Stressed Out over Finals? Try These Mindfulness Exercises
Stressed Out over Finals? Try These Mindfulness Exercises
Four 60-second videos designed to help you relax
Loosen up a bit and breathe slowly in and out through your nose, matching the pace with the moving circles. Your breath should correspond with the soothing sounds along the Charles River Esplanade.
Finals are fast approaching bringing with them the inevitable pressure of last-minute papers, final projects, and looming exams. To help combat all that stress, BU Today has created a series of four 60-second mindfulness exercises designed to get you to slow down and relax.
Mindfulness is defined as “the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment.” These four videos offer a chance to shake off that stress by spending a minute breathing deeply with the help of visual and sound aids, or spending a minute sitting still and losing yourself in some serene images of nature.
Watching a goose foraging for food among the fallen leaves along the Charles River Esplanade, with the wave-like sound of cars in the background, is conducive to meditating.
Release the tension in your shoulders as the beautiful ornamental grass seed heads along Comm Ave sway in the breeze. Inhale and exhale in tune with the moving circles and gentle breeze: you might even hear the T.
Empty your mind. Sit still and meditate as water trickles down the waterfall behind the GSU.
Additional editing by Alan Wong. Graphics by Carlos Soler.
Sakura Hegarty can be reached at sakurar@bu.edu.
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