Mindful Sports

Mindful Sports For Kids teaches mindfulness and sports together

Mindful Sports For Coaches helps coaches learn about mindfulness and how to teach mindfulness to young athletes

Mindful Sports believes in the importance of teaching mindfulness and self-regulation while helping kids have fun and learn how to play sports. Mindfulness practice is a research-proven method of helping children learn to manage stress and anxiety, improve focus, and increase their overall resilience. Teaching mindfulness through sports helps children:

  • Learn age-appropriate mindfulness skills in a fun sports environment

  • Build a foundation of self-regulatory skills to use during physical activity

  • Learn the rules and skills of sports

  • Be more prepared for athletic competition

  • Understand how to use mindful skills off the field

Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment, without judgment, and the continuous return to that moment. Breathing and awareness exercises help children learn to be okay with how they feel.  Mindfulness can help with stress, fear, and anxiety. Mindful skills can also improve focus and strengthen overall resilience. Research on children’s mindfulness on and off the field of play shows positive and promising results.

Sam Faeder

About Sam

Dr.Sam Faeder is the Director of Mindful Sports, founded in 2018.

Sam holds a PhD (2022) in Psychology. His research explores how mindfulness training affects stress perception in preadolescent children playing sports. Sam is certified by Saybrook University in psychophysiology. Sam is also a certified Focalizing instructor, a process facilitating stress management and emotional resolution through somatic awareness. Sam has two certifications from Mindful Schools, a non-profit organization that teaches mindfulness to educators.

Sam grew up in Manhattan, playing baseball for Stuyvesant High School. He played college baseball for Swarthmore and professionally in Europe and Australia from 2007-2010.

Sam was a director of a successful Manhattan youth sports program from 2011-2018. Sam has extensive experience consulting and developing international baseball organizations, winning national baseball championships in Switzerland and Austria in 2009 and 2010 and leading a 12u baseball team to the European Little League World Series in 2008. Sam has run summer sports camps for over a decade, including a summer camp for the New York Yankees.