On Thursday, Feb. 17, the Elizabethtown College Student Wellness Advocacy Group (SWAG), hosted the “Shake the Winter Blues” event, which took place at the Bowers Center for Sports, Fitness and Well-being from 5 to 7 p.m. Throughout the semester, SWAG hosts mental and physical health events, as well as different awareness activities for all students to participate. The “Shake the Winter Blues” event takes place every spring semester, mainly because of the cold weather that occurs right after winter break.
For a couple of hours, students were able to visit different stations placed inside the Bowers Center. The demonstration kitchen, as well as the upper lounge, The Well and the multipurpose classroom were all locations for students to stop by and receive tips on how to take care of their mental health, as well as guides to relaxation, meditation and many other things.
The event was built around a phenomenon known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, which can negatively affect people’s attitudes during wintertime. Senior and SWAG team member Sarah Kleb said that “student’s moods tend to be down at this time of the year because of the extremely cold weather, which usually forces people to spend more time indoors.” Putting awareness out for this common condition was one of SWAG’s goals when planning for this event. “Bad weather can make people feel isolated, and even create feelings of depression,” Kleb said.
As students entered the upper lounge of the Bowers Center, they were greeted with a small talk on how to go through the five different stations. The first stop was at the Well’s main desk, where students received a short guide on the importance of understanding the Seasonal Affective Disorder, as well as some tips for meditating and doing yoga. The other four stations were scattered around the Bowers Center, and students were able to attend them in any order they preferred.
The Tea Sampling station, which was located right inside The Well, allowed students to try over ten different types of teas, and learn more about the effects of tea on people’s mental health and moods. Calming, sleeping and energizing teas were all on display for students to sample.
The Dreams station, which gave students information about their own minds, was located inside the multipurpose classroom 221.
The Healthy Napping station was located inside the relaxation room, and it consisted of a guide to beneficial and controlled sleep, as well as the correct use of blue light, since being indoors for extended periods of time can lead to lots of sleep and screen-watching.
The Res Hall Plants station was located inside the demonstration kitchen, on the first floor of the Bowers Center. In this station, students could learn more about indoor plants, their benefits to mental health, their healing properties and their ways of motivating towards positive behaviors. Students could even take home a Coleus plant or a Forget Me Nots flower.
Students who visited three or more stations became eligible to win one of SWAG’S prizes and enter different raffles.
“It’s useful to have information about relaxing things and learning about things that can help with distress, as I can sometimes feel overwhelmed,” first-year Layla Murphy said. Murphy originally attended the event with the instruction of filming it for Campus News, but found herself interested and ended up visiting most of the stations. “I do find myself feeling kind of down when the weather is bad,” Murphy said. “We don’t think about that until it is pointed out, and so I feel like this event is very creative and can be helpful.”
