By Wesley Brock ‘24, Humor Writer

Because mental well-being is one of the founding principles of Newark Academy’s Technology Office, the office debuted a new myNA feature this Tuesday with the goal of decreasing the stress of all NA students. The website now requires a 3-minute breathing exercise to open. This feature is the product of a recent initiative piloted by the Healthy Body, Healthy Mind and Ultimate Frisbee clubs, who say, respectively, “The school day is so stressful already and we wanted to bring some relaxation to passing periods,” and “We don’t know what’s going on; we’re just here for the service hours and club promotion. Join Healthy Body, Healthy Mind!”

After signing in to myNA, your device’s screen will go black and the soothing voice of Mr. Samad Siddiqui will guide you through a breathing exercise. If, by the end of the exercise, your device detects a low enough Stress Index (based on breath rhythm, heart rate, etc.), myNA will open as usual. If your Stress Index is too high, the exercise will repeat until you are properly relaxed.

“This is a huge step for mental health at NA,” says the Tech Office, “and it’s only the first of many.” The Tech Office adds that it plans to continue to introduce more myNA features to reduce students’ stress.

“One of the most stressful aspects of NA is, of course, grades, so we’ve been working to make grades visible only on random Tuesdays,” the Tech Office explains. Each week, there will be a one-in-four chance that students can access their grades.

A representative from the Tech Office comments on the changes: “These are teenagers. They need time to do things other than homework. When I was a kid, after school, my buddy and I would go sit in the neighborhood ditch and throw rocks at the ditch rats. And let me tell you, those things were BIG. All foaming at the mouth and everything. They might have been possums, I dunno. We couldn’t have kept them contained in that ditch if we were doing homework or worrying about grades instead.”

The student body is generally overjoyed about the updates; in fact, the new measures have been implemented with little to no student resistance. There have been no threats of violence and, furthermore, no one has been detained in the basement for attempting to destroy the server room.

Please stop spreading these rumors.