Objectives: The basic objectives to include them as best practices are:
The Context: Many college students are living dual virtual & real life. Mobile phone addiction as well as excess smartphone use, has increased sleep disturbance, depression, anxiety & overall stress. Potential expectations, homesickness, financial burden, eating disorders are also factors causing anxiety among the college students. So the present day life style among the students calls for the need for Yoga & Meditation and these should be placed indeed on the upper pedestal in order to achieve the overall development of a student.
The Practice: College students today experience high levels of stress in many areas of life. To help the students in getting out of this situation, the college has established a “Yog and Dhyan Kendra”. In this Kendra, students are taught not only the importance of yoga and meditation but they are also being guided about the various methods of performing yoga and meditation. For this, in the beginning of every semester, students of the college are divided into groups. Each group contains approximately 50 to 60 students. Every Saturday, a schedule is prepared for the next week in which it is decided that in the coming week which classes will be taken to Yoga & Dhyan Kendra. In this weekly schedule, duties have been assigned to teachers who have to take the students to the Yoga and Dhyan Kendra. The information is communicated to students and teachers concerned through an official notice. In this Kendra different physical & mental exercises are taught to students. The things that are taught to students here, basically consist of four parts. In the first part, all the present teachers and students chant Gayatri Mantra and ‘OM’ three times each. In the second part, students under the guidance of teachers do some physical exercises and stretching. Then students are being guided to perform three rounds of Surya Namaskar. Then students are taught about same Pranayama. After doing Pranayama for five to seven minutes, the students are guided for doing meditation and then in the last they are being motivated by the teachers that they should include all these things in their daily routine to get maximum health benefits of Yoga & Meditation. Another important thing that students are guided to perform is ‘Surya Namaskar’ or ‘Sun Salutation’. Science has proved and recognized the healing power of the sun and the health benefits of Sun Salutation. After doing three rounds of ‘Surya Namaskar’ students are also advised to do guided meditation. Meditation is a very powerful stress-reduction technique. Evidence of Success: As the practice is divided into four parts, so students enjoy all these four activities. After doing Yoga and Meditation, they themselves provide feedback verbally to us that before entering the Yoga and Meditation Centre, they were a little bit in stress or had pain in shoulders, back, neck etc but after performing stretching exercises or asanas and meditation, they feel more comfortable and calm. This activity is frequently performed by the students of B.Sc. B.Ed. and B.A. B.Ed. because it is a part of their syllabus also. One of our girls in B.Sc. B.Ed. (non-medical) named ‘Sushma’ was really feeling bad due to her family and financial conditions but she didn’t miss yoga and meditation, by this she was able to made her concentration better and we are feeling deep pleasure to say that she got 2nd position in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. So, like her, there are many students who perform this activity honestly got wonderful results.
Problems Encountered and Resources Required: Only one lecture or practice with Yoga and Meditation in whole semester for one class is not sufficient. If we want more positive results, we must have to make it a regular practice. There is another problem of space, no doubt a well, furnished room cum hall is provided in which we have sufficient numbers of fans, tube lights, air-conditioner, sound system etc but when a class with more than forty students comes, the hall becomes suffocated. So, we also need a big hall with proper ventilation.