Student Involvement
In several organizational settings across campus, students explore questions of mental health in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elon Yoga Club
On rows of colorful vinyl mats, students bend themselves into different positions, exercising both body and mind.
Similar to meditation, yoga is a practice with deep historical ties to Eastern traditions and originating in India. Unlike Elon’s meditation club though, practice hosted by Elon’s yoga club is guided by a teacher and based in movement, rather than the stillness of the meditation circle.
Yoga club co-president Channing Lamparski described yoga as a form of self-care that may be especially helpful to college students who are otherwise wrapped up in busy lifestyles.
“Yoga is a great way to relieve stress and take your mind off of everything,” she said. “I never regret going to a yoga class and I always feel better afterward, and I think a lot of the members would agree with that!”
Yoga has been shown to improve symptoms of anxiety and anxiety disorders, depression, fatigue and stress—many of which have been elevated nationwide in the pandemic.
In addition to the meditative quality of yoga practice associated with the calm ambiance, trance-like playlists and encouraged internalization, yoga is an aid to bodily health and has been shown to benefit physical fitness, activation of the sympathetic system and improved cardiovascular endurance. Yoga has also been studied alongside several bodily systems including pulmonary, endocrine and musculoskeletal conditions, as well as specific diseases such as cancer and epilepsy.
This combination of mental and physical effects speaks to a link between body and mind. Health in one may affect health in the other, and Elon’s yoga club addresses both.
Iron Tree Blooming: Elon's Meditation Club
Hidden in the meditation garden between Elon’s Numen Lumen Pavilion and Gray Pavilion, students lounge in a circle on the pavement. They remain in complete silence but a laptop just outside the circle quietly plays calming wordless music; only occasional bursts from the wind chimes and rolling noise from the nearby water fountain disrupt the stillness.
The students sit and lie in different positions atop red cushions, some with perfect posture while others have seemingly released all muscle tension and found relaxation on the ground. Getting comfortable, many take off their shoes. Some have earbuds in, while others have embraced the natural sounds of the environment augmented by the group’s quiet music. After initially getting in their respective positions and greeting each other at the start of meeting time in the evening, they settle into a comfortable silence.
Closing their eyes, the students meditate together. Unguided, they exist in their own thoughts and methods but are bound in the company of one anothers’ presences—together but separate.
Meditation is an age-old tradition rooted in Vedic Indian traditions, though each practitioner’s experience is different. For some, it may be deeply religious, while for others, meditation may be simply a way to set time apart in their lives to clear their head, or a range of intentions between. Still, when practiced regularly and diligently, meditation can have a number of effects and benefits.
Studied from a biomedical perspective, meditation has been shown to affect sensory perception, hormones, mood, cognition and even autonomic activity. Affecting both the brain and body, the practice of meditation has become widespread in Western practice alongside psychological and medical treatments for stress management and even some physical and mental conditions. For the student participants, the adaptation is informal, a chosen addition to their week.
For one student in the circle, Sandoh Ahmadu, meditation has been a consistent part of his life. However, he only truly began to realize its potential over the past year, describing how it has aided with depression and anxiety that he experienced in 2020 at the onslaught of the pandemic.
Now attending weekly Iron Tree Blooming meetings, Ahmadu described a dual kind of escapism and centering effect, allowing him to “be in the present.”
Eventually, the stillness breaks and the students open their eyes. In calm tones, perhaps groggily after emerging from the previous meditative state, they quietly share insights from their meditation. A leader in the group, Michael “Spencer” Watkins, reads a passage from a book before they begin slowly standing up and making their way out of the garden, dispersing to their respective lives and plans.
“Meditation is like a calm point in my life,” said Watkins. “I can just sit down, relax, and let all the worries flow off me and then I’ll be fresh for the rest of the week.”
For some in attendance, the need for this kind of rejuvenation was amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated changing circumstances.
“The pandemic made me feel very alone … It also made me feel like I wasn’t very involved in my community because I was sitting at home,” said Brooke Beall, the group’s president-elect for the spring semester. “Meditation has given me an outlet to figure out my thoughts and take time to slow down.”
“I can just sit down, relax, and let all the worries flow off me and then I’ll be fresh for the rest of the week.”
Students use mediation as a way to clear their minds and destress.
Students use mediation as a way to clear their minds and destress.
Student Research: Drama Therapy
Mental health has always been present in Elon University senior Shelby Levine's life. Officially diagnosed with anxiety at age 14, she has had to figure out ways to cope with her struggles.
“For a really long time, I've been interested in the correlation between mental health and theater, having used theater as a coping mechanism myself when I was younger,” she said.
Drama therapy, she calls it — is the focus of her undergraduate research. Levine is conducting research on the connection between theater and mental health and suggests that participating in related arts in a school setting may be related to reduced levels of anxiety and depression.
The research titled, "Using Theater to Assist Students Struggling with Mental Health," is fueled by Levine’s own struggles with her mental health, including anxiety and a panic disorder, and are grounded in the hope of presenting an accessible form of alleviation.
“I know, a lot of times like therapy is the best option,” she said, “but therapy can be really expensive as well as medication. So being able to attend a theater workshop once a week, at a much less cost in order to help your mental health, I feel like that would be so amazing.”
"There was something almost freeing about letting go of Shelby, even for a few hours."
A theater kid herself, Levine explained that the therapeutic nature of theater may be derived through escapism.
“I never felt more of myself than when I was playing a different character. I use that character's experiences and like perspectives to kind of help me understand my own a little better. And there was something almost freeing about letting go of Shelby, even for a few hours” Levine said. “And I think that that is evidenced in my research. A lot of people have also experienced those same feelings of freedom when they're allowed to step away from themselves and kind of look at their problems from a different perspective.”
As Levine’s research unfolds and the correlation between mental health and theater practice unfolds, the pandemic adds weight to her findings, continuously updating to shifting situations needs for mitigating factors to mental health crises.
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