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Teaching for well-being? Introducing mindfulness in an undergraduate course

Abstract Student mental health and well-being are increasing concerns in higher education. This exploratory study examined students’ learning in a mindfulness programme incorporated into an undergraduate class. Six brief mindfulness-based practices were introduced: mindfulness meditation, walking meditation, body scan, mindful eating, loving-kindness and Tonglen meditation. Fourteen students were interviewed after completion of the course to explore their conceptions and use of mindfulness and other self-care practices. Results of thematic analyses suggest that there were variations in students’ adoption of mindfulness-based practices and students’ preferred mindfulness techniques. Most participants reported that mindfulness instruction and practice were beneficial but this was not universal; some students reported that mindfulness was ‘not for them’. Findings suggest that mindfulness fostered self-reflection, self-awareness and relaxation for many students and incorporating mindfulness at the beginning of class improved the overall quality of discussion and facilitated students’ learning. Findings further suggest that students incorporated mindfulness into existing self-care practices that included a variety of other preferred techniques to enhance self-reflection, self-awareness and relaxation. Overall, our findings suggest that students should be helped, through explicit instruction, to develop a ‘toolbox’ of self-care approaches that may include, but are not necessarily limited to, mindfulness techniques.

Mental health is increasingly a focus of attention on college and university campuses. However, despite widespread concern about students' well-being across disciplines and subject matters, students are generally left to learn about and practise self-care on their own, without direct support and instruction (Rosenzweig et al. 2003). In this way, skill development in self-care is similar to that in writing and critical thinking skills; while it is recognised as important, it remains relatively rare that students are given explicit instruction in how to practise self-care. However, this situation may be changing. The considerable attention paid to the benefits of mindfulness for mental health and well-being has led to recent explorations of the potential of mindfulness-based programmes for teaching students how to enhance their own well-being (e.g. Newsome, Waldo, and Gruszka 2012;Reid 2013;Tarrasch 2014). The current study builds on efforts to introduce mindfulness instruction into professional development programmes in nursing, social work and related fields (Chrisman, Christopher, and Lichtenstein 2009;Gockel et al. 2013;Reid 2013;Tarrasch 2014). We explore a pilot project through which mindfulness instruction was incorporated into the curriculum of an interdisciplinary undergraduate practicum course. The focus of this research was on students' perceptions of their own learning about mindfulness and their use of mindfulness and other forms of self-care to enhance well-being.

What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is typically defined as a state of awareness and attention to the present moment with non-judgemental acceptance of experiences (Joyce et al. 2010;Wayment et al. 2011). While mindfulness-based practices originate from Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Western educators and clinicians have realised the benefit of them in a secular context (Cohen and Miller 2009). A variety of mindfulness-based practices have been developed, including mindfulness meditation (Himelstein 2011), walking meditation (Gockel et al. 2013), mindful eating (Haruki et al. 2008), loving-kindness meditation (Gockel et al. 2013) and Tonglen meditation that involves focusing on experiences that arise during imagery of suffering and compassion (ibid). Mindfulness is associated with several facets of well-being, including alleviating depression and anxiety, bolstering coping and improving quality of life (Grossman et al. 2004). Cultivating mindfulness can also lead to improvements in executive function, emotion regulation (Robins et al. 2012;Teper, Segal, and Inzlicht 2013) and self-awareness (Richards, Campenni, and Muse-Burke 2010), as well as decreases in hostility (Himelstein 2011) and anger (Robins et al. 2012). The literature on mindfulness has utilised a number of measures and definitions of well-being (e.g. Barnett et al. 2007;Beshai et al. 2016;Grossman et al. 2004;Himelstein 2011;Robins et al. 2012;Teper, Segal, and Inzlicht 2013). In this qualitative study, we were interested in subjective well-being, based on participants' descriptions. This is consistent with previous qualitative research on mindfulness. For example, Himelstein et al. (2012) used interview data for a qualitative analysis and defined subjective well-being as any increase in positive or decrease in negative physical or psychological experiences as reported by participants.
Prior research has demonstrated that mindfulness-based practices can enhance well-being for students (e.g. Chrisman, Christopher, and Lichtenstein 2009;Gockel et al. 2013;Reid 2013;Tarrasch 2014); however, researchers have generally focused on training programmes in specific disciplines such as nursing and social work, and only a few studies have involved undergraduate students (e.g. Bergen-Cico, Possemato, and Cheon 2013;Newsome, Waldo, and Gruszka 2012;van der Riet et al. 2015). The existing literature does not include examination of students' understanding of mindfulness concepts and the extent to which conceptual understanding is achieved from brief introductions to mindfulness. Moreover, published research does not seem to account for how mindfulness might fit with students' existing self-care practices. This is an important consideration as the value and impact of mindfulness may be influenced by students' use of other forms of self-care. The following research questions guided this exploratory qualitative investigation: (1) How do undergraduate students perceive mindfulness lessons within their practicum course seminars? (2) What do students learn from the mindfulness lessons? (3) How do students conceptualise mindfulness-based practices for the purpose of self-care? (4) How do mindfulness-based practices fit within students' existing self-care practices?

The practicum course
Mindfulness lessons were introduced in a third-year undergraduate practicum course in Family Relations and Human Development at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. The practicum course is required for students in our Adult Development and Child, Youth and Family majors (withheld for anonymous review) and it provides a foundational experience in education and/or human service work for students who pursue a variety of careers working with children, families and/or older adults, such as teaching, social work, mental health counselling, occupational therapy, child life, nursing and law. Each student is placed within a professional agency, programme or school and performs unpaid work for 12 hours per week in this context for the duration of the one-semester course for a total of 144 hours. Examples of placement sites include elementary and secondary schools, hospital settings, mental health centres, retirement homes and women's shelters. Students meet weekly with the instructor and/ or graduate teaching assistant to engage in discussions that connect their practicum experiences to relevant research and theory.

The mindfulness lessons
The first author was the instructor of the mindfulness lessons in the weekly seminar. The first author has education, experience and training in teaching and practising mindfulness-based practices and philosophy. She began a personal mindfulness practice in 2010 at the University of Toronto, where she completed the 'Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health' minor while studying Psychology. The programme examines mindfulness from a historical and theoretical perspective, considering both theological and Westernised practices of mindfulness, while guiding students' personal practice. Western psychology has recognised the historical origins of mindfulness theories and mindfulness-based practices within Buddhism. Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme has been at the forefront of Westernised mindfulness-based practices, has acknowledged the context from which these practices emerged and the importance of understanding this context in the study and practice of mindfulness (see Kabat-Zinn 2003). The first author completed an eight-week MBSR programme in 2012 and has studied the work of Kabat-Zinn and other such contributors. She also has an Applied Mindfulness Meditation Certificate completed at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. With this experience and knowledge, she designed a programme to integrate brief mindfulness lessons into six practicum course seminars, adapted from the work of Gockel et al. (2013). She adapted the MBSR programme into 15-minute lessons involving trial of mindfulness practices and group discussion. The practices included in the current study were mindfulness meditation, walking meditation, body scan, mindful eating, loving-kindness and Tonglen meditation. These six particular practices were chosen to model the programme of Gockel et al. (2013) and as a result of the prevalence of MBSR practices in the existing mindfulness literature; for example, see the literature review by Fjorback et al. (2011) on the breadth of research connecting MBSR practices to well-being outcomes. An overview of each of the practices that were used in this programme is provided in Table 1.
The mindfulness lessons were integrated into six practicum classes, most often for the first 15 minutes of class time. Each mindfulness lesson contained a reiteration of the three As of mindfulness -attention, acceptance and awareness -as well as explanations of these practices. Students were encouraged to practise any or all of the mindfulness-based practices in their own time and to share their perspective of the teachings and practices so that students' developing understanding of mindfulness could be monitored. We recognised from the outset that some people may be uncomfortable with mindfulness practices for a variety of reasons, including possible concerns about the religious (Buddhist) foundations. We also recognised that mindfulness may not be appropriate for all students; there is a small but growing body of literature that suggests that mindfulness meditation can have negative impacts for some individuals, particularly those with a history of trauma (e.g. Burrows 2016; Dobkin, Irving, and Amar 2012;Farias and Wilkholm 2015). There is also literature highlighting negative experiences with mindfulness for individuals based on complex factors, in addition to trauma history, such as personality, medical history, identity, context, diet and more (Lindahl et al. 2017). In recognition of this, the mindfulness lessons were not mandatory: students were given the option to come late to class when Table 1. Mindfulness practices taught in seminars.

Practice
Overview Mindfulness meditation attention to the breath and associated physical sensations Walking meditation attention to the sensations of the body while walking Body scan Moving attention to all parts of the body Mindful eating attention to experiences of eating loving-kindness Meditation attention to thoughts, feelings and sensations associated with loving-kindness imagery tonglen meditation attention to thoughts, feelings and sensations associated with suffering imagery mindfulness lessons were scheduled, leave class for the mindfulness lesson portion or stay in the room during the lessons but not participate in the practices. Some students were observed arriving after the lessons, leaving at the start of the lessons or opting to not participate in the mindfulness activity (for example, one student was observed listening to music with headphones during a meditation). In addition, Lindahl et al. (ibid) found that amount and intensity of mindfulness practice was a risk factor for negative experiences and outcomes. Again, following the model of Gockel et al. (2013) the current mindfulness programme engaged students in no more than 10 minutes of mindfulness practice, aiming to keep students' exposure to the mindfulness-based practices at an introductory level and to minimise amount and intensity. We also felt that it was an important safeguard to have a mindfulness instructor for these sessions who was well-trained and experienced, with a background not only in mindfulness but also mental health and trauma. Burrows (2016) suggests that it is important for mindfulness teachers to have training in trauma to safeguard mindfulness experiences for college-age students. The first author has experience in facilitating mindfulness-based cognitive therapy groups for the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), including addressing challenges that may arise from mindfulness practice, and has completed coursework at the University of Guelph on counselling survivors of trauma.

Method
Our qualitative methods were developed to be consistent with our overarching aim: this research was designed to explore students' perceptions of their experiences with mindfulness and other forms of self-care in the context of our particular programme. We acknowledge the subjective and contextualist nature of this exploratory research. In keeping with Lincoln and Guba's (1985) criteria for evaluating the 'trustworthiness' of qualitative research, we aim to provide thick descriptions of our approach and findings to allow readers to determine the extent to which our findings may be transferable to other contexts.

Participants
Following ethics review and approval, recruitment emails were sent to all practicum students after the submission of final grades by the practicum instructors. Fourteen female students were interviewed for this study. We had not intended to interview only female students; however, the vast majority of students in our department are female and no male students volunteered to participate in the study. Students were placed in a variety of community placements for 12 hours per week for the duration of the semester. Placement locations included a childcare centre, alternative education programmes, healthcare facilities, community service programmes and an on-campus support programme. The semi-structured interview focused on students' perceptions of mindfulness. The interview began by asking what students did to maintain well-being during the semester, their personal definition of self-care and their reactions to and use of the mindfulness-based practices. Participants were also asked to describe a stressful experience in practicum and to reflect on their response to this situation as well as the specific approach(es) they took to caring for themselves after the experience.

Thematic analysis
Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Braun and Clarke's (2006) contextualist approach to thematic analysis. Braun and Clarke outline six steps for conducting a thorough thematic analysis: familiarising, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining themes and reporting results. Each of these steps was followed in the present investigation. Self-care, practicum and stressful experience themes were coded at the semantic level, which reports surface meanings of what was said by the participants (ibid). The first author has advanced knowledge of mindfulness theory and incorporated this knowledge into her analyses of the data by listening and looking for themes at both semantic (surface) and latent levels, which includes the assumptions that underlie participants' words (ibid). Transcripts were also read by the second author. We had a number of conversations with all three authors during the coding and writing phases to help ensure the trustworthiness of the results (Lincoln and Guba 1985).

Results
The results are organised in two sections. The first describes participants' experiences with the mindfulness lessons in their practicum seminar. We were interested in understanding what participants learned about mindfulness theory (i.e. what mindfulness is) as well as their perceptions of the mindfulness sessions. The second section addresses participants' use of self-care during their practicum experience, including self-care based on mindfulness practices as well as forms of self-care that are not related to mindfulness.

Learning about mindfulness
Participants began the course with a range of understandings of mindfulness concepts and prior experience with mindfulness-based practices. One participant, who we have called Sara, was very familiar with mindfulness-based practices. She had learned from her father, who reportedly had maintained a regular meditation practice for more than 10 years. Other participants were only somewhat aware of mindfulness before the course, most often from their experience with yoga. Some participants did not have any awareness of mindfulness prior to the practicum course, as was the case with Olivia, who said that 'including mindfulness … was a good way of introducing something new that probably not any of us or a lot of us had done before' .
Most participants described an accurate understanding of mindfulness that fit with mindfulness theory and teachings. Participants often mentioned the fundamental concept of mindfulness: being present. For example, Justine described using mindfulness meditation to 'let my day go and just be in that moment' . Sara demonstrated her understanding of focusing on the breath when she stated, 'when you find yourself kind of in a stressful situation and you can just take like, two to five minutes and just sit there and like, close your eyes and just like, focus on your breathing' . Overall, participants' descriptions of mindfulness suggested that the mindfulness lessons contributed to effective learning about mindfulness concepts.

Students' perceptions of mindfulness ractices
Students expressed a variety of opinions about the various mindfulness practices that were introduced. Kate stated that she found certain practices helpful and that others did not 'work' for her: [S]ome of them work for me, some of them I know didn't work for me. Like the walking around the classroom, I didn't really get into that. And so I wouldn't say that was something that was helpful for me. But in other aspects I did find some of them helpful. Like, I like the body scan, and the meditation.
Overall, participants reported positive responses to the mindfulness lessons. For example, Milena reflected that after the mindfulness-based practices in seminar she 'felt relieved. Like, not relieved but a little bit less stressed about the day… after I'm like, "oh, I'm happy I did that". ' Some participants found that trying mindfulness-based practices at the beginning of seminar helped them relax and become present for the rest of the seminar. For example, Olivia stated: I think it was nice to start the seminars with them because people may have gone in there feeling antsy or not really calm because it's like, Friday afternoon, they don't want to be at school, right? So I think that the ones that you were at that did facilitate mindfulness at the beginning really made everyone just like, like, I don't know, like, more like, mutual. Like, everyone felt together, united, rather than everyone just coming in from their separate ways. It was a really good beginning to a seminar…. I really liked the mindfulness because it just kind of calms you down and gets you focused.

Opportunities to try techniques
Many participants also reported that they appreciated the chance to actually try self-care techniques rather than only being told to practise self-care, especially in the relatively stressful context of a practicum course. Alex describes this as follows: Everyone bonds over practicum because it is so stressful. So it was good to like, have something that -like, a de-stressor I think, like, built in. Cause like, profs always talk about it. But like, you're like, 'okay whatever. You're just talking about whatever. ' But it's not necessarily like, applicable all the time. Cause profs are like, 'make sure you take care of yourself' and 'don't get too stressed out' . But you're like, 'okay, but what does that mean?' … In our courses you hear that all the time. Like, you know, 'you're working with people' and whatever. But I don't think in any course really we would talk about how to actually do it.
This suggests that including opportunities for students to try mindfulness-based practices and/or other self-care techniques directly in courses may be useful for enhancing students' learning about self-care and promoting well-being. Moreover, incorporating mindfulness into the beginning of seminars may benefit the quality of discussion and students' learning in the seminar.

Negative responses to mindfulness
It is important to note that students' responses to mindfulness-based instruction were not all positive. Some participants reported feeling uncomfortable trying mindfulness-based practices in a classroom setting with other students present. A few participants also mentioned feeling uncomfortable with their experience of awareness during practice. In the following excerpt, Amy describes her discomfort with the 'loving-kindness meditation': I was hyper aware or like, being in a room full of other people … like, you know sometimes when you're like, hyper aware of everything. Like, you can just like, feel everything and like, your breathing and stuff like that. Like, you're -and I wouldn't say like, breathing heavy or anything, but like, I just -you're really aware … I just think it was like, you were thinking so much, or like, you know what I mean? Or like, blocking everything out. But I definitely think like, the other people in the room like, made a difference too.
She further explains that she was intrigued by the concepts taught and decided to try the practices alone at home. However, she still found that the practices made her feel uncomfortable and, in the end, she decided 'Yeah, so it's just -it's not for me. ' Amy's negative experience of mindfulness underscores that this approach may not be appealing or acceptable to all students. Indeed, as suggested in the Introduction, some students were observed electing not to participate in the optional mindfulness sessions. Participants indicated that they appreciated the freedom to choose whether or not to participate. This idea is expressed by Kara in the following excerpt: [Y]ou were open to no one participating if they didn't want to, so it wasn't like we were forced in that you made us do things we were uncomfortable with. Like, you told us we might be uncomfortable with it and you were very open. So I just feel like, we had the opportunity to not participate or not be a part of it.
Unfortunately, we did not collect data on experiences of participants who may have chosen to opt out of classes by skipping the mindfulness sessions. While none of the participants indicated that mindfulness should not be taught, refusal to participate and potentially negative experiences are an important area for future research given evidence that mindfulness practices are not universally beneficial (e.g. Burrows 2016; Dobkin, Irving, and Amar 2012;Farias and Wilkholm 2015). While more information is needed, our findings suggest the importance of allowing students the freedom to choose not to participate in mindfulness instruction.

Mindfulness-based practices as self-care
Most participants reported using their preferred mindfulness-based practices as a form of self-care -to enhance well-being. For example, Christine described her use of the mindfulness-based practices as self-care: I definitely think it impacted my well-being positively because it like, released a lot of stress so if I didn't -like, I don't know if there would be a different way that I would react to it in those situations, but when I did do the mindfulness, like I said, my heart rate would go down or I would not think about it later at night so I think I would get more sleep, or you know it would kind of spiral into something good.
Participants used mindfulness and other forms of self-care in three overarching ways: to facilitate self-reflection and self-awareness, to acknowledge experience and to manage stress. These three functions of self-care are elaborated below.

Self-care practices for self-awareness
Participants reported engaging in mindfulness-based practices to facilitate self-reflection. For example, Kristen stated, 'I'm so much more self-aware of how I'm feeling. ' Kate recalled that during stressful times she was 'able to take a moment and just breathe and think about things for a moment' . She elaborated that, after taking a moment to breathe and think about a specific stressful experience, she 'came back and like, had kind of a new perspective on it. Like I could do it. ' Christine described her experience of mindfulness as, 'being one with your thoughts … being able to really think back and like understand what's going on. ' She elaborated, 'a lot of the time I'll -you'll jump to conclusions or overthink something. But then actually being able to look back on what happened and take a second to like, think about the situation…. ' While the excerpts above emphasise mindfulness as important for cultivating awareness, participants also reported using other self-care techniques that are not based on mindfulness to improve self-awareness. For example, Caitlyn described 'taking the time to think about my personal issues and stuff' as an important part of her self-care regimen. Other participants described using writing to enhance self-awareness and well-being. Some participants described the self-reflection assignments in the course as important for cultivating awareness and helping them to 'see the better side' of an experience (Natalie). Others described engaging in writing outside of the course as important for self-care.

Self-care practices for briefly acknowledging thoughts, feelings and experiences
In the examples above participants describe engaging in fairly deep reflective thinking. Participants also reported engaging in mindfulness-based practices for the purpose of briefly acknowledging their thoughts, feelings and experiences. This is consistent with existing mindfulness literature and considerations of the mechanisms at work during mindfulness practice, such as decentring and reperceiving. Decentring refers to the process of stepping back from an experience in order to look at it, while reperceiving involves the perceiving of experiences from this new perspective (Shapiro et al. 2006). These mechanisms foster engagement with objects of attention without 'sinking into' emotional content. Engagement with thoughts, feelings and experiences is therefore less emotional during mindfulness practice. Additionally, the mechanism of 'disidentifying' allows for increased objectivity and understanding of thoughts as subjective and passing experiences (Bishop et al. 2004;Fresco et al. 2007;Shapiro et al. 2006). Sara explained her experience with acknowledging during mindfulness meditation as follows: Meditation is hard sometimes because things come up that you don't want to think about, that you've put out of your mind for so long. And then they eventually peek their way out and it's like, 'okay, I have to acknowledge this at some point. ' And, yeah, helps you -well for me it's helped me, yeah, I don't know. You just come to peace with things eventually, right. Like, a few practices in a row I'll have the same thing sort of like nagging at me and bothering me. And just letting it come up and acknowledging it and, yeah, letting myself think about it sometimes for like, a short period of time and then breathing on it, and then letting it go.
Here, she was not deeply engaging with her thoughts, feelings or experiences as in the previous examples; rather, she was briefly acknowledging them as they moved through her mind. She further explained how she deals with her nagging thoughts during her meditation while remaining mindful by using imagery: A leaf will float down the river. That's like, my thought coming in to my head. And then I like, label it and let it like, continue on. So just like, the flow of it coming into my mind and like, acknowledging it and letting it go.
Participants also reported engaging in other self-care practices that were not mindfulness-based for the purpose of acknowledging thoughts, feelings and experiences. One such practice is self-talk, which involves giving one's self a 'pep talk' to acknowledge a stressful situation and boost confidence in one's ability to handle the situation effectively. Another approach that participants described using was discussion with others, most often fellow practicum students. Prior research has demonstrated that students in practicum learn primarily through narrative; that is, engaging with stories about the experiences of others (Cairney and Breen 2017). Participants expressed that story-sharing was important for enhancing their well-being. Christine describes this in the excerpt below: I think hearing everyone else's stories [was useful]. Because when I first went I didn't think anyone else was feeling useless or really having the same experience as me. But then hearing other people's stories I was able to hear like, this person isn't enjoying their experience either. So it was kind of nice to relate to someone on the same level. So I think that was really positive for me.

Self-care practices for managing stress
Participants also reported using mindfulness-based and other self-care practices to manage stress. This finding is not surprising as mindfulness-based practices have been identified as relaxing and useful for stress reduction (e.g. Newsome, Waldo, and Gruszka 2012;Tarrasch 2014). Participants reported that managing stressful thoughts through mindfulness-based practices occurred both in and outside of seminars. Christine recalled using mindfulness meditation as a break from thinking about stressful situations: In terms of mindfulness, I use the technique of like, just taking two minutes and just literally just breathing and trying not to think of anything. Depending on how stressful the situation is, I try my best not to think of what I'm stressed about, but sometimes it's hard to kind of veer away from that. But actually you said that technique a couple of times and I really liked it.
The body scan was one of the most commonly mentioned mindfulness-based practices, which participants used to manage stressful thoughts and induce a feeling of relaxation prior to falling asleep. As Danielle described, 'I used it more when I went home and I was trying to fall asleep and my mind was racing. I would do the body scan. ' Similarly, Kara shared how the body scan helped to quiet her anxiety before bed. 'When you taught us mindfulness and -I started like, a meditation kind of thing at nighttime to help me get to sleep. Cause sometimes I have like, I have a lot of anxiety when I'm going to bed. ' The body scan meditation was an escape from anxiety and stressful thoughts to facilitate relaxation and ultimately sleep.
Most participants reported engaging in other self-care practices that are not based on mindfulness to manage stress, including going to the gym, spending time with other people, watching programmes on Netflix, venting about one's experiences to others and eating ice cream.

A gradient of engagement with thoughts, feelings and experiences
While the above description has positioned reflecting, acknowledging and escaping as three separate functions of reflecting, in reality there was a great deal of overlap in participants' descriptions. For example, Christine described both acknowledging thoughts and escaping from thoughts during her mindfulness-based practice. She explained that these are separate ways of engaging in mindfulness-based practices, but also that she may switch from one to the other depending on the activity of her mind at that time. This highlights that it may be important for mindfulness lessons to include practices that can facilitate reflecting, acknowledging and escaping as well as instructions on paying attention to which purpose is useful at different times.

Discussion
This exploratory qualitative research aimed to explore undergraduate students' perceptions of mindfulness lessons that were integrated into their practicum course seminars. We were interested in exploring students' learning about mindfulness and we were open to their positive, neutral and negative conceptions of mindfulness and its integration within existing self-care practices. Our research provides some important insights into students' experiences of learning mindfulness as a form of self-care in their practicum course. Participants demonstrated accurate understanding of mindfulness concepts and practices after just six short mindfulness sessions. Participants accurately explained mindfulness concepts and practices several months after experiencing the mindfulness lessons. This result may be related to instructor effects -the instructor was an experienced facilitator with extensive knowledge of mindfulness. Students' apparent success in learning about mindfulness may also be related to the instructors' approach to teaching it in a way that simplified concepts and aimed to make mindfulness approachable. For example, breaking down the concept of mindfulness into the three As -attention, awareness and acceptance -and repeating this definition during each lesson was one of the ways in which complex mindfulness concepts were simplified and taught. Finally, the opportunity to actually try self-care practices during the seminars (rather than simply being told about them) was likely important for students' learning about mindfulness.
Overall, the mindfulness lessons were well-received, and students appreciated the opportunity to try actual self-care practices and found the lessons to be effective. Participants expressed that having the mindfulness lesson at the beginning of a seminar helped them to feel present and prepared to engage in the seminar. This suggests that incorporating mindfulness in course instruction may be useful for optimising student learning. Indeed, this is supported by prior research demonstrating that mindfulness-based practices can lead to improvements in cognitive functions such as attention, memory and executive functioning (Chiesa, Calati, and Serretti 2010). Some of these benefits have been shown to translate to students' academic functioning in post-secondary settings (McCloskey 2015).
We also found that mindfulness lessons were not universally well-received. Some students reported that the practices made them feel uncomfortable. Amy (quoted above) stated 'it's not for me' and other participants expressed their appreciation for the freedom to not participate in mindfulness sessions. Overall, students' experiences of mindfulness in the practicum class were positive and we are encouraged to continue to integrate mindfulness instruction in our programme. However, our results suggest that a cautious approach is warranted and we feel that it is important that the instructor for these sessions has experience and training in teaching mindfulness as well as the necessary background and experience to understand the challenges students may face in relation to mental health and well-being. In light of some students' discomfort with the mindfulness instruction and a few research studies suggesting the possibility of negative impacts (Burrows 2016;Dobkin, Irving, and Amar 2012;Farias and Wilkholm 2015), we feel that it is essential to allow students freedom to decide whether or not to participate in mindfulness lessons and for instructors to attend to possible neutral and negative effects. This is also an important area for future scholarship, and researchers should examine the full range of mindfulness experiences, including the positive, negative and neutral impacts of instruction and practice.
We also found that mindfulness-based practices taught in seminars were used in similar ways and for similar purposes as other self-care practices. These other self-care practices were not taught or discussed in seminars, suggesting that participants integrated the mindfulness-based practice into their existing self-care practice. Both existing self-care practices and mindfulness-based practices were used for three primary purposes: reflecting, acknowledging and escaping. Further consideration of the results suggests that reflecting, acknowledging and escaping self-care practices, including mindfulness-based practices, may fall on a gradient of engagement with thoughts, feelings and experiences. For example, reflecting self-care practices would involve the most engagement and escaping self-care practices would involve the least. The distinction between categories of self-care practice and a gradient of engagement on which all self-care practices may fall is significant for how self-care is understood and explored. It may be possible that the same self-care practice could shift along the gradient depending on the individual or context. It may be important to give students tools to enable them to engage with thoughts and feelings on all levels of this gradient, and to encourage them to develop awareness of the different functions and how they might use them to address their own shifting emotional needs. Our findings suggest that students should be helped to develop a 'toolbox' of self-care approaches that may include, but are not necessarily limited to, mindfulness practices. As self-care needs will shift according to context across the lifespan, it is important that students have a variety of approaches to choose from that can work for them in various situations.
There are a number of limitations to this research. The first author conducted the interviews and was also the instructor for the mindfulness lessons, and this likely impacted recruitment. While the interview was designed to elicit positive, negative, neutral and ambiguous experiences and participants did, in fact, express a range of experiences with mindfulness, it is possible that students were more likely to participate in this research if they had previous positive experience with mindfulness and/or a positive relationship with the instructor. The sample size was quite small (14 participants) and, as such, the full range of our students' experiences with mindfulness may be missing. Nevertheless, the present research contributes to understanding the possible benefits of teaching mindfulness and suggests that integrating discussions and experiences of self-care techniques into undergraduate students' course work could have considerable and lasting benefits for enhancing well-being. Admittedly, incorporating mindfulness into the curriculum may be an especially 'easy fit' for programmes such as ours, in which content foci includes an emphasis on mental health and well-being; this is clearly not the case for the majority of academic disciplines. Nevertheless, our findings provide further support to a growing body of research literature that suggests that explicit instruction in self-care can enhance students' well-being and that students may benefit in particular from opportunities to practise self-care strategies (e.g. Chrisman, Christopher, and Lichtenstein 2009;Gockel et al. 2013;Reid 2013;Tarrasch 2014). We would encourage colleagues across the further and higher education landscape to consider incorporating explicit instruction in mindfulness and/or perhaps other forms of self-care in the curriculum in order to help students develop essential skills to cope with the stresses of school and those they will encounter in the world beyond our classrooms.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Tricia van Rhijn, PhD, RECE, is an Assistant Professor of Family Relations and Human Development in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. Her research interests include child development, early childhood education and care, well-being, various aspects of work-life integration (as well as school-life or schoolwork-life integration), and the experiences of non-traditional students in formal post-secondary education, in particular mature students and student parents.