Sara Tiradossi/Winonan
Counseling and Wellness Services at Winona State University recently started a four-week program of seminars to help students deal with stress and anxiety.
Associate professor and counselor Eunie Alsaker and counseler Kateri Johnson are in charge of the program, that began Sept. 21 with a session on “Understanding Anxiety.”
“We’re now in the second week of the anxiety seminars. The purpose is to educate and teach students how to manage stress,” Alsaker said.
Alsaker said the seminars provide a lot of information and understanding in managing anxiety and the topics of discussion vary every week.
The first week discussions centered around what anxiety is, understanding of it, what it triggers, as well as what makes it better and worse, Alsaker said.
The second week was about calming the physical anxiety. The third week will focus on thoughts and the anxious mind, while the final week will discuss different behaviors that can help students fight anxiety.
Johnson manages said group seminars can benefit students in many ways.
“What is nice about the seminars is that students can connect with other students who also have anxiety or want to learn about it,” Johnson said.
Johnson said they deal with anxiety management in individual counseling too, but a group setting is different because students can connect with other students and learn how others do things differently.
“The group settings provide more education and the students feel more comfortable to share their experiences,” Alsaker said. “The sessions are meant to be an alternative to the individual classes.”
Alsaker said the feedback they receive is always very positive, and the results show in counseling because the students are able to talk about the things they are able to do now.
“They have acquired more skills and learned a lot in the end,” Alsaker said.
Alsaker said anxiety, stress and depression are the three biggest reasons students visit counseling services.
“Just on our campus, anxiety is the number one mental health concern. Nationwide, it used to be depression, but that has changed to anxiety,” Alsaker said. “One of the things I always say to students is that stress is a part of college and is not a bad thing necessarily. It is dangerous when there is a sense of overwhelming fears and physical symptoms that become hard to handle.”
Alsaker said there is not a single thing a person can do to manage anxiety because there are many pieces and components that belong to it.
But there are steps for managing it, she said.
“Some of the necessary pieces are managing the physical anxiety and anxious body, and finding different ways to change thoughts,” Alsaker said.
Johnson said people come in her office with different kinds of anxiety and need help on how to think differently about a situation that caused stress in their life.
“The mental piece is really big but also relaxing, sleeping, exercising your body and having healthy relationships come into place as well,” Johnson said. “A lot of students don’t take the time to relax and one of my top recommendations is to take thirty minutes every day to do something that makes us happy, whether it’s watching a TV show or having lunch with a friend.”
Alsaker said even in the working profession, it is important to take some time off for health every once in a while.
Besides the opportunity to manage stress anxiety, Counseling and Wellness Services have organized new seminars on how to manage with grief, starting the second week of October.
