STORY AND PHOTOS BY TAYLOR SHAPPERT
Sex, eating, drinking and sleep.
Many college students don’t know the importance of these four things in their daily lives. Are you doing it right?
That’s why four peer mentors have teamed up with the Sheridan’s health and wellness centre to bring this information to students.
Isaiah Ledgister is interested in health and wellness “. . . and how everything’s kind of balanced. I try to balance it as best I can – eating, sleeping, exercise. Bringing up awareness can help others do that as well,” the first-year Illustration student said in front of the mentors’ “Are You Doing It Right?” booth in B Wing last week.
“We’re going to have various outreaches every month at least, either once a month or twice a month,” peer mentor Justine Howard said.
“For example, there’s world suicide prevention and then there’s mental health week
… It ties in with our theme of the year which is ‘mood matters’ so (it outlines) how your eating and your drinking and sleep cycles and how sex all ties in to that and how it affects you mood, how it affects your schooling and how you handle everyday-type things,” said the 22-year-old third-year Animation student.
The mentors don’t have a set schedule yet but it will soon be up on their Facebook page, Sheridan Health Wellness.
The highlighted theme of their first event was eating. “Eating is food for your well-being in the sense that it gives you energy, gives you the ability to focus, it helps keep your body in tune. It can help with your mental processing,” Howard said.
Although eating is important for students, it is exceeded in importance for students only by sleeping.
“Sleeping is the most important. For post-secondary students, totally sleeping. And then a very close second would be eating,” said Howard. “I mean eating in a healthy sense because drinking and sex are healthy, they’re good for you, but they’re a different type of thing to worry about.”
The peer mentors are “hoping to start a cafe in Student Union where students can come in and talk to peer mentors about schooling and all that stuff,” Howard said.
The booth had nutritional snacks to offer to visitors, and a trivia wheel with 50 facts. “I helped redesign the wheel,” said Leah Zajman, a first-year Illustration student.
The four peer mentors at the booth all have the same goal: to educate students about staying healthy while handling school, social lives and maybe jobs.
“I want to get to students so they know it is possible to sleep and eat well on a student budget, and that you can have fun without going crazy,” said Howard.“I was also a bit of a health nut in high school,” said peer mentor Jessica Wu, saying that might have influenced her decision to help promote the booth.