It’s 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. More than sixty students sit in the crowded, almost airless class room in the Thorn Hall building with their eyes closed – meditating. Some fall asleep, others continue concentrating on their breathing despite the noise outside, windows cracking and the clutching of the clock. Their goal is getting rid of stress, their homework – meditation.

Many people take pride in stress. It makes them look busy and important. But Erik Peper, director of SF State Holistic Health Institute and a co-author of a book “Make Health Happen” gives an alarming number – today almost 80 percent of health problems in America come from stress.

Cancer, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, pain, insomnia, ulcers, colitis, asthma, allergies, depression, headaches, back pain, immune system disorders and even infertility can be linked to stress, Peper states in his book. But there is help. And ultimately it lies within each person.

Established in 1974, SF State Holistic Health Institute helps students recognize their stress, provides tools to reduce it and educates students about a new way of life where mind, body and spirit are interconnected. The Institute incorporates art, imagery, modern scientific knowledge and ancient wisdoms into a form of healing and a way of being.

Training verses treatment, responsibility for your own health, self-growth, self-discovery and positive attitude to health are the fundamental principles of Holistic Health.

Students interested in learning about holistic health can come to the Holistic Health Learning Center located in HSS building, room 329 and check out books, audio and video tapes. Here they can also try out a biofeedback, a powerful tool that monitors your physical reactions to your emotional state.

“We can show them how they react to a stressor,” said Mary Bier, a researcher at SF State and a teaching assistant to Dr. Peper’s class (Holistic Health, Western perspective) Holistic Health program. “It is perfect to recognize your stress and find a way to regulate it. It is very empowering,” she added.

Bier hooks up students to wires with receptors which are connected to the computer and measures their breathing pattern, temperature and skin conductance (sweating glands) when relaxing and when being asked something. Then she records a chart and shows a student what changes have occurred in a stressful situation and what can be done to control them and calm down.

Getting aroused is good sometimes, she said, but not all the time because “it wears you down.”

Bier said there are “tons of students” that are stressed out, primarily because “they don’t think they have enough time.”
Christina Lugan, who majors in the environmental studies with holistic health as a minor, said she comes to the Holistic Learning Center for personal check-in. “The world is always in the hurry.
There is never time to enjoy life right now,” she said.

“It’s a community here,” said Delainya Kazarian, one of the researchers of the PMS study through biofeedback being conducted by SF State Holistic Health Institute. She graduated from SF State and is currently enrolled in the graduate program at USF. She keeps coming here because she said “people care about you.”

About 600 SF State students are currently enrolled in the holistic health program studying meditation, deep relaxation, biofeedback and other self-regulating techniques. The program offers classes like: Holistic Health Eastern and Western perspectives (two separate classes), Holistic Health and Human Nature, Chinese Perspectives in Holistic Health, Imagery and Meditation in Healing, Psychophysiology of Healing, Foundations of Biofeedback and Self-Regulation and others. SF State offers holistic health studies as a minor and a segment III option.

Holistic Health Institute will hold a conference “The future of medicine -2004” on Saturday, Nov. 13 at the Jack Adams Hall from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For more information, please visit: http://www.sfsu.edu/~holistic

To schedule a biofeedback session, contact Mary Bier at: marybier@sfsu.edu or Dr. Peper at: epeper@sfsu.edu