Welcome back to Spring ’17 @ UPenn! You’re planning your new academic semester. You have your new course schedule, you’ve just attended your first few days of classes, fresh syllabi have been collected, and books have been ordered. You’ll stop by the Weingarten Center to pick up your under-/graduate semester and weekly calendars, and you may choose to schedule an one-hour appointment or stop by for a 30-minute walk-in session with one of our Learning Instructors to discuss your time management and study strategies for the semester.
When planning your academic semester, in addition to your coursework, we also take into consideration your work-life balance. How about your other life priorities? These might include family and community connections, sports, fitness, wellness, and nutrition, rest and relaxation, the arts, spiritual devotions (as applicable), volunteering, and other on-campus and/or off-campus social commitments. A fruitful place to begin our daily commitments and practices, whatever they may be, is mindfulness. Empirical research has proven the benefits of mindfulness, including decreased rumination, improved focus, boosts to working memory, more cognitive flexibility, and stress reduction, among others (Davies & Hayes, 2012).
Here are just a few of the UPenn campus wellness resources to help support your own mindfulness practice(s):
- Penn Undergraduate Health Coalition, including Constituent organizations, among others:
- Penn Wellness, including resources for (select the appropriate tab below the Resources List table):
- Campus Recreation Wellness Programs, including the following Dimensions:
Announcements for Spring ‘17:
- Penn Rec Wellness
- Wellness Outreach Programs
- Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
- The Penn Program for Mindfulness
Citation:
Davis, D. and Hayes, J. (2012). What are the benefits of mindfulness? American Psychological Association. July/August, 43:7, p. 64.
Staff Writer: Min Derry