Sendek5/26/15Stress Fest

Students de-stress at Hamline Stress Fest before final exams

Hamline Student Morgan Bradford de-stresses with a therapy dog on Tuesday, May 22, 2015 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hamline University hosted it’s semesterly Stress Fest before finals week.

ST. PAUL, Minn.-There is no time for summer fever at Hamline University because as finals week approaches the tension and busyness on campus soars to all time highs.

According to Hamline Peer Educator Michelle Mattke, Hamline hosted Stress Fest to promote life-long stress management skills and to give students an interactive and educational study break.

“Our hope is that if they get relaxed, have some fun, and then learn some information, they’ll be able to incorporate things that they learn through next week as well,” said Mattke.

Hamline pre-medical student Morgan Bradford dreams of becoming a doctor one day, and knows the job will be stressful.

Dr. Carol Bradford is an ear, nose and throat surgeon that specializes in head and neck cancers, and is Morgan Bradford’s mom. Dr. Bradford thinks starting life-long stress management now will give her daughter some advantages as she completes her education and pursues a career in such a demanding profession.

Ms. Bradford came to Stress Fest before finals week in the fall and came back for more de-stressing this spring.

“I have finals in all four of my classes this next semester, and my first one is actually tomorrow, it’s pretty hard. It has a listening part, a writing part, and a paper, so it’s a lot to do.”

Stress Fest gave Ms. Bradford and other students an opportunity to get out of the library and relax. The activities started outside on Anderson Mall with two pet therapy dogs. After visiting the dogs, smiling students entered Anderson to participate in the indoor activities.

“I liked the yoga, it like really helped me relax and she like taught us stuff to do if like you can’t sleep at night,” said Ms. Bradford.

The Stress Fest booths included craft stations for coloring, making soap and making stress balls out of rice and balloons. They also offered massages, yoga classes and ice cream sandwiches.

“Everyone loves ice cream, when they eat that they feel better, they feel relaxed and obviously dogs are a comfort animals so we have a couple of dogs on campus, and petting them relieving stress and having fun and just you know bringing a smile will help ease the day, ” said Mattke.

Peer Educator Deanna Smith gave students sleeping advice. She recommends that students place lavender-scented cotton balls under their pillows and drink chamomile tea.

According to Smith,“ You’re supposed to only use your bed for sleep and sex so you don’t associate your bed with things like Netflix or homework.”

With so many ways to de-stress, peer educators are trying to teach students different techniques. Stressed out students who benefit from pet therapy and yoga

can go to the library next week for more pet therapy or do yoga in the Anderson meditation room. “ You just have to find something that works for you in to relieving your stress, and then once you find that, there’s many outlets at Hamline that’ll help,” said Mattke.

(http://www.cdc.gov/features/handlingstress/)

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017967/)