With exam season just under a month away, students will be looking for various ways to overcome their stress and Mindfulness Meditation should be on their lists.

I had the chance to experience one of Vicki Herman’s weekly drop-in meditation sessions. Herman is a registered psychologist, has a master’s degree in education and is the outreach co-ordinator for Student Counselling Services at the University of Saskatchewan.

Herman explained the type of meditation she specializes in.

“This particular type of meditation that I’ve studied and teach is mindfulness meditation, so that’s [a method of] seeing the way things are. There can be a different type [of] practice where it’s like a concentration practice or different types of meditation,” Herman said.

This type of meditation is offered in both drop-in sessions, which I attended, and by signing up for an eight week class. However, Herman does specify that the eight week class is a much larger time commitment for the student.

While at the session, which lasts around an hour, participants sit in chairs arranged in a circle in the Saint Thomas Moore chapel. Herman guides these weekly sessions and during my participation, we did two practices. These included a “body scan” meditation as well as a “check-in” meditation.

During the “body scan,” participants were instructed to settle in. This consisted of finding a posture that allowed for comfort while maintaining a degree of alertness. Then we were all instructed to search for sensations in body parts, starting from the bottoms of the feet and working up through the body.

During this period, I personally found that a shifting focus, such as moving from body part to body part, was easier to maintain than one singular point, as is common in meditation. I also found that this helped to achieve the passive outlook that Herman discussed during this session — meaning that rather than meditating to achieve a goal, instead meditating is done to notice sensations and thoughts.

One of Herman’s tips was to not fight against intrusive thoughts, but rather acknowledge them and allow them to pass in order to regain focus. In general, many of Herman’s ideas on meditation centered around awareness of oneself, rather than action.

After the “body scan” there was another, albeit shorter, practice that followed. This was a form of mental check-up that focused on one’s mental state rather than the physical.

One of the main things I noticed is that I was surprised as to how quickly almost an hour’s worth of meditation had passed, especially since I had previously only managed around 10 minutes when trying meditation at home. It certainly helped to have a person guiding the sessions instead of using recordings.

Overall, the meditation left me feeling mentally refreshed. Herman focuses on a passive state of mind that instills a sense of tranquility and balance that lasts after meditating. I found myself not nearly as stressed walking out the door as I had been coming in.

Herman elaborated on this by explaining how meditation can help to relieve students of stress.

“Often, when we get stressed, it’s like ‘I need to do more, I need to do it differently, it’s gotta be this way,’ and [meditation] kind of gives students an opportunity to step back from that. So that quality of … ‘How can I relate to that experience of demands, the experience of pressure, in a different way?’” Herman said.

She went on to explain this approach in saying that, rather than try to actively change things or forcibly remove stress, it can be beneficial to simply try to notice these things and accept them.

For those students who are on the fence about meditation, Herman says there are ways to try out meditation at home before attending a class or drop-in session.

“There are many meditations students can access online and different apps. I put two meditations on our website for students. So students who aren’t sure if this is the thing for them they can try it.”

For more information on drop-in sessions and to find online resources, head to students.usask.ca/articles/mindfulness-meditation.php.

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Jack Thompson / Staff Writer

Graphic: Mike T.