The university’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) hosted a Mind Over Matter session on Sept. 25 from 5-6 p.m. to cover topics such as emotional balance and mindfulness. CAPS will provide these sessions every Wednesday from 5-6 p.m. in Kaplan Room 103.

The college experience may be the biggest time of growth, exploration, and discovery for a student’. However, students have the potential to enter this new chapter with expectations of perfection, pressures to be the most successful, and pressure to conform to what is considered the “norm” of college campuses.

“I faced a lot of issues when I was alone,” said Sudhashree Durai, a college graduate student and Community Wellness Advocate for UNH’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). “I’m an international student, and I was homesick. I didn’t really know the purpose of me being here, even before I came here, when I knew I’d be a student, I was so full of visions and purpose, but when I stepped onto campus, I was clueless.”

Durai said that this feeling prompted her to practice yoga, and take a deeper look into her thoughts and feelings.

“I would always wonder to myself, how could I lead a better life and make the best out of me?” Durai said.

Her curiosity caused her to look for the answers through her yoga and motivation practices,

That gave me so many answers, and helped me understand my life and how to understand others.”

These experiences led Durai to create a student-ran program, known as “Mind Over Matter”.

“Creating the program was something that I’ve already had experience with,” Durai said, “I practice social service often, and I host yoga sessions that help share the information I learned with the university, once you get older and learn, it doesn’t help you because you approach the end of your life, that’s why you must learn these skills while young.”

Durai faced a few difficulties while creating the program, and was approached by interested students on the day that she believed she should end the program for lack of interest.

“I’ve been running this program in Kaplan 103, from 5 to 6 at night, but no one showed up for the first two weeks,” she said.

That week, students showed up, encouraging her to continue her teachings.

“You guys being here and interacting with the program shows me and my supervisors that I made the right decision,” she said during her presentation to the group on their third day of meeting.

She said she has ambitious plans for the future of the program.

“I really want to collaborate with larger departments like the Charger Rec, I think that they would help me make the best use of what I’ve learned and share it with the students.”

“The students that showed up today truly showed that there’s hope, I can go [to] the organizations and let them know that people are taking part,” she said.

Durai said her goal for the Mind Over Matter sessions are to prepare students with tools to help balance out their thoughts, emotions and control their mental health as much as they can.

“Without good mental health, you cannot do anything, you’re just distracted and not getting anything done. When you analyze what you are, then you will get the answer to everything,” said Durai.

For more information on Mind Over Matter events and other events like it, follow their instagram at @unewhavencaps.