Executive Function Skills
Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables young people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and play well, and contribute to their family and community.
Executive Function plays a significant role in mental health and well-being. It involves a range of cognitive processes that help individuals regulate their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Here are some of the Executive Function skills ExQ teaches to help students and lifelong learners build positive mental health:
Emotional Resiliency: Executive Function helps individuals regulate their emotions and respond adaptively to different situations. Difficulties in emotional resiliency, such as being easily overwhelmed or having difficulty managing anger or frustration, can be associated with Executive Function deficits. Developing self-awareness and daily Executive Function exercises can lead to improved mental health.
Focus: Focus is the brain’s ability to figure out what’s important and then pay attention to it.
Focus allows students to engage with important parts of information and disengage with everything else that’s irrelevant. ExQ hopes with its training, students will learn to sustain mental effort and manage distractions successfully. ExQ believes a trained mind and brain can handle interference while staying committed to the pursuit of goals.
Impulse Control: Impulse control is an essential aspect of Executive Function. It involves inhibiting impulsive behavior, and considering long-term consequences. Poor impulse control can lead to impulsive actions, risk-taking behaviors, and difficulties in self-regulation.
Planning and Problem-Solving: Executive Function skills like planning, organizing, and problem-solving are crucial for navigating daily life, achieving in school, and overcoming challenges. Learning Executive Function skills can help students with goal-setting, time management, and task completion.
Cognitive Flexibility: Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing situations, shift perspectives, and think creatively. It allows individuals to consider different solutions to problems and adjust their thinking when faced with new information. Teaching our students Executive Function skills can help with rigidity in thinking, difficulty adapting to change, and perseveration on negative thoughts.
Self-Awareness: Executive Function includes metacognitive abilities, such as self-awareness and the ability to care for the future-self. These skills involve reflecting on one’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and making adjustments as needed.
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING
The Wind Beneath Their Wings
Special Collaboration with
Dr. Debra Krodman-Collins
Executive Function for
Mental Wellness
Teaching our students Executive Function skills is one of the most important and proactive ways we can help them build mental health and resiliency!
Educational leaders are recognizing the need for a multi-faceted approach when addressing connections between adverse childhood experiences, academic achievement, mental health and long-term well-being. Research has shown that childhood stress and trauma may compromise the development of Executive Function and associated self-regulation skills. It is precisely the limitations in these specific skills that are associated with poor academic outcomes, low graduation rates, mental health problems, unemployment, behavioral issues, and even incarcerations.
Fortunately, there is a proven, scalable, school-based curriculum, ExQ, that strengthens Executive Function and self-regulation skills, reducing the lifelong consequences of mental health illness. ExQ teaches students these much needed skills such as focus and strategies for effectively controlling their behaviors, to improve outcomes and wellness. The increased cognitive skills and academic learning together build a stronger foundation for lifelong well-being and positive contributions to society, the workplace, and community. Strengthening our students’ Executive Function skills is preventative and should be viewed as a critical component of the continuum of mental healthcare and wellness in our schools, homes, and communities.
Preparing our kids to have the strong mental health strategies and stamina to withstand a crisis is the best way to help avoid mental illness. But these skills require daily practice and commitment. Learning coping methods to use when things get tough is not easy. But, the investment in time and attention with our students is well worth the effort. Mentally strong kids are prepared for the challenges of the world.
Sucheta’s Mental
Health TIPS
ExQ’s CEO & Founder, Sucheta Kamath shares professional advice for honing Executive Function and emotional regulation skills in our daily lives to reduce stress and increase organization, resiliency, and purpose.
Begin with self-compassion. Researcher Kristin Neff says, “Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.”
- To counter the effects of psychic numbing, cultivate mindfulness. It is a receptive and nonjudgmental mind-state in which we observe our own thoughts and feelings JUST AS THEY ARE—without suppressing or denying them.
- When we expand our minds and hearts while maintaining focus on the big picture, we have the skills needed to create holistic solutions to complex life challenges.
- These strategies are simply a reflection of strong Executive Function. Healing can be a goal and well-being can be a lifestyle—all achievable with intentionality.
In addition to focusing on our own individual mental health, it’s important to teach our educators how to train students to develop healthy Executive Function and social-emotional management skills. Leaders with well-developed Executive Function skills may foster a community whose members have a strong ability not only to cope with crisis, but also evolve and transform because they have done the work to strengthen and build cognitive and social-emotional skills that allow them to grow and change.
Curious to learn more about teaching Executive Function with ExQ to improve mental health and wellness?
Speak with an ExQ
Representative today:
