By: Lynn Dang
Today, almost everything comes with “hacks”: technology, games, life, etc. Even your mind can be hacked.
“10 Mindful Minutes,” a Hershey High School Community Day session, taught students to be aware of themselves and their surroundings. Taking a few minutes out of each day to be mindful helped relieve stress and increase happiness, making better people and better scholars.
HHS Spanish teacher, Lauren Fasnacht, led the session. She first learned of practicing Mindfulness two years ago at the Mindfulness and Education Network Conference at American University. Professors from across the nation spoke about incorporating Mindfulness into the education.
As a teacher, Fasnacht has seen stressed and overwhelmed students. After attending the conference, she was inspired to host a session for Community Day about practicing Mindfulness to help students’ mental healths.
“If someone shared this with me when I was 14 or 15, it would have been really helpful to me,” Fasnacht said.
Since attending the conference, Fasnacht has practiced Mindfulness and built up to 20 minutes of meditation every morning. She believes she is more happy, focused, and balanced due to taking care of her mind.
“There is a lot of emphasis on physical health, but mental health is incredibly important,” Fasnacht said. She believes mental health is not talked about as much as physical health.
Mindfulness is awareness. Often, people avoid thoughts, check out, or try to change their emotions. With this practice, it’s more about observing thoughts, letting them arise, then fall away. Mindfulness involves awareness of both your body and mind, according to Fasnacht.
“It is learning to sit with a thought or sensation, and not push it away or run after it,” said Fasnacht. She used the example of a headache; it’s not pleasant, but being mindful about it lessens the feeling of having to control the headache.
According to the mindfulness meditation company Headspace, regular practice, through meditation, is an effective treatment for stress, worry, lack of focus, relationship problems, addictions and more. It leads to peace of mind and wellbeing, greater focus, and creativity.
Distractions constantly pull attention away. In Mindfulness, as soon as a thought or sound is noticed, one brings his/her mind back without judgement. “A lot of times we don’t even notice we’ve been distracted,” Fasnacht said. “Every time you bring that attention back, you are getting to say where you place your focus.”
The attendees of “10 Mindful Minutes” felt the benefits of mindfulness meditation. Anyone can practice Mindfulness as a relaxation technique, Fasnacht believes. About 20 students attended the session, and all meditated together.
HHS sophomore, Chandni Desai, practiced meditation in general for the first time today. She thought the session was helpful. “I was stressed before, but now I feel more relaxed and calmer,” said Desai.
She admitted that at first, she thought it would be boring based on the videos about practicing Mindfulness that were shown before the meditation started. After the mindful meditation, Desai believed she was more relaxed.
Desai was willing to try the practice of Mindfulness continuously. Practicing Mindfulness should be done daily, according to Fasnacht.
“People call it a practice because you are training the mind essentially,” Fasnacht said. “There is science that says when we practice something at the same time every day, you will start to see benefits.”
