Susan Pasco believes meditation is the key to a stress-free life.

“There are many things people do when they’re under stress like drinking, smoking, drugs,” Pasco said. “Usually these things actually exacerbate stress. The practices associated with mindfulness offer real solutions.”

This is the case with an eight-week course, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, that Syracuse University will be offering this spring through the Counseling Center.

Free for students, the class will meet 6:30–8:30 p.m. every Wednesday night starting Feb. 4 and ending in early April. Registration for the current session closed Jan. 28.

The course is designed to help students learn how to focus and live in the moment so that they can cope more adaptively with stress, leading to sharper minds and happier lives. Students learn to develop skills such as meditation and clear-headed decision-making.

Pasco said mindfulness is a field of study that has grown increasingly mainstream and popular over the last decade or so. Many of its concepts have been incorporated into hospital and therapy settings, and there has been intense research by neuroscientists into how it relates to the brain’s plasticity, which is the flexibility to grow and adapt.

Pasco added that mindfulness began to be taken more seriously in academic circles during the late ‘60s, when studies began at universities like Harvard University into the connection between the mind and the body.

David Jacobs, who teaches the course, is also a long-time instructor at the Upstate Yoga Institute and has taught some version of this course at SU since 2008.

“It’s about reprogramming the mind, replacing older patterns that don’t serve you well and staying focused on the moment, because that’s what you have to work with,” Jacobs said. “It’s very empowering.”

Jacobs, who has committed his life to yoga and the concepts it shares with mindfulness, said his follows the MBSR model laid out by University of Massachusetts Medical School professor Jon Kabat-Zinn in the late ‘70s. The model combines secular adaptations of Buddhist meditation techniques, yoga and scientific research.

“The object is to develop a focus on internal sensation, such as breath and thoughts, that then leads to greater awareness,” Jacobs said. “You just witness, instead of reacting and judging.”

Jacobs traveled to the UMass Memorial Medical Center to learn MBSR techniques in 2008 when he was sought out by the SU Counseling Center to replace the course’s previous instructor. Since then, he has taught the course 26 times.

Jacobs also said he has adapted the program significantly so that it is “not just sitting for two and a half hours,” incorporating scientific articles and discussion to craft “a flow of interest.” Jacobs added that he tries to make it fun, and many more students tended to stick with the course after he made such changes.

At the end of the day, Jacobs said, it all hinges on practice.

“It’s a new skill like any other. You want to learn a language? Play the guitar? You’ve got to practice,” he said.

Katelyn Cowen, Director of the Office of Health Promotion who had also previously taken the course, said MBSR significantly influenced her daily life.

“I have started to pay attention to my body signaling stress or emotions, and now have methods to adjust my response to it,” Cowen said. “It may sound simple, but when you get caught up in all that goes on in a day, you sometimes forget to pause and check in with yourself.”

Pasco added that one of the course’s main goals is to have every student meditate effectively 20–30 minutes every day.

Said Pasco: “The model, if you stick with it, can change your life. Not just while you’re a student or professionally, but in your personal life and future relationships.”

Published on February 4, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Thomas: tjbeckle@syr.edu