Student Counseling

• Facts at a Glance
• Who Needs HeartMath Research-Based Programs?
• How HeartMath Can Facilitate Student Counselors
• IHM Articles and Research Related to Student Counseling
• Products and Programs to Support Student Counselors
• Testimonials from Student Counselors
• Funding Tips for Educators

When a student engages with a counselor, it is a very special bond, a unique and safe way for the student to relate and receive support. Counselors are trained to listen and treat students with respect and care. It is a special brand of caring in which the counselor employs objective wisdom and gives the student an opportunity to mature and build self-esteem. Counselors help students understand and care for themselves in self-directed ways that students feel are appropriate for their needs. Counselors may come into and go out of students’ lives at various times in their academic careers, but always having their support available adds a valuable dimension to their learning, emotional well-being and maturation.

Student counselors work with students in a variety of settings and help them cope with an array of concerns, including their academic, social and family lives. These professionals may be licensed psychologists, marriage and family counselors or educators specifically credentialed to work with students. They work in elementary, middle and high schools, counseling centers at institutions of higher learning and private clinical practices.

Who Needs HeartMath Research-Based Programs?

• Counselors who work with students in elementary, middle, or high school settings
• Counselors who work with students in student counseling centers at colleges and universities
• Counselors who work with students in private clinical practices

How HeartMath Can Facilitate Student Counselors

Researchers with the Institute of HeartMath have established that a direct link exists between a student’s ability to self-manage emotions and his or her academic performance. The student who becomes more self-aware and socially and emotionally competent typically has greater enthusiasm and confidence in the ability to learn. This is the student who tends to try harder, is able to self-motivate, set goals, organize effective and efficient approaches to study and perform better.

Student counselors daily see firsthand what researchers have found to be a key impediment to academic success: the cumulative emotional stress from issues such as performance anxiety, peer pressure, overwhelm, depression, boredom, etc., increases the blocks and resistance to learning and test-taking. These pressures erode self-motivation and stifle the desire to learn because attention is focused on personal problems, which often feel more pressing than the need to focus on academics.

HeartMath’s scientifically based programs and products address emotional self-management issues with proven tools and techniques that can help reduce emotional distress, establish balance and promote maturity and success in all aspects of life – in the moment and for the future.

IHM Research Publications and Articles Related to Student Counseling

• The Savannah College of Art and Design Center for Student Counseling and Disability Services offers students a unique opportunity to decrease their stress levels by using the emWave PC/Mac Stress Relief System (referred to as the Freeze-Framer in the article) Read the 2007 article, titled Counseling Center Offers Biofeedback to Help Decrease Stress, in The Chronicle, Savannah College’s online publication.
• The Effect of Forgiveness Training on Psychosocial Factors in College Age Adults: (Study in progress.) Dissertation, Counseling Psychology by Frederic Luskin, MFCC, Ph.D., Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
  
  Key findings: A six-hour program integrating HeartMath techniques was effective in decreasing trait anger, improving psychosocial functioning and increasing the tendency to use forgiveness as a problem-solving strategy in college-aged students. Read more.
• (The following story is from the University Star newspaper of Texas State University, San Marcos.)
  
  Biofeedback participants learn to 'manage their emotional response to stress’
  

  By Ashley Wilrich
  March 2007

  
  Midterms, paying for tuition and achieving the perfect GPA can cause college students one huge problem: stress.
  
  The Biofeedback for Stress Reduction is a program sponsored by the Counseling Center to help students understand and reduce stress. Students participating are required to attend an orientation to learn about the basics of the program. It uses the Freeze-Framer^® biofeedback equipment, an interactive software program that displays heart rhythms in real time and shows how stress is affecting someone, according to the Web site of the program’s maker, Institute of HeartMath.
  
  "This program helps students manage their emotional response to stress," said Gregory Snodgrass, director of the Counseling Center.
  
  Students are initially taught a technique to help regulate their heart rate while using the equipment. The program is an attempt to provide students with a healthier way to handle stress, teaching them to stay calm and think their way through stressful situations.
  
  Scott Janke, senior psychologist at the Counseling Center, facilitates the orientations with other staff members.
  
  "Students are taught to feel more confident with dealing with stressful situations," Janke said. "Most students expressed feeling negative emotions when dealing with stress."
  
  The equipment, a finger sensor, shows the pattern of a student’s heart rate. The key to the program is learning how to generate positive emotions, Janke said.
  
  "Each time students use the equipment, they progress in regulating their heart rate and feeling positive emotions," he said. "Students’ success with the program correlates with how long they’ve been doing it."
  
  After the orientation, students can make an appointment and are allowed to go to the Counseling Center at any time they would prefer to use the equipment.
  
  The program was started after students expressed that stress was one of their No. 1 problems, Janke said. He said the staff at the Counseling Center continued searching for ways to give students an easy and fun way to learn how to control their stress.

Products and Programs to Support Student Counselors

• emWave^® PC/Mac Stress Relief System: Students of all ages are experiencing the benefits of understanding how their emotions impact not only learning and test-taking skills, but all aspects of their lives. Observing their heart rhythms in real time on a computer monitor, as well as how these rhythms respond to different emotions, increases self-awareness and can enhances counseling services they’re already receiving. Go to: emWave^® PC Stress Relief System or emWave^® Mac Stress Relief System.
• HeartMath Interventions^® Program: Designed for use by professionals already credentialed in student counseling, mental health, social-work services, etc., this new HeartMath program combines home study and e-learning for a convenient and powerful way to enhance therapeutic services. Go to: HeartMath Interventions^® Program.
• Resilient Educator^®: (For student counselors working in schools.) Student counselors who are constantly stressed are likely to have greater difficulty reaching students effectively than those who are mentally, physically and emotionally balanced. The Resilient Educator can help you boost performance, improve school relationships and strengthen your resiliency. The program’s proven techniques are easy to learn and have helped rekindle many educators’ motivation and energy. Learning how to renew and revitalize, listen more effectively and provide care without draining your own energy reserves can enhance your work with student clients. Go to: Resilient Educator^®.

Testimonials from Student Counselors

• College students tend to have high levels of stress as a result of academic and independence issues. In order to experience sustained relaxation and be able to apply this state to stressful situations, they may benefit from biofeedback methods such as the Freeze-Framer. The long-term goal of these methods is to reduce stress and enable students to carry heart-brain coherence into their academic performance. The use of biofeedback will help the student track progress and outcome measures with an objective instrument tool to facilitate emotional well-being and academic progress."

  —Tamara Knapp-Grosz, Director, Center for Student Counseling and Disability Services, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga.

• "When I became a guidance counselor at Staunton River High School in Moneta, Va., I worked with a very intelligent but suicidal 14-year-old. He showed no emotion and was nonverbal. I put him on the emWave PC/Mac and after several weeks, he began to open up. Likewise, another student was very long-faced. After two or three sessions on the emWave PC/Mac, he lightened up considerably. Then we were able to talk afterwards. When these kids are upset, they don’t necessarily want to talk. They don’t trust you or the situation. The emWave PC/Mac becomes a "content-free" therapy, which helps them open up, allowing access to a different part of their brain."

  —Don Wilson, Director of Counseling, Staunton River High School, Moneta, Va.

• "I am a school counselor working in an urban school district in Racine, Wis. Last spring one of my supervisors sent me to a workshop on HeartMath and I was very excited. … I purchased a PC laptop because I could see the power behind (HeartMath). It has been six months now that I have been teaching middle school students the techniques and have been very happy with it. Students are excelling on exams, making better choices and most of all starting to realize what power they actually have over their lives. It’s a beautiful sight when I walk in my office and see students teaching the techniques to other students."

  —Deborah Renna, School Counselor, Racine, Wis.