challenges have become crucial, and thereby, mindfulness-based interventions are getting widely and increasingly used to facilitate socio-emotional learning among them. A few studies have argued that individuals who practice mindfulness, get empowered in making pertinent choices in life and have clarity in decision making. 

The role of sport on education and health on youth segment of population has been extensively studied across the globe; still this has gained little attention in the policy realm (Sloane, 2006; Cornelißen and Pfeifer, 2007). It has been widely accepted that the partake in sporting activities in childhood and young adulthood lower medical care costs, reduces the possibility of loss of working hours due to ailments, and so forth at much later stages in life. While such intergenerational benefits from sports are well-acknowledged among the academicians and researchers, a small number of studies have argued that sports improves mindfulness among the children and in turn, mindfulness interventions bear a positive implication on the performance of sports professionals. 

In this context, this paper, at the outset, critically discusses the inter-linkages between mindfulness and sports among children, and subsequently, empirically seeks answer to the question as to how India has emphasised on promoting sports at the school level in order to boost mindfulness among the students. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents review of research on impact of sports on improving mindfulness among children. Section 3 analyzes sports facilities at the school level in India, which is envisaged as a major driver of inculcating mindfulness among children. Section 4 concludes the study. 

Impact of Sports on Improving Mindfulness among Children: Review of Research

A good deal of empirical research has found positive and robust impacts of sports on reinforcing physical and mental health, youth’s school performance and peer relations (Poinsett, 1996; Taylor et al., 2015). Carreres-Ponsoda et al. (2012) found that out-of-school sports participant youths have greater participation rate in social activities than youths without engagement in any sport. Sports refrain children from sedentary activities (watching television, playing computer games, and the like), of late, which has become a serious cause of concern among parents (O’Brien, Issartel and Belton, 2018). Involvement in sport activities has considerable impact on three key behavioural aspects related to mindfulness. These are:

i) Competition: It is highly important for a youth to apprehend at the early age that her competition lies with herself only, and not with others, and through sports, such self-esteem and confidence develops. Besides, they learn to accept defeat at times[1](Horn and Hasbrook, 1987; Horn and Weiss, 1991; Mahaseth, 2016);

ii) Complacency: A child who is actively involved in sports, generally continues to strive for betterment, and the likelihood of being complacent gets reduced significantly. This is one of the important effects of sports on improving mindfulness as mindfulness considerably helps children to be content and focussed on relentlessly working on themselves for further growth and development (Hopper, 2017); and 

iii) Presence of Mind: Further, sports have colossal positive effects on developing the presence of mind and espousing affirmative approaches always to solve the daily problems among the youth segment[2] (Coakley, 1983). 

On public policy front, Bergsgard et al. (2007) argued that if government introduces pro-sport policies, then that would have synergistic consequences on mindfulness that leads to improved various developmental and behavioural determinants such as reduction of the incidence of crime and drug use among youth, physical and mental health development, community rejuvenation and so forth. A step further, Raj et al. (2017) argued that sport is a remarkable tool that can radically reduce the sexual and domestic violence in “one generation”. Besides, the study argued that more research is needed on the effects of sports on socio-economic and behavioural aspects of the youth as well as parents. 

It has been well-recognised that the direct and indirect spillover benefits of sports, under the specific ambit of mindfulness, to any civilisation are substantial, and thus, this sector should gain urgent priority from the households as well as governments. More specifically, interventions from the government of different tiers is highly imperative to promote sports in terms of developing its infrastructure through increase in spending and mobilising awareness relating to the benefits that can be accrued from it among the parents and schools. To encourage sports participation among youth, sports policies fundamentally need to be centered on reinforcing infrastructure (Wicker, Hallmann, and Breuer, 2013). 

The status quo of sports infrastructure in India shows a disquieting situation. The foundation of sports among the children should be introduced at the rudimentary level, and in this regard, it is highly imperative to focus on building sports infrastructure at the school level. Nevertheless, a number of studies have found that the focus from both the public and private sectors on setting up sports infrastructures in India has largely been concentrated on promoting professional level sports (Tripathi and Kapoor, 2017; ASSOCHAM-PwC, 2019), whereas it emerges to be severely lacking at the school level since a sizable portion of schools across the country yet to have playground facility (Bandhopadhyay, 2016). Apart from the shortage of playground facility in school yard, of late, the academic structure of the schools has innate tendency to put more educational pressure on the children, which overwhelmingly shrinks the duration of youth’s pursuance of sports activities (Prabu, 2015). Such academic stress is more compounded by the fact of parental pressure on children as the parents want them to excel in study only (Jain and Singhai, 2018). Since academic stress and sports activities are reciprocally related, school authorities, thus, need to carefully reassess such proliferation of its charted out courses in order to correspondingly provide adequate time that the students could devote to sports (Sharma, Kumar and Sarin, 2016). 

Sports Facilities at the School Level in India

The availability of playground facility in both the public and private schools in both rural and urban regions is much lower than the desired level and differing across the categories of school. It could be seen from Figure 1 that the facility of playground tends to go up from the single-category schools (primary only) to the schools with all-inclusive categories (primary with upper primary, secondary and higher secondary). In 2016-17, while more than 84 percent latter category schools are equipped with playground facility, more than 45 percent former category schools are yet to be provided this facility. Such widely differing pattern in terms of the presence of playground facility across the categories of schools suggests that the emphasis from both the public and private sectors in terms of providing playground facility in schools is considerably skewed towards the schools with more number of categories. This sort of focus is uncalled for, and thus, requires attention from policy perspective. Needless to say, absence of playground facility in schools hinders the required level of physical activities on a regular basis, which as a result, inhibits the scope for inculcating mindfulness among the children. 

Figure 1: Percentage of All Management Schools having Playground Facility: All States Combined for 2019-20

Source: U-DISE of NIEPA

Conclusion and Implications

While much of the research has put emphasis on analysing the impact of sports on various social aspects not only in India but across the globe, analysis relating to the implications of sports on enhancing mindfulness gained almost negligible attention. It has been widely acknowledged that if a child would want to pursue any sport as a career option, then it must be introduced at the grassroots level, which is school level. Thus, issues and challenges in providing sport facilities in the schools across regions in the country require sincere attention at the academic and policy realm. 

In order to achieve youth sports development in schools and professional sports-specific goals, it is important for the state governments to put emphasis not only on playground facility as the only imperative infrastructure, but on overarching infrastructures that have collective implications of promoting sports from the school level, which eventually improve mindfulness for better future. 

In this regard, the coordinated role of three tiers of governments in Indian federalism is highly imperative. While it has been observed that the union budgets have laid greater emphasis on promoting Indian sports to the professional and international levels, predominantly through Khelo India programme, it was expected that the central government’s spending on sports would encourage the states to promote sports at the state level through providing basic infrastructure in the shools, which would significantly benefit the students to improve their mindfulness. 

References

ASSOCHAM-PwC (2019). Sports infrastructure: Transforming the Indian sports ecosystem. New Delhi: March. 

Bandhopadhyay, M. (2016). Present Status of Infrastructure Facilities in Schools in India: From National and State Level Perspective. Draft prepared for Sub-Committee of the CABE on Improving Conditions of Government of Schools, New Delhi: National University of Educational Planning and Administration. 

Bergsgard, N. A., Houlihan, B., Mangset, P., Nødland, S. I., & Rommetvedt, H. (2007). Sport policy: A comparative analysis of stability and change. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. 

Carreres-Ponsoda F., Escartí, A., Cortell-Tormo, J. M., Fuster-Lloret, V., Andreu-Cabrera, E. (2012). The relationship between out-of-school sport participation and positive youth development. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise, 7(3): 671-683, 2012. 

Coakley, J. (1983). Play, games and sports: Developmental implications for young people. In J. C. Harris & R. J. Park (Eds.), Play, games and sports in cultural contexts (pp. 431-450). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 

Cornelißen, T., and Pfeifer, C. (2007). The Impact of Participation in Sports on Educational Attainment: New Evidence from Germany. IZA Discussion Paper No. 3160, November. 

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Hopper, D. (2017). Practical Applications of Mindfulness Techniques in Sport. Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. 

Horn, T. S., and Hasbrook, C. A. (1987). Psychological characteristics and the criteria children use for self-evaluation. Journal of Sport Psychology, 9: 208-221. 

Horn, T. S., and Weiss, M. R. (1991). A developmental analysis of children’s self-ability judgments in the physical domain. Pediatric Exercise Science, 3: 310-326. 

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O’Brien, W., Issartel, J. and Belton, S. (2018). Relationship between Physical Activity, Screen Time and Weight Status among Young Adolescents. Sports (Basel), 6(3): 57. DOI: 10.3390/sports6030057 

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Raj, A., Yore, J., Lee, D., McDaniel Mapp, L., Summerville, S., & Rosenberg, A. (2017). How Sport Can End Sexual Violence in ONE GENERATION, An Overview Report (pp. 1-47, Rep.), Raliance. 

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About the Authors

Kaushik Bhadra

Kaushik Bhadra is a proactive economist with Ph.D. and 15+ years of experience in academic and policy research, and advocacy with various national and international organizations such as, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, UNDP, University of California and San Diego, Haryana 6thState Finance Commission etc. His areas of specialisation and interest within the broad scope of Economics are public finance and policy, fiscal federalism, and decentralised public service delivery of merit goods. 

Kaushik has had opportunities to present his research at various national and international conferences as well as to publish in several reputed journals and edited volumes. He is proficient in STATA for statistical and econometric analysis. Also, he possesses experience in designing questionnaires, primary survey and qualitative analysis. 

Debika Mitra

Debika Mitra has been a high school teacher in Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. She is a researcher in the domain of mindfulness, who is passionate about working on emotional and mental wellness of children as she believes that it is of utmost importance for their overall development. Also, she is a mindfulness coach who is not only training students from various senior schools, but is providing trainings to professionals from various fields with the aim of inculcating Mindfulness, which she feels is one of the urgent needs of the hour. 

She is a post-graduate in Zoology with specialization in Cell Biology and also holds a BEd degree from University of Delhi. 

[1] For instance, if a child repeatedly fails to win a race while competing with other participants then that child, at the outset, understands her physical capability and limitations, which compels her to put more efforts to win it eventually. In other words, the scope of thinking as “I have to beat them” becomes sparse whereas “I have to win it” becomes comparatively greater. 

[2] For instance, in cricket, table tennis, volleyball, football, lawn tennis, badminton, baseball and a few other sports, the ball comes to a player in a fraction of second, in which, the player swiftly has to decide and implement the appropriate counterattack. Such sort of high reflex activities in sports on a routine-basis substantially help the individuals to evolve mentally stronger, and thus, they always strive for finding solutions to any sort of issues with enhanced presence of mind and wittiness.