Hamilton students are well-acquainted with the feeling of stress. This is a highly competitive and academically challenging campus (not to echo the admissions office), so of course most students get stressed out pretty regularly from the amount of work and the number of extracurricular activities they balance almost every day. After a few weeks of the constant homework deadlines, project assignments, and a daily time-crunch, it’s understandable that students might start to feel like they only have room for work and agendas in their head. When this gets to be too much, students have the option to turn to a number of counseling and stress-relief on-campus services, but it can be hard to factor in an hour or more of time for an appointment with those services in a student’s busy week.

Susie Hamilton, a yoga instructor and history teacher in the local area, is the force behind one of the newest ways for students to relieve some of that stress. Last Monday, Oct. 30, was the first session in a six-part series called “Inner Space” that Susie is offering for students. It’s only half an hour long — Mondays from 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Beinecke Fireplace Lounge in the Barn — and will go for the next five weeks.

The idea is, as the name suggests, to create a little more space. Accept the bad, but make room for the good. And while that may sound like a simple idea, it’s easier said than done. It’s easy to settle into a routine. It’s easy to get used to stressing out every few weeks, and constantly managing a million responsibilities at once. It’s hard to let things go, to change your mind.

Students here face an immense amount of pressure and deal with all kinds of challenges (stressors which aren’t going away any time soon, sorry friends), and one way to make “space” is to see stress as salt. So, imagine putting all that salt into a glass of water. That would taste like a nasty glass of saltwater, right? What Inner Space aims to do is take that salt and, instead, toss it in a big, clear lake. That same salty stress is still there, but now you’d never know it. There’s no getting rid of it, and in a small space salt easily takes over. But this kind of spatial thinking can make it easier to accept stress simply by positing it in a wider mental space. And no salty taste in your mouth!

Inner Space is brand-new, but Susie has been teaching a different fitness class here at Hamilton for the past few years. There’s the Physical Education courses that all students are required to complete (look at all that mandatory fitness!) but Hamilton’s athletic department also provides a number of different kinds of (free) fitness classes like Susie’s for students all throughout the week. There’s cycling, high intensity interval training (HIIT), and a variety of yoga and strength training classes. The “Power Yoga” class, led by the iconic Susie Hamilton, has become a particular favorite among many students.

Every Tuesday and Thursday around 4:15 p.m. you’ll see these students rushing to Blood Fitness Center, leggings on and yoga mats in tow, hustling to save themselves a spot on the floor of the multi-purpose room. The yoga class starts at 4:30 p.m., and by that time the room is almost always packed.

One of the biggest draws of the class is that while you’ll definitely break a sweat, or become a waterfall, it’s not just another workout class, per say. It’s also, first and foremost, a time to practice mindfulness.

The class begins with Susie inviting students to put aside their worries and stressors for that hour of class (only 4 percent of your day!) and to set an “intention” for themselves.

Setting an intention is a way of choosing a few things to focus on — both on and off the mat. Whether this is to focus on being kind to yourself and others, focus on finding ways to bring gratitude into your daily routine, or even simply to focus on your breathing, the intention is often a focus on soft, stress-free changes. This opportunity to set an intention provides students with a (rare) chance to self-indulge and focus on themselves for an hour. It’s clear from the faces and conversations of students after class that after just one hour, they’re already happier.

Inner Space brings intentions to your day. It’s an opportunity for perhaps a little personal reflection, and a little more space for the good stuff.