About

Being a student, particularly a female student, can be extremely stressful. Everything from academics, athletics, friends, family, and the college process, to divorce, moving, family illnesses, finances and so on, life can quickly become overwhelming. In fact, check out these recent stats on mental health:

  • According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 38% of female teens have an anxiety disorder and the prevalence of any anxiety disorder among adolescents was much higher for females (38.0%) than for males (26.1%).

  • Almost 8 in 10 high school girls report being unhappy with their bodies, LGBTQ students experience high rates of bullying and harassment, and girls who survive trauma often get punished for coping behaviors instead of getting the help they need to heal.

  • The percentage of black students who made a suicide plan increased significantly from 2007 (9.5%) through 2017 (12.9%). The percentage of Hispanic students who made a suicide plan increased significantly from 2007 (12.8%) through 2017 (13.5%).

How do we, as young women, manage this stress better? Introducing Mindful Monday. If you can embrace mindfulness on Mondays, it sets you up for the whole week.

 
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Why is this so important? A little backstory:

Hi there, I’m Caroline Keswin, a 19-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania. During a particularly stressful week in my sophomore year of high school, my friends and I decided to come together one Monday to talk about the stresses in our lives and help each other manage it. We listened to each others’ hardships, gave compliments, laughed, cried, and even took notes to look back to when the next rough patch hit. Thus, Mental Health Mondays (now called Mindful Mondays) were born. And we continue to come together every week to connect and share. And it works.

 
 
 
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But how?

At the time we had no idea, but we were participating in positive psychology. We didn’t know why we felt better by coming together simply to be vulnerable and open up to each other, we just did. Turns out, there’s real science behind this mindfulness business. Since this was and is working so well for us, I became interested in learning more about why exactly it worked. What does it take to become happier and less stressed? On a mission, I enrolled in Penn’s psychology class and Yale’s famous Science of Well-Being course.

 
 
 
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And now I want to share those insights with girls everywhere.

Here we are: mindfulmonday.org. In this site, you’ll find a number of helpful resources: articles, interviews, events, tools, meditations, and a weekly Mindful Monday Mantra. I wanted to make sure these resources are available to girls everywhere.

Because we have the power to take our mental health into our own hands. Together.