As the Westover community continues to navigate the complications arising from the ongoing pandemic, the School’s Wellness Center remains a reliable and constant resource for students seeking to maintain a sense of balance in an admittedly topsy-turvy world.

As the School’s Director of Counseling and Student Support, Alexandra McKnight, MSW, LCSW is making sure the Wellness Center is there to provide for the needs of students through individual counseling, weekly wellness groups, and opportunities for community-wide programs that address the unique circumstances and emotional challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are getting to a point of fatigue at this stage of the pandemic,” Alexandra said. “Our students are trying to hold on to being the kind of students they have always been.”

As faculty have adjusted course workloads in response to the School’s hybrid and virtual learning environments, Alexandra noted, some students still put pressure on themselves to be as productive as they had been under normal conditions.

“Some of our students are navigating this well,” Alexandra noted. “They are learning new things about themselves. They are starting to find creative solutions on how to operate under the circumstances.” Other students, she added, are taking more opportunities “to talk about their problems and are reaching out for more help.”

That assistance can come in various forms.

“We have been continuing to offer one-on-one sessions with students in Connecticut,” Alexandra said.

For those students who reside outside of the state who would like individual counseling, Alexandra has also served as a bridge for families seeking support services through resources in their own communities.

Since the school year began, Alexandra also has been hosting “Wellness Wednesdays” during the lunch break, offering virtual gatherings when small groups of students can meet online to talk about common concerns and hear about healthful techniques to address sources of stress.

Alexandra also has arranged for a series of wellness programs this fall for students, faculty, and staff during the weekly Community Times held on Wednesday mornings. Earlier this fall, she led the first session, which focused on stress and anxiety.

Finding Ways To Manage Stress

On November 11, Alexandra arranged for a guest speaker during that day’s Community Time: Dr. Peg Oliveira, who serves as the Executive Director of the Gesell Program in Early Childhood at Yale Child Study Center.

In Oliveira’s presentation — entitled “Becoming a Human Being, Not a Human Doing” — she shared insights into how the human brain is wired to respond to different sets of circumstances. In addition, she led the virtual Westover community through several exercises designed to reduce stress and allow individuals to attain a state of mindfulness, even in the midst of stressful conditions created by the current pandemic.

After inviting participants to share some of the emotions they are currently experiencing, Oliveira assured them that those they were describing —such as anxiety and exhaustion — are being reported by students around the United States. “You are not alone,” she told the Westover students. “Surveys of students in all kinds of schools are reporting the same reactions to the pandemic. It is very, very hard — if not impossible — to stay calm.”

Oliveira said there are ways that all of us can practice mindfulness, which she described as “a tool to work on some of the levers in our brains to mitigate some of the sources of stress.” By identifying times when they find balance and calm, they can recall those experiences and help alleviate their stress.

“What can I do to feel a little better,” she explained, “is to slow down my reaction to what is happening, and create a little more space between the thing that is happening and my response to it.” Tapping into these moments of mindfulness, she added, “don’t change the fact that life right now is chaotic, they don’t take away the stress, but they can give you the tools and alter your perception on how to face the stress.”

The brain is really good at freaking out. Mindfulness asks us to come back to now.

Oliveira noted that scientists have found there are three key parts of the brain that affect how we respond to circumstances that cause stress. The brain stem – often called the back brain — controls our reactions to immediate danger —as when our hand touches a hot pan and we instantly pull it away. The so-called middle brain is the center of our emotions and our memories. A third area of the brain — the prefrontal cortex or front brain — is “the part of the brain that makes us most human,” Oliveira said, and gives us our ability to solve problems and how to connect and collaborate with others.

Oliveira explained that when we find ourselves in situations that are constantly inducing stress — such as the pandemic — “the back brain gets really bossy and gets accustomed to being in charge.”

When we are able to use the front brain to engage in practices, such as breathing exercises, that allow us to take a step back and calm the back brain, Oliveira said, “It’s a way to stop and reboot, just like a computer. We want to be able to put some space between the thing that is happening and how we respond to it.”

Such practices of self-care, Oliveira added, “is not selfish. It is the way that we as individuals allow ourselves to be contributing members in our community. The first step is to take care of ourselves so we can then take care of each other.”

On Wednesday, December 16, during that morning’s Community Time, the Wellness Center will host a presentation by Kelvin Young, a certified Sound Healer and Community Health Worker from InterCommunity HealthCare in Hartford.