![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2023\/11\/042623_Study-Day-Wellness_Yoga_11.jpg\")
Students take part in a yoga class during the Study Day Wellness Activities in April 2023.<\/p><\/div>\n
Knowing this, Furman administrators, faculty and student leaders make sure that students have access to a host of well-being resources during peak pressure times.<\/p>\n
The Writing Marathon on Nov. 15 in the James B. Duke Library was \u201ca way for students to work on their end-of-year assignments in a calm space,\u201d said Emme Edwards \u201924, a psychology and anthropology double major and the president of the Paladin Peer Support<\/a> student group.<\/p>\n \u201cThe room was filled with bean bag chairs and snacks to encourage students to come work together,\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n As they will during the next Writing Marathon on Dec. 4, Paladin Peer Support members brought snacks and encouraged their classmates to take an occasional break.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that we are coming up on exams, it feels like we barely have time to take care of our bodies in a way that is necessary to succeed on finals,\u201d said Edwards. \u201cI cannot over-stress the importance of taking breaks, no matter how short they are, while studying to allow your brain and body to breathe and build itself back up.\u201d<\/p>\n On Dec. 5, the last day of classes for Fall 2023, students can take a break in the Trone Student Center and build their own stuffed animal as a \u201cstudy buddy.\u201d The center also plans to host therapy dogs and provide 10-minute chair massages, said Gwen Hirko, health promotions coordinator for the Office of Student Life.<\/p>\n Student stress amps up at the end of the spring semester, and the university responds accordingly. In April 2023, programs included Yoga by the Lake led by Kelly Frazier, a lecturer of health sciences, and a mindfulness session led by Slining.<\/p>\n Furman has also demonstrated a year-round institutional commitment to students\u2019 mental resilience, said Slining, including the innovative counseling services<\/a> at the Trone Center for Mental Fitness. A $10 million gift from David \u201977 and June Trone funded the center\u2019s renovation and expansion of mental health care for students, adapting to their needs throughout the year, said Allyson Brathwaite-Gardner, the center\u2019s associate director.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of every semester, we conclude regularly scheduled appointments and open the center for a two-week same-day clinic that runs 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays,\u201d she said. \u201cThe purpose of the clinic is to offer the widest possible access to students who are experiencing distress \u2013 perhaps related to wrapping up their academic obligations, personal stressors \u2013 or those who have been putting off a counseling appointment all semester.\u201d<\/p>\n The walk-in clinic runs this year from Nov. 29 to Dec. 13, the last day of exams. In off hours, Furman makes mental health care available through the online TAO Tools<\/a> self-help platform and other\u00a0support services<\/a>, including a support hotline (864-294-3031, #3).<\/p>\n Students are also introduced to mental fitness in the Pathways Program, and stress management became an official part of the university\u2019s curriculum last year with the introduction of Mindfulness for Stress Reduction and Wellness, in 2022.<\/p>\n Slining and Scott Murr, an associate professor of health sciences, launched the class as a general education requirement option. Students learn the benefits of meditation, yoga and other mindful activities, said Slining, who has also helped lead free sessions in the Koru mindfulness program<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re acknowledging that students are whole human beings,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile our classrooms are known to be a challenging setting, we have all these supports around students. I think Furman does a really nice job.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A year-round commitment to mental resilience is enhanced during exams and other high-stress times with study breaks, mindfulness practices, mini-massages, snacks and dogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":29164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,88,21,48,94,27,30,2384],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anthropology","category-cothran-center-for-vocational-reflection","category-health-sciences","category-psychology","category-public-health","category-student-life","category-top-stories","category-trone-center-for-mental-fitness"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2023\/11\/Between-Session-Resources-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"