There may be a Mindfulness Room coming to Harborfields...?
Have you ever felt stressed out at school? That's almost not even a question worth asking, because I can guarantee every student's answer would be yes. School can be overwhelmingly stressful for a variety of reasons. Academics, emotions and social relations are all wrapped into one place, 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. That’s really, really difficult- and sometimes it can all just feel like too much to handle.
Although everyone recognizes that unhealthy levels of stress and anxiety at school are a huge problem, nobody is entirely sure what to do about it. The mindfulness club thinks they’ve come up with a solution that would work for everyone. “It’s well known that school can bring a lot of stress to its students' lives,” said president of the mindfulness club, Kam Johansen, “having a mindfulness room would provide a space of comfort for kids suffering from school related anxiety.”
“It would basically be just a quiet space to get away from everything for a few minutes, instead of anxiously waiting for the end of the school day.” Johansen continued. “Aside from the obvious mental health benefits, it would also improve students’ academic performance, allowing them to get their feelings under control and go back to class, instead of being completely consumed by their thoughts until the school day ends.”
Johansen described a small space, it wouldn’t have to be anywhere large, with dim, non stimulating lighting and an essential oils diffuser or two. Maybe chairs or blankets. The most important thing is just having a place to go to compose yourself, and be alone with your feelings for a second.
“One of our biggest problems right now is the space for it. I’m sure potential spaces exist in the school but they’re hard to find, and student support would be needed for the idea to really be taken seriously. We’ve pitched the idea of a mindfulness room before but very little progress has been made” Johansen said.
The school social worker, and creator of the mindfulness club, Ms. Koenig, shared her thoughts. “One of the biggest misconceptions is that this would be a space for students in crisis” she said, “we already have the psychology office for that. Ideally, the mindfulness room would be a space students could use before they get overwhelmed, to re-center themselves.”
She continued, “Unlike the library where students can go for a quiet place to work, or the psychology office where students come in a crisis or for counseling appointments, a mindfulness room would be a quiet place to sit, without their phones, to use mindfulness techniques to settle anxious thoughts, and try guided meditations to help refocus.”
Our school wouldn’t be the first to implement this, many schools such as Jericho and Half-Hallow Hills have created such spaces- with excellent results. Although it may seem it, it’s not that revolutionary an idea, it just needs student support and a few resources. A mindfulness room is something that could help a lot of students in a lot of ways, and we should be excited about the possibility of one coming to Harborfields.
Kam practices mindfulness in the orchestra room because he has no other place to do it :(