Dr. Beth Cholette is both a registered yoga teacher and a licensed Clinical Psychologist. She has about 25 years of experience as a practicing psychologist and implements her therapeutic strategies in both of her practices.
In the fall of 2014, the Student Health and Counseling center began offering weekly yoga on campus. The program’s first director left in December 2014. Following that departure, a student-director who was a Healthguard and certified yoga teacher stepped into the role. She taught the class from spring 2015 up until 2016. Cholette stepped up to the position after completing her training in October 2015.
Cholette began leading the yoga sessions on campus in fall 2016 and has continued to do so for three years. She described her work and involvement through an email interview.
“I did start teaching the class because we needed someone after the student who was teaching, Allie, graduated,” Cholette said. “However, I was interested specifically because I enjoy teaching and because I see the skills that one can learn through yoga as very relevant to my practice as a psychologist.”
Cholette infuses the techniques and skills she has as a clinical psychologist into her work as a yoga instructor. She emphasizes the importance of having staff members present to model mechanisms for self-care.
“My yoga classes focus on the mind-body connection, including connecting the body with the breath. Participants (including students, faculty and staff) learn to become more aware of their own mind-body experiences,” Cholette said. “They learn how breath and movement can help them to ground and stabilize themselves. They learn how to pause and to allow themselves time to relax. They learn that self-care is important, and faculty/staff can model the importance of this for students.”
Aside from this method of meditation, she feels that it is essential that students give themselves time to relax, especially with such heavy workloads and overall difficult classes. She urges students to take time to find peace and to reconnect with themselves and believes the skills learned at yoga can be applied to improve the quality of life.
“I think that attending my yoga classes on campus (officially titled ‘Noontime Yoga Basics’) can be a helpful part of improving both physical and mental health,” Cholette said. “The things we learn in class are much more than just practicing physical yoga postures; they are tools for improving one’s everyday life.”
The attendance at these yoga sessions potentially reflects the abundance of students who are stressed. She remarked that attendance, while still on the smaller end, rose this year. More students are seeking out mindfulness strategies.
“Our attendance has been up this academic year, I think in part because we did an outdoor yoga for WOW in early September and had 63 [people] attend! The weekly classes vary with the smallest so far being five and the largest being 27; we’ve averaged about 10,” Cholette said. “I don’t keep records of whether the attendees are students, faculty, or staff, but I would estimate that we had more students this year, at least 50 percent, and many more new faces (although some participants have been attending for several years now).”
While she does believe that yoga and other meditation strategies are extremely beneficial for one’s health, Cholette also says that there are additional factors to handling stress which she considers on a more individual level as they pertain to physical, emotional and mental needs.
As a final note, Cholette said that the weekly yoga program is organized by Dana Minton, the Health Promotion Coordinator for Student Health and Counseling. Through Minton’s efforts, there is now meditation offered on Mondays as well.