As the ongoing pandemic continues to impact mental health, the UMD Department of Psychology has taken action to support campus well-being.
The department is hosting a new “Mindful Mornings” series every week. It’s a chance for people to pause and consciously take a break from their everyday stresses with guided meditation and gentle movement.
Assistant Professor Viann Nguyen-Feng developed the idea for the drop-in class alongside graduate student Kelsey Dietrich. “I brought the idea of yoga up [at a faculty meeting] as an option to let students know that we care,” Nguyen-Feng says.
Much of Nguyen-Feng’s research focuses on trauma-sensitive yoga and the process of embodied healing—an integrated approach to help people learn to calm their bodies and minds to recover from extreme stress and trauma.
She directs the Mind-Body Trauma Care Lab where her team focuses on increasing access to holistic psychotherapeutic care, especially among those who have experienced trauma. Dietrich serves as a graduate research assistant in the lab.
Nguyen-Feng and Dietrich lead the Mindful Mornings sessions. Both are certified yoga teachers with additional training in trauma-sensitive yoga.
Sessions are free and open to all. Facilitators guide participants through a series of activities, starting with a body scan to invite individuals to pay attention to how their bodies feel. “The body scan is focused on noticing what’s going on inside someone’s body and the ability to make choices about what someone's body needs at that moment,” explains Nguyen-Feng.
Next comes mindful, seated movement and stretches focused on the specific areas of the body that are holding stress. The facilitators offer participants multiple options at this stage. People can choose which movements work best for them. “It’s a process-oriented approach rather than an outcome approach. It’s less about how it looks but more about how it feels,” says Nguyen-Feng.
The sessions close with a silent meditation. “I know silent meditation can be challenging, so we do offer a little bit of guidance,” Nguyen-Feng notes. Nguyen-Feng’s and Dietrich’s goal is to provide a grounding space for individuals in a difficult time. Nguyen-Feng states, “Even if people aren’t able to make it, I hope they know that we’re trying to support them in any way that we can. We’re simply offering a space in which there can be more lightness.”
Mindful Mornings started on October 6 and will run through December 8. It is open to all members of the UMD community. In-person sessions take place in Cina Hall, room 102, from 8-8:45 a.m. Participants can join for any portion of the class: body scan (8-8:15), seated movement (8:15-8:30), silent meditation (8:30-8:45). There’s also a Zoom option. https://z.umn.edu/MindfulMornings
The photo on top features Assistant Professor Viann Nguyen-Feng and graduate student Kelsey Dietrich.