Meditation Before Medication

How College Campuses are Using Meditation and Mindfulness to Tackle A Nationwide Mental Health Crisis

College is often seen as a time of exploration, freedom, and fun. It is also the most common time for the budding of a mental illness to bloom, as 75 percent of lifetime mental health cases start by age 24, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The group meets in front of the clock tower, warmly greeting one another as they set up for their weekly meditation session. Each member brings a heap of blankets and towels, hoping to combat the crisp March weather.

Spring Break has officially commenced, leading to an unusually small turnout with only seven present. But with over 300 members on its Facebook page, the UNCW Meditation Club has continued to grow in popularity on campus since its start in 2015.

As the members settle in, a few give a brief testimony about their experience with meditation. For Avery Ferebee, president of the club, meditating has been a part of her life since middle school.

“I went to a Quaker middle school,” she says. “Every day, there would be an existential question for everyone to think about or meditate on. You would just sit in emptiness and speak out of the silence, so that was my understanding of finding insight and guidance through meditation."

But it was not until a mysterious illnesses took control of her life that she understood the power and solace of meditation.

Members of UNCW's meditation club practice group meditation on a cool, March afternoon. Avery pictured far right.

Avery was in her freshman year at North Carolina State University when she first experienced intense insomnia and no one, including doctors, knew why. Frustrated and tired of sleepless nights, Avery made the decision to withdraw, take a medical leave, and come home to Wilmington, North Carolina where she eventually enrolled at UNCW. But the mysterious sickness persisted. Insomnia became a routine part of her life.

Four day stints of sleeplessness became normal. The lack of sleep brought on depressive thoughts, anxious feelings, and mood swings. She craved relief.

“I was going to a lot of different therapists,” said Avery. “I got diagnosed with everything.”

Everything meaning depression, anxiety, and bi-polar disorder. Her condition came to a head when one night Avery found herself in the hospital, forced to take a chemical cocktail of five different psychiatric medications including prescriptions for anti-anxiety, anti-depression, sleep, and mood stabilization. Unimpressed with the treatment she received, Avery sought out a neurologist for answers. Answers she was not expecting.

A blood test revealed Avery had contracted heavy metal poisoning from her drinking water. She had been living with a misdiagnosis with whole time. Heavy metal poisoning is the accumulation of heavy metals, in toxic amounts, in the soft tissues of the body, according to the National Organization for Rare Diseases. Insomnia and depression are just two of an endless list of symptoms caused by heavy metal toxicity.

The diagnosis finally explained the symptoms that had confused doctors for so long. The sleepless nights, pain, and mental distress were all side effects stemming from an accumulation of arsenic, thallium, mercury, and copper. Doctors explained that a mutation in Avery’s genes made her susceptible to the toxicity of the metals.

“Doctors think my body wasn’t producing enough glutathione- the antioxidant that detoxes heavy metals from the body- due to inadequate folate absorption, as a result of a mutation of the MTHFR gene," Avery explained.

If Avery’s body had produced glutathione normally, then the heavy metals commonly found in drinking water would have been filtered out. Instead, they went directly into Avery’s bloodstream. After the official diagnosis, Avery moved forward with treatment and slowly got better. But recognized that she was no longer the same. This time, though, in a good way. The sickness, while temporarily debilitating, had freed her in way that she may not have found otherwise. Avery began meditating while in the hospital, and by doing so, learned that the pills were only a temporary fix for mental clarity.

“I found my own inner-balance through that journey,” she said. “Listening to your inner dialogue creates self-realization. When you’re able to tune into that consciousness, it seems like nothing else matters.”

She now regards that time as the most important year of her life: the year she found the power of meditation.

“It was completely unnecessary and dangerous to prescribe all of those [medications] together. As soon as I came home, I stopped taking them,” said Avery. “And I’m so glad I did. I could have gotten lost in that world.”

While dangerous and sometimes life-threatening, heavy metal poisoning is not common. In fact, it is considered to be one of America’s only 7,000 rare diseases, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). By these standards, cases like Avery’s occur few and far between. But cases of mental health disorders among the same generation are far more prevalent.

Avery turned her new-found knowledge into a way to change the lives of others who may have similar experience or testimonies regarding mental illness by helping to start UNCW’s meditation club in 2015.

As an administrator of the group, Avery takes the lead during the meditation session. Her blonde, grown-out pixie cut flows effortlessly as she reaches for the ‘talking stick,’ a long, decorative silver straw. An item she used to sip tea seconds earlier now symbolizes control.

The talking stick, Avery explains, is an essential part of the group consciousness exercise to follow.

“When you have the talking stick, you can choose to be silent or share your inner voice,” Avery’s light, melodic voice instructed the group. “What you’re going to do is guide your own meditation. Say whatever comes to you; that is your piece to contribute,” she explained.

In what is now being recognized as a mental health crisis, college counseling centers across the nation are seeing a record increase in the amount of students suffering from a mental health disorder. From 2015 to 2016, students seeking mental health support increased by 50 percent, according to a study by the Penn State University Center for Collegiate Mental Health that collected data from 139 institutions during the 2015-2016 academic year.

UNCW is no exception to this trend. With enrollment increasing at the University, so is the number of students seeking counseling services.

“Clinically, we see anywhere from 8-10% of our student body,” said Dr. Rebecca Rampe, a staff psychologist and outreach coordinator at UNCW’s counseling center. With a student population of roughly 16,000 students, that is about 1,280 to 1,600 students seeking counseling through UNCW."

College is often seen as a time of exploration, freedom, and fun. It is also the most common time for the budding of a mental illness to bloom, as 75 percent of lifetime mental health cases start by age 24, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And like Avery, students and counseling centers at universities across the nation are turning to meditation and mindfulness as an alternative to medication to combat mental illnesses.

“Ninety percent of people who are on medication now do not need to be on it,” said Dr. Rampe.

And studies show ditching the drugs may be a move in the right direction. Meditation can help alleviate distress which stems from these mental health disorders just as much or better than antidepressants, revealed a study by Oxford University.

“It’s important to take care of your mind the same way a lot of people naturally take care of their body.”

This growing trend comes at a time where more than 25 percent of college students have been diagnosed or treated by a professional for a mental health condition within the past year, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And those are just the diagnosed cases. An estimated one in four young adults between the ages of 18 to 24 have a diagnosable mental illness.

“There’s a lot of things we don’t do as a culture,” Dr. Rampe explained. “Like looking for vitamin deficiency, hormone testing or imbalances. To holistically look at somebody there is a lot that should be looked at before we go straight to medication.”

Avery passes the talking stick to Caroline, a girl with thick blonde dreadlocks, wearing an over-sized grey sweater and green capris. For a while, she holds on to the stick, but eventually begins wavering back and forth while humming the melody to some undecipherable tune. After a few minutes of the same motions, she speaks.

“Listen to sounds of the water, the sounds we make. The sounds the wind makes. Feel the spirit that allows you to be alive.” She pauses to laugh. “It’s so wonderful. No matter what, you always have your breath.”

Another member Kaitlyn, a student with piercing black eyes and a buzz cut, takes the opportunity to speak out of the silence.

“When I’m meditating I like to repeat affirmations to myself,” she says, diving in to her dialogue. “Self, you are here. Self, you are strong. Self, you are deserving of all this good the world has to offer. Self, we are here.”

The loud repetitions of the clock tower drown out the rest of Kaitlyn’s words. Following the group exercise, Avery asks everyone to focus on individual meditation.

The circle breaks apart, as a few members rise up and walk further away from the group. Some others stretch out on the grass, lying in utter silence. Caroline rises and shifts into complex yoga stretches. The melody she was previously humming returns.

The mediation club offers group meditation sessions like these weekly, open to all practitioners, identities, and walks of life, according to their website. But this handful of students is not the only group bringing meditation onto campus. Faculty and staff are also looking at mindful ways to tackle the rising wave of anxiety and depression amongst college students.

The counseling center has created several mental health programs that involve mindfulness-based techniques. One of the oldest is In-Harmony, a weekly drop-in meditation session designed to help increase focus, reduce stress, create good feelings and energy, according to their website. The center also hosts Breathe, a six week mindfulness-based stress reduction program.

“All of this came about in seeing a need for alternative ways of managing things,” said Rampe. “It’s important to take care of your mind the same way a lot of people naturally take care of their body.”

But for some students on campus, practicing mindfulness is integrated into the curriculum. Each week, the Watson College of Education hosts Mindfulness Mondays where students and staff gather on the second floor lounge to enjoy five minutes of meditation before returning to their work.

UNCW’s Fisher Student Center, known for student resources like Lumina Theatre and the Information Center, recently added its own mindfulness space. Located on the first floor, the Sunset Beach Room can now be reserved specifically for individuals and groups looking to practice meditation. Student-led classes in yoga and meditation can also be taken for free through UNCW’s student recreation center virtually any night of the week.

After students brought forth the need for a meditative space on campus, the Fisher Student Center turned Sunset Beach Room into an individual and group meditation area.

Desperate to find a sense of comfort and identity, he turned to psychedelics for answers. The psychedelics were powerful; they provided the forced introspection he was searching for. But the trips were unpredictable.

Meditation, and the surrounding culture, has undeniably made a name for itself across college campuses, and locally, at UNCW. But meditating is much more than a quiet room and a comfy yoga mat- at the root of it all is neuroscience. The breathing practices in mindfulness mediation promote alpha wave brain states- the same states that are produced when the body is calm and before the body enters into sleep. Alpha wave brain states are involved in a lot of the para-sympathetic nervous system responses like rest and digestion.

“It’s that home feeling,” said Leo Ward, a UNCW psychology and neuroscience student who is also part of the meditation club.

“With the breath, you're training a sense of where that particular brain wave is and then finding the ability to bring it back to that place over and over again- it strengthens the muscle of attention in the way doing a bicep curl would strengthen the bicep.”

Leo was not always so avid about meditation and its benefits. For years, he lived a life controlled by anxiety and depression. His deep sense of wonder about the world led him to face deep, existential crises.

Desperate to find a sense of comfort and identity, he turned to psychedelics for answers. The psychedelics were powerful; they provided the forced introspection he was searching for. But the trips were unpredictable.

“They can give you just as much euphoria as they can dysphoria,” he explained.

Users of psychedelics often report an experience of ego death, or the complete loss of one’s subjective identity. This is because psychedelic usage can create feelings of interconnectedness and unity with the world, silencing existential dread. In turn, scientists believe psychedelic use may also decrease depression and anxiety, according to a recent study. For Leo, this claim rang true. But the risks were too high.

From there, he switched to meditation, and with practice, found it to bring about the same effects of ego loss and forced confrontation- this time, only naturally. He now credits the meditation club, and people like Avery, for changing his life around.

“It was a complete 180,” he admitted, speaking on his life prior to meditation. “The meditation didn’t start changing me until I was here at UNCW,” he said. “And it was a direct result of belonging, of the community. I quickly realized that there was a group of people which was already embodying all of the qualities I saw in myself.”

By now, roughly an hour has passed, and the remaining energy in the group has significantly dwindled. Individuals begin to break out of their meditative state and pack up their belongings. After a few minutes of hugs and laughter, the group leaves behind their peaceful haven, and walks slowly into the setting sun.

While the meditating for the week may be over, the future of mindfulness at UNCW looks bright. UNCW is looking to implement an inter-disciplinary yoga minor. Details are scarce, but it is looking to make its appearance in the fall of 2019, according to Lindsey Nanney, UNCW’s Physical Activity and Wellness program coordinator.

And as Avery enters into her last year at UNCW, she knows her connection with meditation is not going anywhere. For her, the time with the club is but one small footprint in the journey that is to come. She plans to create a career devoted to educating others on the benefits that a living a life of mindfulness can bring.

“Your body is much more resilient than you think,” she said, reminiscent of her own past struggles. “It just takes positive energy.”