Wellness at St Catherine’s
Health and wellness covers many aspects of our daily lives. It’s everything from our food, to our daily routines, to our mental health and overall well-being. Wellness is about respecting ourselves and finding ways to make our lives more enriching, less stressful, and all in all happier!
The onset of mental illness is common in mid-to-late adolescence, with the most pervasive group being 18-24 years old [1]. This is the age group of the majority of residents at St Catherine’s College.
St Catherine’s recognises the importance of providing activities aimed specifically at increasing the wellness, happiness and quality of life for residents. We take wellness seriously and develop a program of support, events and activities which take a holistic approach to wellness, both mental and physical.
At the College, many wellness activities are on offer. Activities designed to help with friendship building, relaxation, mindfulness and destressing are on offer, with the dedicated Wellness Team working hard to provide outlets for unwinding as well as having fun and making university study as productive as possible.
Wellness Officer, Camila Soto and her team create activities that fulfil at least one of the three main pillars of wellness – Mind, Body, and Spirit. They have also organised university related workshops as we all know stressing about university can adversely affect all three!
“Last semester we had three workshops directly assisting university work, these were Resilience and Dealing with Setbacks, Time Management, and - for when uni gets a little overwhelming - Breathing Techniques to Cope with Stress,” said Camila.
Other events on offer included weekly meditation, Saturday morning rooftop yoga sessions, and a mega college-wide sleepover where we came together as a community of friends to enjoy some down time and have a laugh playing games.
The team is really looking forward to next semester as they continue the popular meditation and yoga sessions, as well as holding new workshops, and making the rooftop gardens a healthy and accessible option for all our residents with the launch of the Cats Community Garden initiative.
At St Catherine’s, we encourage residents to give the same attention and care to developing and maintaining their mental and physical wellbeing as they do to their university studies. We believe that this holistic approach allows our residents to thrive in their pursuit of excellence.
To learn more about St Catherine’s Wellness program and to meet many or our dedicated program leaders, head to our College Open Day on Sunday August 12.
[1] - Ivancic, L., Perrens, B., Fildes, J., Perry, Y. and Christensen, H. (2014). Youth Mental Health Report, June 2014. Mission Australia and Black Dog Institute, Sydney.
MEDIA REFERENCE
Catherine Massey (St Catherine’s College) (+61 8) 9442 0591
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