The city will require schools to facilitate two to five minutes of mindful breathing practices as part of an effort to boost children’s mental health and wellness.

Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks made the announcement on the last day of classes for public schools at P.S. 5 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where students and staff have already been working on their breathing.

Together, they led Adams and the others in a practice called “ocean breath.”

“We have never been taught how to breathe,” Adams said. “We think that it is just, you know, air goes through your nostrils and no — there’s a science to breathing.”

The requirement will be in place for all public schools, from pre-K through 12th grade, and professional development has already begun to help train educators in mindful breathing practices, officials said.

“There will be at least one person in each one of the schools and in many cases, there are multiple people in the schools who are actually being trained. It will look different from school to school,” Banks said. “Some schools will do it at advisory periods. Many of them will do it during their physical education classes. Some will do it at their town halls in the morning before the kids go to class.”

Banks says the city's Department of Education won’t mandate when or where the breathing happens.

“We're making some suggestions, but we're leaving it up to the leadership at the school to determine the best place to make it fit. We don't want it to get in the way — we don't want this to be, ‘Oh, yet another mandate,’” Banks said.

Adams said it’s an effort to help students get into a better place mentally and emotionally to start a day of learning.

“What happened to the children who lost a friend to gun violence? I mean, can we just act like that didn't happen? Every child in this city is not waking up to mom and dad with breakfast sitting on a table,” Adams said.