Michelle Hennessy – News Writer
People in the West continually go through the day at 110 percent, if there’s not something to worry about or there’s not something wrong – then there’s something wrong, according to assistant counselor at Southern’s counseling services Denise Zack.
“I think there’s a need for things like meditation now,” said Zack. “People are starting to accept more Eastern practices and understanding that there are really important benefits that can come from meditation now.”
Zack uses the Mindfulness Program which, according to its website, is a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction technique started by Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD in 1979. Speaking to a group of students at Neff Hall last Wednesday, Zack went through the Seven Steps in the program, ending with meditation to help show students how they can combat stress.
“The Seven Steps,” said Zack, “are basically helping students to understand how the brain works, what the old patterns are, what their triggers are, what their life story becomes, how to self-regulate and how to develop self-insight into all of them. Basically how to create new realities from this.”
While the program is only ran to a closed group this semester, in the spring Zack is hoping to offer the series again on a larger scale at a couple of different times so more students can attend.
She is also the advisor to the on-campus meditation club, new this semester.
“The reaction to it has been overwhelming. We were at the student fair and over 75 students signed up for it, and that’s pretty unusual and we were only there for an hour and a half,” said Zack.
She said one of the reasons meditation and other stress relieving programs are growing in popularity is because of the stress students are put under during college life.
In an AP-mtvU poll of undergraduate students, 85 percent surveyed said they experienced stress sometimes or frequently, with over 60 percent saying they felt too stressed to get schoolwork done.
In the poll, 77 percent cited their schoolwork as the main source of their stress, with finances, relationships and jobs also being a worry for students.
Students like Danielle Hunter, freshman pre-nursing major, agree that students are put under a lot of stress when starting college.
“I definitely think stress is a big issue for students,” said Hunter. “For a lot of people, school is not the only thing that they have going on. I know kids who are only freshman who have children so it’s like you have your own family back home to worry about, finances, jobs, so it can be tough.”
After attending the truncated version of the Seven Steps at Neff Hall, Hunter said she noticed it helping relieve stress, especially the meditation.
“I really liked it,” said Hunter. “Actually in my high school we did some meditation and I really liked it, so I was excited for this to see how it would go and I loved it.”
Freshman Haley Samuelson said she also thought the program helped.
“I really liked the mindfulness program,” said Samuelson. “I could definitely relate to some of the things she was saying, things in class or some people stressing me out so maybe I’ll be able to use some of the things I learnt here.”
While Denise Zack said leading a stress-free life could take time to accomplish, fitting elements of the mindfulness program into daily life can help relieve stress almost immediately.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” said Zack. “But if you can start practicing the meditation on a daily basis, you can notice a difference really soon.”
