Hello and welcome to living in the Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

It's a sobering statistic among college students.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death.

Colleges and universities are working to address that.

Northampton Community College, for one, has stepped up its efforts to help students better deal with stress, anxiety, depression and other emotional pressures.

NCC recently created Zen zones, where students can go to decompress, de-stress and just chill out.

Our own Grover Silcox visited NCC's Bethlehem Township campus to learn more.

Grover, always great to see you.

Great to be here, Brit.

So Zen zones, what did you learn about them?

Well, NCC has created a Zen zone in each of its three campuses, and although the name might imply something to do with an Eastern religion, it really isn't.

The Zen zones are specifically designed, as you mentioned, for students to relax, decompress, de-stress and simply reset.

Sure.

Taking an emotional break away from the day, almost like an emotional oasis, if you will.

Exactly.

The NCC students with whom I spoke told me that the Zen zone was very helpful to them.

You know, young adults face immense challenges as they begin their careers and face the future.

Sometimes the pressure and anxiety are too much and cause more serious mental and physical health issues.

A recent study published in Depression and Anxiety magazine examined over 67,000 college students and found that one in five has had thoughts of suicide.

9% have made a suicide attempt.

In an effort to provide for the mental health of its students, Northampton community College has expanded its student mental health services to include the Zen Zones, a place where students can restore their sense of well-being and emotional balance.

The Zen Zone offers a therapeutic experience for students, faculty and staff at Northampton Community College's three campuses.

So I was actually there today that they open up the zen zone here on the Bethlehem campus.

In February, NCC held ribbon cutting events to herald the opening of this special space at the Bethlehem campus, Fowler Family, South Side Center campus and the Pocono campus.

My name is Ghaida Roshuna.

and I am a student from Indonesia.

So this is my second semester here.

So far I really like here, but some days I feel like overwhelmed with the assignment with my classes.

So I need a little time to break and to chill out so I just came here.

By a lot of kind of mental health related things here.

Dr. Eric Rosenthal, associate Vice provost and dean of students at NCC, along with his colleague, Dr. Jennifer Bradley, a psychology professor and others at the school, joined together to create these special spaces.

The Zen zones are not just rooms, they're actually spaces designed with specific intent to support mental wellness of individuals who use them.

So every chair has been selected to support different types of people, different sizes, different neuro divergences.

There's chairs that rock in order to allow certain folks, like people on the autism spectrum to feel more calm.

Some that swivel.

That can help.

Some.

Some students or faculty or staff with ADHD or anxiety.

Dr. Rosenthal emphasizes that the Zen zones are for everyone students, staff and faculty.

So the Zen zones really are for everyone.

They're not just for people with mental health diagnoses.

It's really operating on the principle that everyone has some challenges with living their best life mental wellness wise.

And so whether you're somebody who deals with severe anxiety or you're struggling with PTSD or you're just somebody who maybe you consider yourself and others consider you the most well-adjusted person in the group, but you still, if you're a human being, you're going to have times where you're stressed or where you just need time to think and contemplate, process something and get out of an environment that's stressful.

And that's what the Zen zones are for.

Unlike the student lounge and other social spaces on campus, the Zen Zone features low lighting and a mellow atmosphere here where students such as Marvyn Jimenez, a media production major, can decompress.

There's stressors.

I mean, some of us work outside of school, so there's work stresses, there's stresses for grades and getting work done by stressors with sometimes, you know, financial elements of going to school and having to cover that.

It kind of just provides a space to just kind of stop by between classes and kind of take that moment to relax.

The Zen zone at each of the three campuses features wooden privacy screens, weighted blankets and plush animals and other resources to support wellness and relaxation.

I write some things like if I have like a bad days, I just write on my journal and it's helped me a lot.

It can reduce my my anxiety.

The materials in the zen zone include journals and other types of materials where students can really be focused kind of more inwardly.

Writing is a very mindful activity, doing the adult coloring type of books where you're you're really having to concentrate and focus.

I took a stress ball the other day, even though it might seem like an insignificant item, it helps sometimes.

Playing with clay and those types of things you can manipulate.

All of that is designed to help kind of take you out of your head and just into what's in front of you right now, which I know I practice it myself when I'm stressed.

Each Zen Zone also features a flat screen for guided breathing, which is a technique designed to help individuals restore a deeper sense of calm.

NCC considers the Zen Zones.

One part of a multi-pronged approach to serving the mental health and well-being of its students, staff and faculty.

So this is a poster that was created by a student in one of our art classes.

This is one of 13 posters that we selected to be displayed across this campus and the Pocono campus up in Tannersville.

And all of them are unique and they all speak to the theme of mental wellness.

They include information about our counseling services and a QR code that takes you right to the website of our counseling services.

Dr. Rosenthal spoke of the disturbing increase in suicide among student populations and how social media and then the pandemic on top of that has led to rising mental health issues among young people and that this trend has made ncc's continuing mental health strategies ever more urgent, especially for its students.

As emphasized during my visit, NCC's zen zones is only one part of a comprehensive effort to serve the mental health and well-being of its students.

That effort is very much a work in progress.

Grover, the COVID pandemic really did a number on mental health across the board, but especially college students.

It really did.

You know, college is already very stressful.

There are a lot of challenges.

You know, they're moving into a whole new sphere.

They've got the whole future ahead of them.

It's a lot of pressure on students, and the pandemic certainly exacerbated the pressure and the anxiety.

Now, Dr. Rosenthal also said that he believes that smartphones and social media have also contributed to that pressure for young people.

You know, especially college students.

Absolutely.

Do you think they'll put a Zen zone here at work for us?

I could use that.

That's right.

I'm looking forward to it.

Very nice.

Awesome.

Well, at least the college students have this resource available to them.

Grover, thank you for sharing that information.

You're welcome.

All right.

That will do it for this edition of Living in the Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney, hoping you stay happy and healthy.