Mindfullness, meditation can help relieve stress of college
Everyday pressures of life can be hard on a body physically and mentally.
That’s why NDSU is offering a mindfulness workshop for the first time.
The workshop, offered by the NDSU Counseling Center, 212 Ceres Hall, is an eight-week experience that will address the different facets of mindfulness.
Meditation practices, discussion and handouts will help students, faculty and staff through the course.
Ronni Arensberg, who holds a doctor of pyschology degree, will be instructing the workshop. She describes mindfulness with a three-part definition.
Awareness is the first part, of present experience is the second part and with acceptance is the third part.
The awareness aspect is significant because it has to do with involving oneself in the present moment and the third part, acceptance, is very important because with mindfulness, as one becomes more aware, one starts to notice automatic judgments that go on in the mind, Arensberg said.
Most people judge whatever they hear or see as positive, negative or neutral.
A big part of mindfulness is learning to accept the present moment.
“ The goal of the workshop will be to plant seeds from which participants can grow their own mindfulness practice and start to apply mindfulness in their daily lives,” Arensberg said.
Mindfulness and meditation help deal with stress and keeping your mind in the present moment.
“ Life doesn’t change, stressful things still occur, but you respond differently to those things,” Arensberg said. “You recognize them as passing things, they come and they go; they are not permanent.”
Those who signed up will realize what mindfulness is by actually participating in the process.
Arensberg wants to give the participants a flavor of what it is like so they can come to understand mindfulness for themselves.
Two graduate students will be helping Arensberg in the process.
Ashley Randall, a second year clinical masters student, is excited to help Arensberg, as well as learn something new at the mindfulness workshop.
She hopes to take a greater understanding of communication with others and to learn something about herself.
“With my background in psychology and clinical psych(ology), we are pretty much taught in my program one way of dealing with clients, so this is just kind of bringing a different qualitative way to interact with others,” Randall said.
Arensberg said that a lot of the time humans just go through the motions of life and they are thinking about something else.
“ In bringing your mind back to the present moment you feel more invested, more alive in what you are doing,“ Arensberg said.
Arensberg originally started meditating when she was 18 years old as part of an acting class.
Since meditation was a professional and personal interest, she decided to start a meditation for stress management group in 2001 at NDSU.
Although the mindfulness workshop for this semester has reached its limit of participants, the meditation group meets 4 p.m. Mondays in the counseling center.
The meditation is geared for all different levels, from beginners to experienced.
It is more of a structured introduction than the workshop.
The mediation group is free of cost and is open to all students, faculty and staff.
For more information about what the counseling center has to offer log onto www.ndsu.edu/counseling.