Allison Barton: Hi my name is Allison Barton and I'm a health
educator at the Moorpark College Student Health
Center. Before I get started on the mindfulness
presentation I would like to tell you a little bit
about the student health center here at Moorpark
College because a lot of students are unaware of
its existence even when all of us are physically
on campus.
For those of you on campus this semester this is
the view of the admin building from Raider Walk
with our sign in the foreground. You just walk up
the stairs and go in the door. It's the first door
on the left. You can also take a ramp that's
located just to the left, from the perspective of
this picture. Because of Covid-19 the student
health center will have very few in-person
appointments available. Most services will be
delivered via tele-health, by Zoom or by phone.
Making a tele-health appointment is the same as
making an in-person appointment. You just call the
number on your screen to get started.
805.378.1413. As
you can see there are lots of services still
available via tele-health. When you've made your
appointment our staff will refer you to the
student health portal to complete some
registration paperwork which you need to complete
prior to your appointment. Also, when you're making
your tele-health appointment be sure to plan for
privacy for the length of the entire appointment.
To find the student health portal, follow these
easy steps. First you want to go to the Moorpark
College website and scroll all the way down to
the bottom until you see these buttons. Click on
the health center button and voila there you are.
You land on the Student Health Center website.
Scroll down to Making an Appointment in this main
area here. Or you could just come over to the
Student Health Portal menu item and click there to
get to those forms.
While we're here I wanted to show you the Wellness
link where you'll find lots of great resources
including a link to mindfulness training. So
wellness is the last one on the list right there.
And you may see this emblem in office windows if
you're on campus or in syllabi or email signatures.
It denotes that the person displaying it has been
trained as an LGBTQ plus ally and as a safe person
for you to talk to regardless of your gender or
sexual orientation. There's a SAFEZONE website
with lots of on and off campus resources for LGBTQ+
people and allies. There's a link to it from
our Wellness tab. And also, we have a tab that's
the LGBTQ+ Support/SAFEZONE, and that that
takes you right to the SAFEZONE space as well.
This is another of the resources you'll find on
the Wellness page. It'll take you to the Moor-
park edition of Campus Well, an excellent
online student health magazine. It has great tips
for getting and staying healthy but also has a lot
of articles on health related topics like travel
safety, getting and acing a job interview, along
with fun quizzes, polls, and so on. So check that
out.
This is a reminder that Moorpark College is 100%
tobacco-free. If you need help to quit
smoking, vaping, or chewing, just contact the student
health center for an appointment or visit our web-
site to find other assistance under the Wellness
tab.
And now onto Mindfulness Training. To get us in the
right frame of mind, let's try a quick exercise to
help clear your mind, developed by Dr. Margaret
Wehrenberg. Find yourself in a comfortable seated
position. And if you feel comfortable doing it go
ahead and close your eyes. Now imagine a box with
a lid any style any color and in your mind's eye,
take the lid off the box and set it aside. And now
each time you have a thought that doesn't have
anything to do with what we're doing right now,
put that thought in the box. Could be that you're
thinking about another class, a relationship,
wondering where your car keys are, or wondering if
you turned your lights off. Whatever pops into
your mind, put that into your box without judgment;
without judging yourself. We'll take a few moments
just to capture your thoughts.
Well one more moment.
And now put the lid back on your box and fasten it
to the box with tape or ribbon or lock and key you
decide. When you've finished, put that box on the
floor beside you. Those thoughts will be safe and
they will come right back to you when you invite
them in. But for now your mind will be clear. And
now open your eyes. So this visualization practice
is excellent to do when you're experiencing a busy
mind or monkey mind as we say. Your thoughts are
all over the place and it's difficult to
concentrate. If you practice the box visualization
daily or almost daily, the clearing of the mind
happens even more rapidly. So I suggest that you
give that a try to doesn't need to get rid of
monkey mind, right? The objectives for our
presentation today are that you'll learn what
mindfulness training is and that it that you'll be
able to describe it to a friend. You'll be able to
come up with some benefits of practicing mindfulness
and you'll be able to do at least one practice on
your own. We'll do a couple practices today though.
So what is mindfulness anyway? Well synonyms
or definitions for mindfulness are focus,
attention, being aware of the here and now, calm, or
acceptance. It's pretty easy to see how focus and
awareness of the here and now can help with
academics. But how might acceptance and calm?
Taken a moment to just consider what carries your
attention away in class or while studying. Often
it's the stress of academic, social, family, work--
life--demands on your attention. So developing a
way to reduce those worries or at least put them
in a box for a time in order to be present is very
helpful to students. Another way to think about
mindfulness training is it's just practicing
paying attention to one thing so that you could
pay attention to anything.
And mindfulness isn't a sleep or relaxation
technique. Its purpose is to train the brain to be
calmly alert. That said some mindfulness
techniques can be used with insomnia and a regular
mindfulness training practice often reduces
insomnia, anxiety, and stress.
Though mindfulness training is not a particular
religion or philosophy, mindfulness and meditation
are common components in many belief systems.
Prayer is a form of mindfulness or meditation, for
example.
So how does mindfulness training work? Well in
part it works through a process called
neuroplasticity which just means that your brain
changes every time you learn something new. A new
neural pathway is built. And when you practice
that thing over and over that pathway gets wider
and wider. This can apply to learning new
information in class but it can also be a new
skill or a new reaction. For example if you decide
that you want to react to frustration or anxiety
by breathing instead of getting upset and
frustrated, you practice that daily or
almost daily and then when you're stressed or
frustrated you decide to practice breathing. That
becomes the way that you manage those kinds of
emotional responses or reactions. So think about
it this way. Say you wanted to work on your upper
body strength. So you decide to go to the gym and
lift weights. So first of all if you just go to
the gym once and lift weights that's not really
going to do much for you, right? But you decide
that you're going to go daily or almost daily to
workout with the weights and pretty soon you get
physically stronger. But you're not just stronger
at the gym when you lift weights. You're also
stronger when you want to move furniture pick up a
box. And also picking up heavy stuff makes you
stronger too. So it creates a nice feedback loop.
I get stronger so I can pick up heavy stuff. And
when I pick up heavy stuff I get stronger, right?
In just this way there are many techniques for
practicing mindfulness to fit your circumstances
and preferences. And when you practice these
techniques you'll be more able to use them as your
default response in stressful situations which in
itself is practice.
Well it's as simple as breathing. But it can be
kind of hard to do sometimes so you really do have
to practice it.
The first thing is that we need to find a
comfortable seated position and by comfortable
I don't mean that the position on the left. I
mean a nice tall what we call a tall dignified
seated position. So you want to get your
feet flat on the floor. You want to sit up on your
sit bones, those bones at the bottom of your bottom.
You want to feel those, and shoulder blades
back and down. And then if your knees are a little
lower than your hips then that helps your spine
grow long. And then if you put your hands
on your lap or let them rest on your desk or your
table, that also can be helpful in maintaining
this calm position. Again, you can do mindfulness
training standing, walking, all different kinds of
positions--lying down even if you want to. It's
important for students to learn how to do
mindfulness training in the classroom setting or
while you're sitting at a desk reading or taking a
test or things like that. So it might be a good
idea to practice this in the setting where you're
studying and learning now.
Next the eyes. For some people it's helpful to
close your eyes completely when you're practicing
mindfulness especially in a seated
practice. I know that it's easier for me to do it
with my eyes closed because I'm very distracted by
visual cues. But others wish to keep their eyes
open or half open. If you keep them half open so
you're kind-of looking at the world through your
eyelashes, it's nice to gaze at something: a spot
on your desk, a pattern of the fabric of a long
sleeve, or a curtain. If you have wallpaper or the
pattern of the plaster on your wall that's kind-of
interesting but not too interesting. Just not
something that's moving. Like you don't want to
have a TV show or a video game playing or look at
your cat jumping around or whatever. Although I
have to say sleeping cat is probably a good choice
of something to stare at while you're practicing.
Now, the breath. We're going to just
practice breathing before we do the breathing
practice if that makes sense. So if possible with
your mouth closed take a long breath in through
the nose and then even more slowly out through
your nose. Notice if you have a stuffy nose by the
way, obviously you're going to read it out through
your mouth. Breathing is more important than
know forcing breath through your nose. So we're
gonna do it again. And this time I want you to pay
attention to how the air feels as it enters the
nose. How does it feel as it leaves the nose?
Where do you feel the airflow? Is it in the same
place with both the in and out breath? Now we're
not used to thinking about breathing. Fortunately,
we don't have to think about breathing. It's a
it's an automatic process in our bodies. So we
have to spend a little bit of time just paying
attention. Do your shoulders rise and fall? Is
your chest rising and falling? Maybe feel your
belly rise and fall? So we're going to take another
slow breath in and out. And I really want you to
pay attention to where you feel it. So let's try
that. Big breath in.
Slow steady breath out.
So now we're going to do a two-minute practice, and
that two minute practice is just going to
be really paying attention to the breath. It's
going to be a guided practice,
which means that you're going to hear my voice
periodically. And I just want to prepare you for
the fact that your mind is going to wander,
and when your mind wanders to other thoughts, I
want you to label those thoughts as soon as you
notice them as wandering. And I went to then pull
your thoughts right back to the breath. Try not to
judge yourself. There's not you know like a prize
for not having your mind wander. In fact
the whole point of it is to realize that your mind
will wander and to notice it as soon as possible,
and pull your thoughts back to the breath symptoms. My
voice will be the thing that makes you realize
that your mind has wandered. And that's the whole
point of doing a guided practice. You also might
notice an itch, or feeling antsy. If that
happens, you can choose to scratch the itch, or
change your position. Or you could just notice
that sensation and then bring your thoughts right
back to the breath again without judging yourself.
All right. So
finding your tall dignified seated position.
Eat flat on the floor shoulder blades back and
down. Let's begin. So let's take a slow breath in
through the nose and out through the nose. Notice
how it feels. Maybe the rise and fall of the
shoulders or the chest or the belly. Notice how
the air feels as it leaves your nose. Maybe you
feel it on your upper lip or inside your nose.
And notice if your mind has wandered, and if it did,
just label that thought as wandering and pull
your thoughts right back to the breath.
If your mind has wandered once again notice where
your thoughts went and pull them right back to the
breath.
And if your mind has wandered. Feel a little
squirmy. Just noticed that and pull your thoughts
right back to the breath.
And now take a big breath in and sigh.
And how was that for you. Some students new to the
practice report feeling kind of antsy or itchy.
Sometimes they feel pretty sleepy and a lot of
times that has to do with how much sleep you're
actually getting which is another topic for
another time. Some people feel relaxed. Some
experience a busy mind and have really a lot of
difficulty bringing their thoughts back to the
breath. And sometimes environmental noises get in
the way of concentration. These are all normal
reactions and can vary in your environment from
day to day and they can vary for you from day to
day. But if you practice daily or almost daily
you'll feel more at home with it and you'll notice
that two minutes goes by really quickly. And when
you get to the point where two minutes is easy to
do you could do at a minute you know and and see
how that goes.
Now for many of us or for some of us at least,
sitting and breathing is not your favorite pastime.
This is just way too slow and way too sedentary
for you. So there are lots of ways to practice
mindfulness training. There's mindful eating,
walking. We just did the visualization
technique with the box, mindful movement--things
like yoga or Tai Chi. There's a wonderful
lovingkindness practice that's on our website.
Mindful coloring, which when we're all on campus is
available to you at any time that the Admin
Building is open. And we also have the STOP
technique and we're going to do that one next.
That's a good one for students to learn. So the
STOP technique is very helpful in stressful
situations. Many of our students find it helpful
to do before exams or speeches or at any other
anxiety-producing times. As you can see it's an
acronym. So the S stands for Stop what you are
doing. T, for Take a slow breath and breathe in and
out. O stands for
Observe how you feel, and P means Proceed with what
you were doing. So observing how you feel can
refer to mental or emotional reactions like fear
anger or frustration. But they can also refer
to physical signs like shaking, sweaty palms, racing
heartbeat, and so on. The beauty of trying the STOP
technique when you aren't anxious is that you
can get really adept at noticing what feeling good
feels like in order to notice what feeling anxious
feels like. You know as a culture we've been
conditioned to ignore our bodies and minds to the
point where we ignore hints that could lead to
earlier relief of medical or mental health
problems. So let's give this a try. Find
your tall seated dignified position. Stop what
you're doing. Take a slow breath in and out.
Now observe how you feel. Feel your belly. Feel
your maybe the back of your neck. Feel if your
hands and feet or cold or warm, or they're comfortable. Notice
if you have a racing heart or sweaty palms or
things like that. Just notice how you feel kind of
a little quick head to toe. And then proceed with
what you were doing.
As you practiced this and you saw how fast it is--
it only takes like a minute to do it--
you might need to tweak it to make it work for you.
For example one of our students added another
breath after observing how he feels because what
he found out was when he observed how he felt it
made him feel anxious more. So he added that
slow breath in and out, and that made him feel
calm again, and he was able to proceed especially
in things like taking tests or just
uncomfortable interpersonal situation. So it's
just good to know it can be used for lots of
different uncomfortable situations. And if you
like this method, if it felt good, to you then you
might like to try the body scan practice which is
lesson three of our mindfulness
training series.
Mindful coloring is another great way to
practice mindfulness. And as I said before when
we're all on campus we have mindful coloring
stations in the Admin Building open space. But for
now while you're at home you can easily find this
kind of design. It's called a mandala. You can
find it online and just print them out to color.
Some of them are quite elaborate. Ours are all
pretty simple. So several studies show that
mindful coloring helps with anxiety, depression, and
stress management. The research seemed to show
that coloring an existing design is more effective
than drawing a new design, and that coloring a
mandala, which is like a repetitive pattern design,
is more effective than a picture of a specific
object. And also that the longer you do it the
more effective it is. So I've seen 20 to 30
minutes is the most common suggested length of
time. When we're back on campus, as I said you can
you can come to the Admin Building and use
colored pencils and our designs there, but
try it at home using nice sharpened colored pencils
if you have those available to you or use a big
design that you don't need to have such sharp
pencils too. All righty. So what are some benefits
that students could gain from practicing
mindfulness? Well the regular practice benefits
students by improving focus in the classroom and
while working on assignments, reduces anxiety
around test taking it. It's great for stress
reduction and much more. Maybe you can think of
other benefits. How do you think you as a college
student could benefit?
And how does mindfulness training benefit anybody,
even non-students in general? A regular mindfulness
practice offers improved health. Even if you have
a chronic illness like diabetes or lung disease or
even people with cancer have had really excellent
benefits, have just improved state of being an
improved health.
It helps with the emotional balance. It helps with
clarity, a greater sense of appreciation of
yourself and others, and a greater balance between
work ,school, home, social, and societal lives, which
is a really big concept that young adults are
working on, in addition to academic progress. So
it's really helpful to anyone. So how do I get
started? Well, when when we're on campus we have
mindfulness training twice a week, in person. And
you don't have to sign up. You don't have to have
any experience. But if you have a lot of
experience we love to have you come anyway. Now,
however, we're not holding in-person mindfulness
training but as luck would have it we do have it
available online. So once again you just go to the
Student Health Center button, and press it. And that
will take you to our webpage. And you can either
click on Wellness or you can click on Mindfulness
Training Online and voila--that will take you to our
mindfulness training webpage.
So you have essentially already completed the
"Start Here" activities. Unless you want to share
it with somebody else you could go right to
"Session One." And that's a breathing practice
similar to the one that we just did. But they are of
varying lengths. So if you find that you like the
guided practice, the voice kind of telling you you
know kind of guiding you through it. There are a
couple of different ones that are shorter on there
but a little bit longer than two minutes. And then
if that's not your cup of tea remember that you
could do the body scan practice that I talked
about in "Session Two. The lovingkindness one I was
telling you, about self appreciation and the
appreciation of others. Or the the mindful eating
is Session Four. And there are a couple of
different really great practices in there. There's
a visualization there is mindful walking and then
there's a long breathing practice too. So when you
ramp up to the point where you can do a 15 or 20
minute practice that's that's the one for you. And
then the last one is a mindful movement class in
it's 10 mindful movements that are that are great
practices for you especially sitting and breathing
is not quite your cup of tea.
Well I want to thank you very much for your time
and your attention and I hope that this has made
you interested in trying mindfulness. If you have
any questions for me at all about the student
health center or about mindfulness training please
don't hesitate to email me at abarton@vcccd.edu.
And remember that the phone number
for the student health center is 805
378-1413. We are there
to help you even when we're not on campus. And
we'd be delighted to have you come visit us at
least virtually. And I hope you have a great rest
of your day. Thanks so much.