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Writer's pictureJILL NEIL

Wellbeing Week helps students maintain their wellbeing


A therapy dog from the Time to Cuddle Therapy Dogs event. Photo courtesy of Adela Hruby

From Sept. 30 to Oct. 4, the Counseling Center and Office of Health Education hosted a week full of events to help promote well-being. The events included Time to Cuddle Therapy Dogs, Spirituality Booth, Beyond the Bubble Bath, Safe & Satisfying Sex Table, yoga, Arts and Crafts for the Soul, and two Discover Auburndale Walks. 


Associate Director of Health Education Adela Hruby was an integral part of the week. She has previously helped run HOPE Week (Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Awareness Week), Alcohol and Drug Awareness Week, plus past Wellbeing Weeks. 


“We live in a challenging world and we each experience challenging personal events. Learning how to increase a sense of wellbeing in ourselves and our community is vital to being able to develop the capacity…to face our challenges,” said Hruby. “We define wellbeing as a state of overall holistic health: feeling well, secure, safe, and having resources to change if we're not feeling well.”


The goal of this week was to teach students that there is more to wellbeing than what meets the eye, and to tell students that you can take care of your wellbeing in many ways. A lot of people think of wellbeing as being just mental, but it is actually a lot more than that. Hruby stated that there are eight domains to wellbeing, including “physical, social, emotional, intellectual, occupational, environmental, financial, and spiritual” aspects.


Wellbeing Week began with an event called Time to Cuddle Therapy Dogs on Oct. 1, where outside therapy dogs were brought into de Witt Hall to increase emotional wellbeing. The event itself ran from 2-3 p.m. and about 50 students stopped in to see and interact with the therapy dogs. 


Beyond the Bubble Bath attendees learn about other ways to do self-care. Photo courtesy of Nina Sachs

Later that same day there was an event called Beyond the Bubble Bath, hosted by Nina Sachs in the counseling center and Resident Assistant (RA) Kat Kohtala of Briggs House. This event aimed to show the student body that there is more to self-care and wellbeing than taking a bubble bath.


Sachs said that Beyond the Bubble Bath was used “to promote self-care practices that go beyond the bubble bath, that are maybe a little bit more proactive than reactive, and not necessarily the things that come to mind right away when we think of self-care.” Beyond the Bubble Bath ran from 3:30-4:30 p.m. and had about 10 students total show up, about half of which were Briggs House residents.


On Wednesday, Oct. 2, there was a Safe & Satisfying Sex Table outside of the Valentine Dining Hall from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. 


The Safe & Satisfying Sex Table offered students the opportunity to learn more about safe sex and answer trivia questions related to sex for prizes. The prize was a goodie bag that contained a pickle squishy, lollipops, and condoms. 


Freshman graphic design major Caitlin Waltos went to this event and participated in trivia. 


“The category I had chosen to answer a question about was consent. I knew a lot about consent previously, but I learned that there is an acronym that goes with consent and that is ‘FRIES,’” Waltos said. “This stood for freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, and specific. I didn’t know about that beforehand but it is an important concept to know about.”


Wellbeing Week was an overall fun event that the Counseling Center and Office of Health Education are hoping to bring back in the future. If you have any ideas that may be helpful, feel free to contact Adela Hruby.


“We'd always love to have more students at our events so that more members of our community take a deeper interest in their wellbeing and the community's wellbeing,” Hruby said.

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