The ASU Mindfulness Community is looking to expand its program to reach
new students and be more accommodating to its personal lives.
The
purpose of the student group is to relieve stress through techniques, including meditation, yoga,
self-compassion, posture and awareness.
Social work graduate student Sam Chates leads the group through three meetings a week at the Downtown campus. He has led the group since September 2011 and built a support network among students looking for ways to
lower stress in their lives.
Courtney Carter, an urban and metropolitan studies sophomore, said he has been
attending the meetings since he finished a stress management course at
ASU.
"(My classmates) began and ended each class with mediation, and when the semester
was over I wanted to continue it," he said.
Chates said the ASU Mindfulness Community has about five to 10 people show up every week and more than 250 people are on the mailing list.
The mailing list contains links
to additional resources to help students manage their stress.
Chates said one of the critical new resources being
offered is the partnership that the Mindfulness Community has built
with Sounds True Inc., a company devoted to
manufacturing and selling audio that disseminates spiritual wisdom
through both music and lecture.
"They are the largest publisher of meditation guides," Chates said.
"Ordinarily, people would pay hundreds of dollars to use that valuable
content, but we have struck a deal where any ASU student with a valid
sign-in can use it for free."
The ASU Mindfulness Community also wants to build a relationship
between its ideals and some of the curricula taught at ASU, including
nursing and social work.
Chates said the organization is making all these expansions in the
hope that it can expand beyond the Downtown campus and build a
presence in Tempe.
The organization also encourages participation through outdoor trips.
Earlier this year, the ASU Mindfulness Community set up a seven-day retreat to California, where attendees meditated under a vow of silence.
Exercise and wellness graduate student Dara James said her busy life has
made it difficult to attend all of the meetings. She said she feels all the program's extra features benefit people with
busy lives.
"It's nice to be able to take it home with you," she said. "It has helped me a lot, and it even helped me write my thesis."
James
wrote her thesis on the associations among self-compassion, eating
behaviors and stress among college freshmen. She said she extensively studied these topics through the ASU Mindfulness Community.
James said she plans to start teaching others what she has learned as well.
Chates said that even though the techniques are useful
for managing stress during finals, these resources can be useful in
virtually any setting.
"It has really opened up a lot of
opportunities,"James said. "Even after I finish school, I'm going to make a lifetime
practice of this every day."
Reach the reporter at colton.gavin@asu.edu or follow on him on Twitter @coltongavin
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