Hello everyone,

in this website you will find a 7-week path to take care of our well-being.

We will move from thinking to feeling, nourishing our awareness, concentration and intuition through body practices of listening and deep relaxation based on the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

The course was created as part of the StudentWell project, which aims to develop well-being and regeneration in the university environment.

It is aimed at students to provide ways to develop and maintain physical and mental well-being.

The StudentWell project was funded by EUniWell (European University for Well-being) which is a European project in which more than 10 European universities participate.

Four European universities participated in the StudentWell project (which stands for Student Well-being): Birmingham University in England, Linnaeus University in Sweden, Semmeweiss University in Hungary and the University of Florence.

The project proposed four ways to take care of students’ well-being: the Alexander Method, Autogenous Training, Forest bathing, and in Florence we brought a mind-body awareness path.

On this web site, it is possible to use the same path carried out at the University of Florence, either in the e-learning version, which exactly reproduces the meetings held in the classroom, or by navigating more freely among the proposed contents.

The approach of the course is experiential and is characterised by facilitating the passage “from thinking to feeling”.

It aims to develop awareness, concentration and intuition through practices on the body of listening and deep relaxation. Exercises are proposed that can be carried out in daily life “in the small”, i.e. with the characteristic of being “simple” and effortless to perform.

In each meeting, only one topic is presented to be practised in the following week.

The meetings cover the following topics:

• the closed body and the open body;

• the rootedness and posture;

• the breath;

• haste and ease (stress, anxiety and restlessness);

• the food of the body

• the food of the mind;

• finally, we learn to stay with strong emotions, how to breathe in painful emotion.

The course is structured in two parts.

The first “The inhabited body” aims to move from thinking to feeling.

It involves breathing, posture, rootedness, opening and closing the body.

We focus on refining the ability to feel, inhabit and listen to the body and sensations.

We practise exercises of opening and closing, of rootedness that guide us to identify a posture that facilitates breathing, deep listening and the emergence of greater sensitivity.

The second part of the course is 4 weeks and aims to develop awareness, concentration, deep listening and intuition to face the challenges of daily life.

We will learn to stay in difficult situations when we experience strong emotions, e.g. related to fears, anxiety, stress and restlessness.

After the first three weeks we will then have developed a greater sensitivity to

listen to ourselves and concentrate, and we will be able to cope better with the difficult emotions that we can experience in everyday life.

In summary, some elements of the course are:

• how to inhabit the body;

• how to learn to introduce simple practices to support us in everyday life;

• how to learn to listen to ourselves and enjoy of silent rest;

• how to loosen, strengthen and open the body and mind.

Enjoy the journey.