Visit The Butterfly Project Here
We mean it when we say ‘help one, help many, cause a ripple.’ By helping one child, you just can’t predict in what interconnected way you’re changing the future of the entire world… just as a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can change the weather in another, helping one child can change how the world unfolds in ways we cannot know. That’s been called the ‘butterfly effect.’
Our process design with The Butterfly Project
Identify Chasm
Research focused on the effects of stress on individuals has shown that stress leads to the release of cortisol.1 While a release of cortisol can be part of the body’s natural reaction to stress, long-term exposure to cortisol has many negative health outcomes, such as insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, obesity, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes.234 In addition to these negative long-term health effects, cortisol release has also been shown to reduce some components of memory performance.5
Create Change
An effective method of addressing these stress-related increases in cortisol is through use of mindfulness meditation exercises, which can reduce both base-line cortisol levels and cortisol release during stressful events.6 Elfenworks’ Butterfly Project uses simple and straightforward visualization images such as butterflies, balloons, and birds, giving children in stressful conditions (e.g., high poverty, homelessness, hospital stays, loss of loved ones, trauma…) an internal resource to calm their minds and bodies.
Amplify Success
We are working with organizations like youth groups, educational institutions, and hospitals to bring The Butterfly Project to children, in an effort to decrease the negative psychological and physiological effects of acute and chronic stress. These resources are freely available at elfenworks.org/butterfly.
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1. Hammerfald, K., C. Eberle, M. Grau, A. Kinsperger, A. Zimmermann, U. Ehlert, and J. Gaab. “Persistent effects of cognitive-behavioral stress management on cortisol responses to acute stress in health subjects – A randomized controlled trial.” Psychoneuroendrocrinology 33 (2006): 333-39.
2. Dimsdale, Joel E., Paul Mills, Thomas Patterson, Michael Ziegler, and Elaine Dillon. “Effects of Chronic Stress on Beta-Edrenergic Receptors in the Homeless.” Psychosomatic Medicine 56 (1994): 290-95.
3. Hammerfald, K., C. Eberle, M. Grau, A. Kinsperger, A. Zimmermann, U. Ehlert, and J. Gaab. “Persistent effects of cognitive-behavioral stress management on cortisol responses to acute stress in health subjects – A randomized controlled trial.” Psychoneuroendrocrinology 33 (2006): 333-39.
4. Ranjit, Nalini, Elizabeth A. Young, and George A. Kaplan. “Material hardship alters the diurnal rhythm of salivary cortisol.” International Journal of Epidemiology 34 (2005): 1138-143.
5. Newcomer, John W., Gregg Selke, Angela K. Melson, Tamara Hershey, Suzanne Craft, Katherine Richards, and Amy L. Alderson. “Decreased Memory Performance in Healthy Humans Induced by Stress-Level Cortisol Treatment.” ARCH GEN PSYCHIATRY 56 (1999): 527-33.
6. MacLean, Christopher R.K., Kenneth G. Walton, Stig R. Wenneberg, Debra K. Levitsky, Joseph P. Mandarino, Rafiq Waziri, Stephen L. Hillis, and Robert H. Schneider. “Effects of the transcendental meditation program on adaptive mechanisms: Changes in hormone levels and responses to stress after 4 months of practice.” Psychoneuroendrocrinology 22 (1997): 277-95.
PLEASE NOTE: if you are a shelter volunteer, it’s important for you to check with your the shelter director before enthusiastically jumping in… with proper permissions and training, you avoid unintended problems in areas that are intending to bring only help and healing. Please let us know your results, and how we can make this a more helpful page!
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