Amy Baldwin, director of University College at the University of Central Arkansas, found a way to help her first-year students de-stress and improve their grades, and now, everyone on campus will be given the opportunity to try relaxation techniques.
The inaugural UCA Day of Mindfulness in Conway will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today with activities that include yoga, walking the campus labyrinth, chair massages, tai chi and adult coloring. The schedule can be found at uca.edu/studentsuccess/dayofmindfulness.
The theme of the event is Stop. Breathe. Focus.
“I taught at Pulaski Technical College a long time and came to UCA last year, and first-year students are kind of the same no matter where they are — they’re stressed,” she said. “It’s big; it’s new. It’s kind of scary being in college.”
She said students don’t always make the best decisions about how to use their time and energy.
“They’ve got a lot of what I call head trash,” Baldwin said. “Bless their hearts; they’re trying hard to juggle everything.”
Baldwin said she has utilized some relaxation techniques in her own life, so she incorporated a stress-free day once a semester in her University Studies classes, which cover time management, note-taking and other strategies to help students be successful.
“I say, ‘Go with me; it sounds hokey, I know,’” Baldwin said. She asks students to get comfortable, and she turns off the lights. “I do a guided relaxation, lots of breathing — in through your nose, out through your mouth,” she said.
Baldwin said she asks students to rank their stress levels before and after that class, and their stress levels go down after the exercises.
“Students will always say that was their favorite class,” she said. “You know, you don’t have to pay any money, and it takes very little time. It can take 15 minutes to kind of calm themselves down, get focused, get some of that noise out of their head that distracts them and makes them anxious.”
She said her students seem surprised at the results. “Students always say, ‘I didn’t know I could do that; I didn’t know it was possible.’”
Julia Winden-Fey, director of the Office of Student Success, said she and Baldwin work closely together, and Baldwin mentioned what she was trying and how she wished more students were aware of relaxation techniques.
“I said, ‘Well, we could hold a whole day,’” Winden-Fey said.
In addition to the Office of Student Success and University College, the women brought in the UCA Learning Communities and Counseling Services to help sponsor the event.
Winden-Fey said practicing mindfulness can help students improve their grades, too.
“I think mindfulness in general just helps people be more productive and less
unfocused, less stressed. So I think for students, who we’re seeing anxious — and stress levels being one of the obstacles to student success these days — mindfulness can only help.
“There are lots of way to do that — they can bike, they can meditate, they can walk,” she said.
Or they can pick up some crayons. As silly as it might seem at first blush, adult coloring can be a stress-reliever, Baldwin said.
“You’re coloring to color; you’re doing something with intention,” she said. “It’s a big stress-reliever and popular at fairs and things.”
Walking a labyrinth is another way to calm the mind, Baldwin said. UCA’s labyrinth was built in 2013, a project of the EDGE Residential College. The labyrinth was built in the courtyard south of State Hall.
“It’s been my dream to work for someone who had a labyrinth,” Baldwin said.
Winden-Fey said the purpose of today’s event is to introduce students to different stress-reducing strategies.
“You just need to find the one that works for you,” she said. She said her husband bikes to relieve stress; she gardens.
Baldwin said students might “party and drink to let off steam, but we don’t always give them alternatives. They don’t always have ready-to-use, inexpensive healthy alternatives to de-stressing.”
In addition to hosting another UCA Day of Mindfulness next year, Winden-Fey said, her goal is to introduce mindfulness into classrooms to benefit students year-round.
Baldwin said she would love to have a “meditation room” in Old Main, where University College is located.
“Students who are having difficulty focusing could go in there and breathe for a moment,” she said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.