Meditation Sessions Help Students De-Stress
April 24, 2008 -- With studies showing that lawyers suffer higher rates of depression than other professionals, USF is part of a growing trend among law schools to help students learn to cope with stress and pressure as they learn the ins and outs of the law.This effort to humanize legal education and provide law students with techniques for effectively managing their stress has manifested in weekly guided "mindfulness meditation" sessions at the USF School of Law. The one-hour sessions are led by a faculty member and take place in the television room of the Zief Law Library Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m. The students that meet practice a simple form of insight meditation, in which they are encouraged to focus on breathing, clear their minds, and relax their bodies.
"A fair amount of scientific research demonstrates that contemplative practices are good for people's health," said Professor Tim Iglesias, who organized the meditation series with Professor Rhonda Magee and Adjunct Professor Judi Cohen. "Law school is stressful, and to some extent it certainly needs to be that way. But there is a growing recognition within the legal community that legal education and law practice have become unnecessarily stressful, which results in substance abuse and troubled personal lives, among other issues."
The hope is that teaching students to release stress and lead balanced lives will help them "be better lawyers than the person who is overly stressed, not centered, and, as a result, engages in destructive behavior," Iglesias said.
The meditation sessions grew out of discussions among the law school's Ad Hoc Committee on Contemplative Practice in Law, made up of Iglesias, Magee, Cohen, and Professor Josh Rosenburg, who teaches a course on interpersonal dynamics for lawyers. The committee, which works under the umbrella of the Center for Law and Ethics, brought Charles Halpern to speak campus last semester. Halpern is a scholar in residence at Boalt Hall School of Law and chair of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, a nonprofit group that works to integrate contemplative awareness and contemporary life to help create a more just, compassionate, and reflective society.
In addition to the Wednesday guided meditations, the television room in Zief Law Library is reserved for unguided meditation on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
