Doctoral Intern at the Student Medical and Counseling Center (SMACC), Sarah Eckstein sits in a tall green and brown flower-patterned chair, soothingly reciting the words to a body scan exercise.  Her long, straight, red hair lays on her dark green sweater as her chest slowly rises and falls.

“I’m gonna invite you to just start focusing on your breath, without trying to change it. Just notice how it feels as the breath comes into your body,” she said as she exhales.

Eckstein slowly opens her eyes and smiles at her co-leader for Mindful Mondays—Carolyn Cleveland, counselor at the SMACC.

The goal of Mindful Mondays is to “spread awareness and mindfulness, and getting people to regularly engage in it,” Cleveland said.

During the sessions, Eckstein leads participants to focus on their breathing and let their minds wander, which according to her is perfectly natural.

Mindfulness,like meditation, is really about present moment awareness.”

“The purpose of mindfulness is really just to be mindful, with increased awareness and really live more fully,” Eckstein said. “Also, there’s a lot of benefits to mindfulness: attention regulation, more compassion into yourself and others, [being able to] calm yourself down when you’re stressed out about school, help regulate your emotions and help foster meaningful relationships.”

The Mindful Mondays program started last quarter and was led by staff from the Wellness Center. Maddi Heim, a peer educator at the Wellness Center, collaborated with Cleveland and Eckstein to organize and host the Mindful Monday sessions.

“Marissa Howait [Wellness Center Director] helped me with the idea, but then I kind of built the program up to what it is. So, I decided to call it Mindful Mondays,” Heim said smiling. “Sarah and Carolyn lead the practice, so we do it together. All the meetings are a little different.”

At the meetings participants practice different exercises like the body scan, guided meditation for relaxation and mindful eating

“Mental health is something that always needs to be focused on, even if you don’t have a mental illness,” Heim said. “It’s just like exercise, and your brain needs to be exercised too.”

According to Doug Fulp, health educator at the Wellness Center and the supervisor of Mindful Mondays, mental health is important and the prevention of things like depression, anxiety and stress is needed.
“There’s always something running through people’s mind,” Fulp said as he adjusted his glasses, shook his head and laughed. “My mind runs like my two toddlers!”