Students are excited as they set out into the world, often leaving home for the first time. At last they have some freedom and can spread their wings, making new friendships and embracing the challenges that in-depth study of their chosen subject brings.
 
It is exciting. The adrenaline which accompanies excitement is similar to that which comes from extreme sports. Athletes feel it at the start of a sprint. Actors feel it as the curtain opens on a play. Most students feel it at the start of an exam. Top executives feel it as they prepare for a big presentation. This kind of stress is quite healthy and fires us up for peak performance. But if the challenges rise in intensity and persist, then the 'Stress Response' remains 'switched on' which causes adrenaline levels to remain dangerously high. This is often known as Toxic Stress.

When that happens, in addition to this damaging the blood-vessels and the heart, it affects the brain. The Stress-Response prepares us to escape life-threatening danger. It is the Fight, Flight and Freeze response. The heart beats fast. The blood vessels in our muscles dilate, ready for instant action - and all the parts of the brain that are not needed for survival shut down.  It is impossible to learn,  calculate or remember anything when we are highly stressed. This can cause students serious problems when it comes to revision and exams. Toxic Stress is dangerous not only because it harms our physical health but also for the way it can harm our mental and emotional wellbeing.

Most students suffer from Toxic Stress from time to time, but recover quite quickly, However some students find exams incredibly stressful. DurgaMata had personal experience of this both at school and University, but was able to re-take exams she failed in school and struggle through all her assignments at University - gaining a lot of experience and insight into stress at the same time.  This came in very  handy when she graduated and trained as a teacher, enabling her to enjoy her chosen career and not be crushed by the stresses of the classroom.

The problem is that everyone is different but the education system requires everyone to follow the same process. As a result, every year, Toxic Stress causes thousands of students in particular to suffer from physical and mental illness. It can even lead to suicide. Since stress often affects International Students and those from a different cultural background, more than others, our focus is to recognise their unique needs and while we are happy to work with everyone, we have a particular concern for and experience in supporting them. 

Reduce Stress and Build Resilience
For Inner Peace and Happiness

DurgaMata is an accredited Mindfulness Coach with over 40 years of personal practise  in both  Mindfulness and Meditation. As a teacher and specialist in both Religious Education and Art, she loved her 30 years experience both in school and at College. However it also gave her insight into the kind of stresses that our education system creates. She says that in her view, schools and colleges are stress-factories and cause both physical and mental ill-health for staff and students alike.

DurgaMata met her husband, an Indian International Student, when they were both studying in Birmingham University. This sparked her interest in and concern for the particular stressors that tend to impact International Students. These can include high parental expectations and fear of letting them down, homesickness and loneliness. Another common source of stress comes from emerging relationships, especially if the student is struggling to come to terms with a gender identity that doesn't sit comfortably with their culture.

DurgaMata is passionate about working in person, one to one with clients, following a Mindfulness-Based structure and her 'Seven Steps' framework but shaping the weekly activities around the students' own particular goals and challenges. She helps her clients to identify and overcome subconscious negative habits which can  manifest as automatic negative thoughts, critical self-talk, unhelpful mindset, limiting beliefs and energy blocks often originate in childhood trauma. A unique mixture of these may be contributing to the stress that a student is suffering from, making them ill and preventing them from achieving their full potential.

In her coaching, DurgaMata often uses techniques pioneered by experts, including Dr Gabor Maté's Compassionate Inquiry and Dr Daniel Amen's 'One Page Miracle.' The main way in which our coaching is different from others is that we offer daily accountability support as you practise new healthy habits ensuring success. 

What you can look forward to
when you choose to work with DurgaMata

Mindfulness-Based Happiness Coaching has been developed specifically to support students who are struggling with academic stress and 'reactive' depression. Reactive depression is the result of something serious happening in our lives which 'throws us.'  

The following outline of The Stress Response is also found in my books 
The Seven Steps to Happiness and Happiness and Mindfulness.

Stress and how it affects our body

At every moment, there are countless activities going on inside our body, which are essential for life. We don't have to think about these automatic activities consciously. Our heart beats, our food digests we breathe in and out without giving these things a thought. These activities are governed by the Autonomic Nervous System. Within the autonomic nervous system there are two competing processes - one for action and one for rest. These balance each other to provide us with just the right internal conditions for our body to flourish and thrive.

The Sympathetic Nervous System is all about Action.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System is all about Rest, Digest and Repair.

You may have heard about the Vagus Nerve which is active in the Parasympathetic Nervous System. Vagus means 'wandering' because this is the longest nerve in our body and connects the brain to all the other internal organs. 

When it comes to our breath, it has a special quality in that we can, to a limited extent, choose to observe and direct our breath. In this culture we sit a lot and tend to breathe in a shallow way, using only our chest. Get into the habit of checking your posture and your breathing. Ideally get into the habit of Diaphragmatic or 'Belly' Breathing when your whole abdomen cavity is included in the process of breathing as well as your chest. With this kind of full breathing, you will notice that your tummy expands as well as your chest, when you inhale, because you are using the diaphragm. 

Now think of what happens if we get an unexpected shock or suddenly find ourselves in danger. 

How do we breathe at that time? We inhale sharply. The Sympathetic Nervous System jumps into action, preparing us to escape from the danger using the Fight, Flight and Freeze response, often called the Stress Response. The hormone adrenaline is released and causes our heart to beat faster and the blood-vessels to our muscles to expand. It also closes down anything that is not required for our survival.
And if the danger has passed and everything is alright, we respond with a big 'sigh of relief.' 

Toxic Stress
This Fight, Flight and Freeze response works well if the danger is physical, needing us to to take urgent action, but in our society today, many of the stressors are frequent but not physical, so the stress response can get switched on for most of the time with very little time to recover or repair. This causes many chronic illnesses including anxiety attacks, burnout, strokes and heart-attacks. This over-active Sympathetic Nervous System is known as Chronic or Toxic Stress and it can affect us all. But we can learn how to manage the autonomic nervous system and that starts with conscious breathing. Our inhale is linked to the stress-response.

The exhale is linked to the parasympathetic nervous system and when we exhale more slowly than we inhale, we stimulate the vagus nerve and 'turn down the volume' of the stress, while strengthening the parasympathetic nervous system and resetting the autonomic nervous system to rest, digest and repair.

Just reflect on what your habit is in the morning. Do you wake up with the sound of an alarm, and start worrying about something that happened yesterday or something difficult that you need to work on today? In my Coaching, the first exercise which I recommend is Conscious Breathing.
As soon as you wake up in the morning, take your attention to the breath. Simply observe it for a few moments, and then spend a minute or two practising rhythmic breathing, making the exhale twice as long as the inhale. The difference this can make to your day is phenomenal.

Poor breathing and too much sitting around, causes much of the tension we can feel in our neck, shoulders and back. When you are studying, try to develop the habit of getting up and walking about for a few minutes every hour.

Mindfulness practise has been shown to be one of the most important and effective strategies for reducing stress and depression. There are two important 'wings' to the 'Mindfulness-Bird.'
Firstly, in Mindfulness we take our attention to where we are and what we are doing, thinking and feeling 'in this moment.'

Secondly we bring our attention to ourselves with an attitude of loving kindness and compassion. We observe ourselves with a detached but kindly self-awareness. We accept, explore and love  ourselves just as we are, at this moment in time, warts and all. There is no criticism or judgement in Mindfulness.

Mental and Emotional progress and healing come from self-awareness, clarity and honesty, 

Forest Bathing

In the 1980's Japan was expanding its economy fast and found that many young people were working so intensely that they were dropping dead from toxic stress. The government commissioned some important research to find out what was the most effective way to reduce toxic stress. They found that when we spend time in any natural environment, our stress reduces dramatically but the strongest reduction comes when we spend relaxed time around trees. They call it Shin-rin Yoku and this translates as Forest Bathing. In addition to the way our neocortex relaxes in a wooded environment, improving our creativity and ability to concentrate, we also benefit physically because trees emit special oils which protect them from infection. When we breathe in these 'phytocytins' they boost our immune system and this benefit lasts for days. I would like to encourage everyone, especially students, to spend a few hours around trees each week.

You can read or eat or sleep or daydream, do some observational drawing to bring the mind into the present moment and discipline it to improve hand-eye co-ordination - do whatever you enjoy most - but aim to be around the trees for at least an hour if you can. 

Reduce Stress, Build Resilience:
For Inner Peace and Happiness