IU Southeast hosted its annual Health Fair on Nov. 14 in the Hoosier Room where about 30 booths helped students learn how to relieve stress during the final weeks of school.
“The whole project is to reduce stress,” Kelli Case, nursing senior, said. “If you decrease your stress level, you will be healthier. “
Case is one of three senior nursing students who worked and organized the Health Fair as part of their senior projects.
Mike Brown and Anna Fowler, nursing seniors, also helped with this event.
“[This is a] free way to get information,” Fowler said. “[We] surveyed 200 students to see what students wanted at this event.”
This event was co-sponsored by the Student Program Council, which provided funding for free food and drinks.
“[I] came in for the free yogurt,” Nathan Hunt, math junior, said. “I’m also interested in being healthy.”
Fowler said the event had a lot more hands-on booths set up, including a booth that offered a self-defense sign-up for classes taught by the IUS Police.
A free yoga booth was also available for students to learn about the activity. IU Southeast offers a class on yoga; however, it is only available to honors students.
The class is taught by Ghansham Manswani, senior lecturer of computer science, and, during the Health Fair, he instructed several students and faculty on yoga exercising tips. He also showed students different yoga stretching techniques to help reduce stress during finals week.
Case said the nursing students went with a more hands-on approach instead of setting up a booth themselves. They went around the event making sure all the booths were ready and that students were attracted to the event.
“I do feel stressed in finals week,” Kayla Jennings, accounting sophomore, said. “You’ve got to get a certain grade to pass. I’m trying to score a stress ball.”
The Health Fair had a wide variety of booths, from Planned Parenthood, which gave out information about its clinics and free condoms, to Alternative Wellness, who offered free readings and a list of alternative medicines and herbs.
“If this wouldn’t interest people, I don’t know what would,” Fowler said. “We advertised a lot more and had flyers all over the cafeteria to attract students in.”
An experience light booth was available for students, which is a special type of light to help reduce stress after lying in it. More than 20 students experienced the light booth.
“[The] experience light booth I found to be really helpful,” Rebecca Eberhardt, criminal justice and psychology freshman said. “I found out where I’m most tense in my back.”
The Health Fair also offered a massage table where students could receive a free massage and locate the tensest parts of their bodies.
Fowler said these types of services are expensive to get from businesses, which is why they offered them for free at the Health Fair.
By JEREMY EILER
Staff
jreiler@ius.edu
