UBCO offering 8-week stress management course
If you’re smart, and mindful, you’ll take a UBC course being offered to the public.
Corinne Crockett was so impressed with the smartUBC secular course that she volunteered to help present it this May 1 to June 26 at the UBCO campus. The clinical assistant in the nursing department had to take it to be able to teach nursing students, but it changed her life and she wants to help others change theirs.
“I want to shout it from the roof tops,” said the evangelizing Crockett. “It is a powerful tool for life.”
Jeanette Vinek, a senior nursing instructor and certified smart mindfulness instructor at UBCO, will facilitate the eight-week stress management and resiliency techniques course, and Crockett will co-facilitate.
“I have practised meditation for 25 years,” Crockett said, “and have taken other mindfulness courses, yet this particular format has allowed me to deepen in ways that I have not prior to this.” The program trains participants to: • Manage stress • Employ self-care techniques • Create effective strategies for relating to challenging situations • Enhance concentration • Revitalize purpose, personally and professionally
• Improve personal overall mental and physical health
• Promote happiness through healthy habits of the mind.
“Mindlessness is pervasive,” Harvard professor Ellen Langer wrote in the preface to the 25th anniversary edition of her landmark book, Mindfulness.
“I believe virtually all of our problems — personal, interpersonal, professional and societal — either directly or indirectly stem from mindlessness.”
Mindfulness can even reverse aging, something Langer proved in her groundbreaking Counterclockwise study.
“Among other effects, increased mindfulness appears to reduce the depression associated with old age.”
Like Langer, Crockett testifies to the power of mindfulness to change and enrich lives, and make rich ones even richer.
“I’m finding that my stress and feelings of anxiety are greatly reduced. My ability to cope under pressure has increased. I am more relaxed and feel less likely to erupt in difficult situation.”
Crockett said research on the nursing students who took the program is ongoing, but preliminary findings are promising. The UBCO students were also measured against a control group who did not have the mindfulness course included in their curriculum.
“The students at UBC Okanagan who enrolled in the smartNursing course increased their frequency in practising mindfulness as compared to similar students not enrolled in the course,” said WHAT: smartUBC (Stress Management and Resiliency Techniques) mindfulness training program. There are eight classes and a half-day silent retreat. WHEN: Monday 6-8 p.m., May 1 to June 26. The silent retreat is June 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: UBC Okanagan, EME 2111 COST: $300 (includes GST) plus $20 for the manual. HOW: Register at www.cslkelowna.org.