Overview: Dave from Oasis leads meditation sessions on Wednesdays and Fridays at the Oasis Centre. Join him and practice this ancient method of exploring the mind. Details in post. Reading time ~ 2.5 minutes.
I encourage most people to experiment with some kind of meditative practice.
This might be formal meditation, or simply taking moments throughout the day to be still and explore one’s inner world.
There are many potential benefits from mindfulness meditation practice specifically. In a massive review of psychological interventions to improve wellbeing, the team that built the Be Well Plan found that mindfulness-based interventions were consistently associated with wellbeing improvements across populations.
Getting into regular meditation practice has been made easier by the availability of many high quality mobile apps (e.g. Waking Up, Ten Percent, Smiling Mind) that can guide you in the process. There is even emerging evidence that use of these apps leads to measurable improvements.
The other way to get into meditation practice is to join guided sessions. Here at Flinders, Dave from Oasis conducts guided mindfulness meditation sessions twice a week at the Oasis Community Centre (J7 on the campus map).
These sessions are held on Wednesdays and Fridays from 12.00pm to 12.30pm.
All you need to do is rock up at the centre, ask for Dave and join the session.
Often students (and staff) question the value of taking up meditation, especially in the context of already busy schedules. This makes sense. Many of us are juggling multiple competing demands and the idea of having to allocate precious time to sitting still may seem inefficient.
But I encourage people to think about meditation a bit like sleep. When we are sleeping, we aren’t doing work directly, but we are allowing the nervous system to rest and restore. Meditation can be like a rest and restore that you can engage in at any point in the day.
Come try meditation with Dave and see if it is for you. Staff and students welcome.
