What is it?

Mindfulness for Academic Success is an innovative five-session program in which students are taught to use mindfulness to:

• reduce stress and anxiety
• improve focus
• stop procrastinating
• communicate more effectively
• study more efficiently (and with more enjoyment)

Counsellors, Rebecca and Maureen have been running the program since 2018 and the feedback from students is very encouraging. Perhaps this post might convince you to register for the program.

 

What are students getting out of it?

They are getting trained in specific mindfulness techniques (e.g. breathing meditation, thought labelling) and then taught to apply those techniques to situations that commonly derail students such as lack of focus, procrastination, anxiety and poor time management.

Skills-based workshops such as these are incredibly powerful because students are learning strategies that they can continue to use, even after the course has finished.

What is additionally cool is that students are then reporting that using these techniques is having a flow-on effect to other areas of their life: awareness of body reducing clumsiness, being more present with their kids, increased curiousity and noticing the world around them

 

What are they saying?

Some direct quotes from the feedback about the March 2019 course about what they find most useful about the course:

All the info and different meditations I can take away and use to continue strengthening my mindfulness.

The thought labelling exercise has been a great help when I need to bring my focus back to the task at hand and self-awareness.

Knowing how I feel and allowing myself to feel all emotions – good and bad – has allowed me to be more in tune and respond better.

Knowing where I am and how my body behaves helps me plan movements and be less clumsy.

I’m now more present in those snippets of time with my children and I know they pick up on it.

I still have anxious moments but now I can solve the issue sooner.

I am noticing the pause in between life – in-between everything. Life/conversations have slowed down for me – I have more headspace to notice things I’ve never noticed before and conversations are flowing. I am noticing more detail.

Awareness of how stress, ‘multi-tasking’ and procrastination (default mode) impact my ability to study. This awareness, along with many tools is helping me know when I am in default mode and what I can do about it.

I’m better at using my time efficiently. I notice more things around me. I’m less clumsy.

An amazing feat for this course was the emphasis on being CURIOUS. And another was the emphasis on gently bringing our minds back to the breath, without judgement. The labelling exercise really helped me (thinking, thinking…), and so did the sensation exercise with the sultanas and chocolate. The quality of material you sent to students each week was very high. My initial assumption in committing to this course was that the psychology behind mindfulness would help me more than the actual exercises themselves. I now realise the power of them both being practiced and learnt concurrently.

 

How to get into the program?

Mindfulnes for Academic Success is running 4 times this year. The next one is in August – places are still available. Register your interest by emailing oasis@flinders.edu.au. The course is free, but you will be expected to attend all 5 sessions.