In the midst of a global pandemic, mental health resources are more accessible than ever to the public. Meditation is a mental resource among the many accessible techniques people can use to cope with daily stress, anxiety, or depression. 

Meditation is a natural form of altering a person’s sense of awareness and state of mind. Meditation is accessible to people of all ages and is fast, efficient, and requires no “subscription service” to benefit a person’s mental health.

The Colonist Calming Room is a webspace that was designed for the person in need of some time to destress and cope with the uncertainty that lies outside their homes. This webspace is free to use and displays various mental health resources, including a Guided Meditation portion that features “guided” videos that practice different breathing techniques supported by ambient sounds (meditation music). 

The Colonist Calming Room offers a straightforward but effective interface in which finding the guided meditation section is only a click away. As of now, the Colonist Calming Room only offers three videos of guided meditation. These videos individually feature their own set of instructions, as well as their own ambient-sounding soundtrack. 

While it may not seem like much, these three videos offer quality over quantity. The Guided meditation videos load quickly, and the audio resolution is crisp, allowing for clear instruction and distortion-free ambiance. Apart from the technical standpoint, the videos themselves feature a very immersive background. In one of the videos, a woman is seen sitting on rocks near the seashore, demonstrating the different techniques associated with the video. 

In my personal experience utilizing the Guided meditation portion of the Colonist Calming Room, I found out that the 16-minute length of each guided meditation video was sufficient for my preference. 16 minutes is an adequate length for this kind of meditation because it allows the body to destress in a fast and efficient manner, given most people have busy schedules. 

I found that practicing Guided Meditation benefits many students, school faculty members, and people who work from home. The guided meditation portion really requires a calm environment, however. This can be either a benefit or problem if you find yourself living in a busy environment. The whole point of Guided Meditation is to allow the human body and mind to connect with the environment around you and feel a sense of tranquility. People who have lots of activity going on at home may not receive guided meditation’s full benefits.

People who also rely on Guided Meditation for “mindfulness” may also find the content repetitive. While the videos are of excellent quality, only 3 videos are available to the public. This means, as of now, and people can only listen to the same 3 videos weekly. Upon my time with the mindfulness resource, I began to find it to be repetitive. However, the Colonist Calming Room is free to use, and the Website has only recently launched. As the site furthers development, it can be inferred that more videos will soon be available for the public to utilize free of charge. 

Financial struggles and stress have certainly impacted many individuals as a result of the pandemic. Having a free-to-use service like the Colonist Calming Room is a benefit people in our community can take advantage of. As of now, the Colonist Calming Room, while still in its early stages, shows a lot of promise as many individuals who tested the resources supplied show their appraisals for this Website. 

If interested, The Colonist Calming Room can be found by clicking this link:https://sites.google.com/auhsd.us/colonist-calming-room/home?authuser=1