University life can be frantic — there's hardly time to breathe in between exams, extracurriculars, essays and parties. If you're looking to give your mind some much-needed space, Wind Down Wednesday is the place to be.
Put on by the Student Health Center, Wind Down Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to meditate and relax with other students and faculty. The goal of Wind Down Wednesday is to produce an attitude of gratitude and to increase productivity, according to the Student Health Center’s website.
For some attendees, Wind Down Wednesday can become a constant part of their routine. Tamila Pringle, the Budget and Humans Relationship Manager for USC's National Resource Center, said she has been going to Wind Down Wednesday for three years now.
Spending her lunch break meditating allows for Pringle to return to her desk feeling more clear-headed and ready to get back to work.
The meditations last for 45 minutes and offer the group a chance to focus on character traits that will make their week, and hopefully their life, easier and more enjoyable.
Through guided and semi-guided exercises, attendees are able to release the normal tension and stress that weighs them down throughout the week.
This Wednesday the group focused on confidence through a semi-guided breathing exercise designed by Gil Fronsdal. Members of the group meditated for a couple of minutes before eventually reaching a peaceful level of relaxation.
They then studied the different breaths they were taking and how it affected their bodies. They ended the session by slowly becoming aware of their surroundings once more.
This allowed for the meditators to enter a relaxed state of mind and to slowly bring that relaxed state to their consciousness, a feeling that continues throughout the day.
Hoping to find a good outlet for meditation through the University, Kasey O’Haren, a third-year public relations major, visited the weekly get-together for the first time on Wednesday.
For her, winding down is important, but being in a group of people that can help each other learn together while focusing on meditation is the reason she came.
O’Haren is also the leader of the yoga club at the USC, and she urged people who enjoy yoga to also try out meditation.
“Yoga, while beneficial, leaves out important things we can learn from meditating,” she said.