Meditation Classes Aim to Improve Students’ Mental Wellness
By Eliana Mello | Observer Contributor
Meditation Mondays are helping students find healthy ways to manage their mental health and everyday stress.
Melissa Manzi, Mental Health Counselor, created this program as a way to help struggling students. “I want to do things for students that will help them cope with life,” she said.
The program includes 12 half hour sessions occurring from 12:30 -1:00 p.m. and are repeated again from 1:15 -1:45 p.m. This allows students to find time in their schedules to attend class. Students can attend as many classes as they want and in whatever order they please.
After attending the first Monday Mediation class, Manzi completed a short 1-minute walking meditation. The walking meditation was assigned by the meditation instructor as homework. She was able to fit the time into her schedule by doing the meditation on her walk from her car to the school and felt more relaxed afterward.
“You don’t need to start big; you can start small,” she said.
Manzi submitted a request to Boston University for a grant to fund “STRESS LESS; Learn to Meditate.” Manzi was awarded a $1000 grant from the Center of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to teach meditation as a form of suicide prevention.
The classes are run by Richard Geller, who works for MedWorks Corporate Meditation Program. He has been practicing meditation for 40 years and teaching for 20. According to Medworks, meditation helps with recognizing and coping with negative thoughts. One of the techniques taught by Medworks is mindfulness.
During mindfulness, positive and negative thoughts are allowed to flow through the brain without judgment or acknowledgment. This allows the participant to understand what’s bothering them without giving these thoughts too much control. According to Medworks, understanding the root issues allows participants to take control of these thoughts.
Medworks teaches meditation to help with a biological event known as “Fight or Flight.” This biological event is used to help organisms in life or death situations. However, for some, this event occurs in situations that are not life threatening.
During “Fight or Flight” the heart beats faster, blood pressure increases, and the digestive system shuts down. Prolonged experience of this biological event can lead to “high blood pressure, heart disease, headache, anxiety, depression, stroke, ulcers, substance abuse, etc.,” according to Medworks. Meditation calms the participant down by recognizing the “Fight or Flight” reaction; meditation can help shorten the “Fight or Flight” response.
The upcoming class dates include April 8, 22, and 29. The rest of the sessions will be posted at a later date.
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