Wellness Center offers free mindfulness meditation class April 17

"Stress Less at Lunch" with meditation and gentle relaxation movement will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, April 17, in the Luann Dummer Center for Women, Room 103, O'Shaughnessy Educational Center.

Are you becoming anxious and overwhelmed as the semester draws to an end? Learn to use the breath as a stress-reduction tool, while enhancing focus and concentration and reducing distraction. This one-hour session will help you to feel physically, emotionally and intellectually rejuvenated and give you tools to keep the practice going. If you've been curious about the meditation classes on campus, now is your chance to check them out for free.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of cultivating nonjudgmental awareness in day-to-day life. It develops the potential to experience each moment, no matter how difficult or intense, with greater serenity and clarity. Mindfulness meditation helps restore and maintain a sense of personal balance and develops the skills to avoid emotional, physical and professional burnout.

Over the past 35 years, scientists have concluded that mindfulness meditation can benefit health issues such as: stress, depression, fatigue, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, headaches, fear and anxiety, chronic pain and illnesses, and GI distress.

The facilitator, Barbara Wulf, received her professional training in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center's Center for Mindfulness. She facilitates classes and workshops in the Twin Cities business community and at the University of St. Thomas. She also has taught at the University of Minnesota. She has been practicing Iyengar yoga since 1986 and meditation since 1998.

This event is sponsored by the Wellness Center.