{"id":146616,"date":"2019-03-06T07:55:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T12:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=146616"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:02:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:02:37","slug":"counselor-brings-mindfulness-hartford-students-new-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2019\/03\/counselor-brings-mindfulness-hartford-students-new-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Counselor Brings Mindfulness to Hartford Students in New Course"},"content":{"rendered":"

The classroom at UConn\u2019s Hartford Times building is like any other: bare walls, the sounds of the city bustling outside muffled to white noise, and natural daylight from a long bank of windows illuminating the quiet of the ongoing session inside. But unlike most other classes, the 16 participants sit scattered about the room in blue-fabric swivel chairs, their eyes closed, their hands comfortably resting palms-up in their laps or on the desks before them.<\/p>\n

For two whole minutes, they sit in stillness as they are guided through a deep breathing exercise.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour only focus is on your breathing,\u201d says Bradley Biskup, a physician\u2019s assistant and coordinator of UConn Health\u2019s Lifestyle Medicine Clinic, who is a guest speaker at this session of the Resilience through Mindfulness class.<\/p>\n

\u201cBreathe in as much as you can,\u201d he says softly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSlow. Let all that air go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unusual scene is part of the brainchild of Lynn Papacostas Ginolfi, a student counselor and the Hartford regional coordinator of UConn\u2019s Student Support Services (SSS) program, which provides first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented populations of students with access to the University, services to support their graduation goals, and programs to enhance their growth at UConn and beyond. UConn\u2019s SSS is a Federal TRIO Program, which provides opportunities for academic development, assists students with basic college requirements, and motivates students toward the successful completion of their postsecondary education.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin<\/a>
Kevin Young, a sound practitioner, uses sound to heal and relax the mind as part of a mindfulness class for students at the Hartford Campus on Feb. 28, 2019. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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Kevin Young, a sound practitioner, uses sound to heal and relax the mind as part of a mindfulness class for students at the Hartford Campus on Feb. 28, 2019. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Lynne<\/a>
Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996, left, speaks with Xena Hodgdon \u201922 (ACES), left, and Daviel Garcia \u201922 (ACES), seated, and Aishat Alatise \u201920 (ACES), left, and Tonya Gray \u201920 (CLAS), standing, about the relationship of Yin (earth and body) and Yang (heaven and spirit) to one's Qi (mind and life). (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996, left, speaks with Xena Hodgdon \u201922 (ACES), left, and Daviel Garcia \u201922 (ACES), seated, and Aishat Alatise \u201920 (ACES), left, and Tonya Gray \u201920 (CLAS), standing, about the relationship of Yin (earth and body) and Yang (heaven and spirit) to one's Qi (mind and life). (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"A<\/a>
A poster serves as a visual aid, as Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996 discusses the relationship of Yin (earth and body) and Yang (heaven and spirit) to one's Qi (mind and life). (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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A poster serves as a visual aid, as Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996 discusses the relationship of Yin (earth and body) and Yang (heaven and spirit) to one's Qi (mind and life). (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Lynne<\/a>
Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996, seated left, leads a mindfulness class for students at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996, seated left, leads a mindfulness class for students at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Daviel<\/a>
Daviel Garcia \u201922 (ACES) participates in a mindfulness class at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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Daviel Garcia \u201922 (ACES) participates in a mindfulness class at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Xena<\/a>
Xena Hodgdon \u201922 (ACES) participates in a mindfulness class at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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Xena Hodgdon \u201922 (ACES) participates in a mindfulness class at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Lynne<\/a>
Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996, back center, leads a mindfulness class for students at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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Lynne Nicole Smith \u201996, back center, leads a mindfulness class for students at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Lynn<\/a>
Lynn Papacostas Ginolfi, instructor for the class, participates in a mindfulness exercise for students in the Student Support Services program at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div>
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Lynn Papacostas Ginolfi, instructor for the class, participates in a mindfulness exercise for students in the Student Support Services program at the Hartford Campus. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

In her role as a coordinator and counselor, Papacostas Ginolfi provides one-on-one advising and support to students who are often facing personal or economic challenges in addition to the rigors of higher education. Papacostas Ginolfi \u2013 who at one time was herself a first-generation, low-income TRIO student, and has been working with similarly situated students for more than 19 years \u2013 said she created the Resilience through Mindfulness course to help address what she has seen as an unmet need among her students.<\/p>\n

\n

Students are not fully able to receive the information that they are learning in the classroom because their stressors prevent them from being able to be present in the here and now. — Lynn Papacostas Ginolfi<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI believe all students have the ability to learn and thrive, but often what I see is that stress causes a blockage and a barrier in the learning process,\u201d says Papacostas Ginolfi. \u201cStudents are not fully able to receive the information that they are learning in the classroom because their stressors prevent them from being able to be present in the here and now. They have no time for self-care, so through this course, I\u2019m offering them a space in their lives to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enter mindfulness \u2013 a growing secular practice that involves focusing on the present and often includes meditation, movement, sound, and breathing exercises. Studies have shown positive changes in both physical and mental health as a result of mindfulness practice, including improved immune system response; reduced negative emotions and stress; and improved memory, attention, and decision making.<\/p>\n

Papacostas Ginolfi has long practiced and felt the benefits of mindfulness in her own life, but she has kept her personal practice separate from her professional work. Her students, though, would frequently come to her with more than their academic problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to study for a test, but then something dramatic comes up in their personal life,\u201d she says. \u201cStudents come in for academic advising, but they talk about everything, because it\u2019s all connected. In helping students feel better, they will naturally do better in all areas of their lives. In my work, I am always trying to find more tools for my students\u2019 tool belts for success.”<\/p>\n

It was a natural next step for her to create this course.<\/p>\n

While centers and institutes for mindfulness are popping up at public and private universities around the country, the Hartford class is the only mindfulness offering currently available at UConn, and its official capacity was limited to 12 students in the SSS program for its inaugural semester, though guests have been invited to attend some of the weekly sessions. So far, classes have focused on academic resiliency, breathing, gratitude, meditation and movement, yoga, and the science and health benefits behind mindfulness.<\/p>\n

In addition to the classroom, students keep weekly journals and conduct research on mindfulness, learning about different techniques from articles that they find, and discussing the benefits and drawbacks of those techniques in order to help them develop their own meaningful and beneficial practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to do is bring them through a journey of self-awareness so that they can find and identify the tools that will best help them daily,\u201d Papacostas Ginolfi said. \u201cBeing from a low-income and\/or first-generation family or household, it\u2019s all about survival, and no one is really teaching you self-regulation or healing methods to support you with sustaining yourself or your resiliency. We are all different and connect to life differently, and it\u2019s important that our practice is unique to each of us as individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

If you know how to connect to yourself, you\u2019ll be able to better connect to others and to the world around you. — Lynn Papacostas Ginolfi<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Students enrolled in the class say they are already experiencing benefits in their personal and academic lives.<\/p>\n

Tonya Gray \u201920 (CLAS) says the class has taught her the importance of breathing and paying attention to the moment, and that she has started incorporating deep breathing exercises into her morning routine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m graduating next year, so I\u2019m constantly worrying about my future,\u201d Gray says. \u201cI have no idea where the future\u2019s going to lead me, and you know, you\u2019re constantly thinking, I need to get this class in, I need to get that class in, I need to graduate on time, I need to get this grade. It has helped me to realize that the future will come, but I just need to focus on the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last semester, Xena Hodgdon \u201922 (ACES) struggled under a load of difficult courses and personal issues.<\/p>\n

A self-described \u201cstressful person,\u201d Hodgdon says journaling has provided a way for her to let out her feelings, and that breathing exercises have helped her in situations even outside the classroom, like when a recent wrong turn in Hartford brought on an overwhelming wave of anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was driving by myself, and I don\u2019t know Hartford. I was driving with GPS, and my GPS was loading, so I took a wrong turn and I got anxiety, I got really bad anxiety,\u201d she says. \u201cSo … I stopped to the side, and I breathed. … It helped me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daviel Garcia \u201922 (ACES) says that low grades on midterms last semester added to an already high stress level that he carried with him from his senior year in high school. Using techniques he\u2019s learned in class \u2013 including purposefully taking breaks while studying, to help him better retain information \u2013 have helped improve his academic performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I took a midterm, I\u2019d been getting Cs and Ds, and that really hit me hard,\u201d he says. \u201cBut ever since I took this class, classes I thought were going to be hard for me \u2013 especially Calculus 2, because Calculus 1 was hard for me \u2013 I just took a test for Calculus 2 and it went through easy. I\u2019m getting 90s. And I just feel like, this removing stress from yourself actually benefits you for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Papacostas Ginolfi doesn\u2019t see mindfulness as a cure-all for struggling students, and hopes to learn from the students’ performance this semester in order to evaluate and improve the course offering in the future. But she says she believes in the potential for mindfulness to help her students better navigate their own challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can get these students to pause in the present moment, and to come to a place of self-love and compassion,\u201d she says, \u201ccan you imagine when they graduate and go out into the world, how they\u2019re going to be in that roundtable, when they\u2019re sitting with other executives, or their peers, or in the school systems, or wherever their journey may take them? Developing a self-regulating practice will support us in being more resilient to whatever may come our way. If you know how to connect to yourself, you\u2019ll be able to better connect to others and to the world around you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lynn Papacostas Ginolfi \u2013 who at one time was herself a first-generation, low-income student \u2013 created the Resilience through Mindfulness course to help students address stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":146761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2168],"class_list":["post-146616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-hartford","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 05:40:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146616"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146852,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146616\/revisions\/146852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/146761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146616"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=146616"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=146616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}