In week 7 of term 2, our Year 11 (DP1) students had their very stressful exam week. Students had a range of exams spanning from Tuesday to Friday on all their subjects, with some subjects having multiple, long, papers. One thing that in most cases happens to slip people’s minds, is the amount of stress students experience post-examination. To help relieve stress, DP1 took a trip down to the Ultimo Community Centre for a meditation session during their pastoral period.
Natasha Lai-Butler, parent from the class of 2023 as well as a qualified meditation instructor helped the students relax and destress after their exams, and help achieve one of the IB learner profiles, “balanced”.
Personally, I found the exercises we were walked through very interesting and intriguing. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, to concentrate on breathing without having any distractions especially when we were explicitly told to not focus on anything. I found that my mind would immediately go towards any sound in the room that wasn’t my breathing.
During the session, students worked slowly towards more advanced techniques, starting with acknowledgement of stress and determining whether the stress is real, followed by breath work, and focusing on movements of certain parts of the body.