Listen up and relax
Students get help calming down

Cameron Dexter | staff editor

Students prepare to start their relaxation with Dave Landers by laying down in the Canterbury great room. Cameron Dexter, photo

On Nov. 7, 24 St. Michael’s students stretched their bodies across the Canterbury Hall common room floor to release tension and relax to the soothing voice of  Dave Landers, an associate professor of psychology.

Landers started his relaxation sessions 25 years ago and says students need to lay down, relax and unplug from the stresses of busy college life.

“I think it gives the students permission, permission to spend a half an hour and just take care of themselves,” he says. “They get so busy with classes, exams, papers, relationships and we’re so turned on, so tuned in to cell phones, text messages, IM’s, e-mails."

Landers took a number of relaxation exercises and used a number of tests on a test group of students. Landers combined the multiple tests that the group said they found the most effective creating an original relaxation exercise. He did this 24 years ago and has been using it ever since.

Request the quiet

There is no schedule for the service, but Landers gets frequent requests throughout the school year, he says.

Landers says he receives requests from certain groups, organizations, athletic teams and even private sessions in townhouses before exams.   

“This is a gift to you, to take this half an hour and just be good to yourself,” he says.

The exercise lasts 30 minutes and takes the listener through a series of tension and relaxation motions that travel from the face all the way down to the feet, senior Colin Boyd says.

After the body is completely relaxed, Landers has each student pick a favorite place, asking each student to bring themselves into that space and be completely at peace in the moment.

He slowly brings the listeners back, Boyd says. It leaves some students so relaxed they fall asleep.

“I was so relaxed I passed right out,” he says, “I just went with it, it was great.”

Boyd says that there is a lot of stress that affects students at college and he enjoys trying new things to relax and take the stress off.

On top of relaxing, Boyd encourages students to de-stress with yoga, tea and hitting fresh powder in the winter time, he says.

Senior Jim Deluca wakes up after a calming thirty minutes. Cameron Dexter, photo

Slowing down the pulse

Landers has students take their pulse before the exercise to compare pulse levels at the beginning of the exercise with the level of their pulse at the end.

“We had one student’s pulse go down 13 points, “ Landers says. “They were stunned by how much their pulses were cut down."

CDs of Landers exercise used to be available on campus so students could use the CD and relax any time they want, but there haven't been many requests for them recently.

However, Landers says that this sort of relaxation can be achieved at any point. He says students should just focus on taking deep breaths and remember that relaxing place they pictured during the exercise, close their eyes and go there.

“We have more control over our bodies then we realize,” he says.

As far as he knows he’s the only person on campus who provides this service and will provide it for anyone who requests it, Landers says.

St. Michael’s faculty has never requested the service, Landers says.

“I think it would be good for the faculty,” says junior Kerry Kirkwood, who attended the event. “I have been getting so much homework, maybe they are the ones who should try this out.”

Kirkwood heard about it from a friend who attended a session earlier this year, she says.

“My friend told me I had to go because she said she was so calmed down afterwards," she says.  “I didn't really believe her, but once I lay down and Dave started talking I already started to feel more at ease.”