By Michael Bernaschina, Staff Writer
Students who find themselves stressed out and in need of a place to relax can do so at Susquehanna’s recently established Take-5 Zones.
“The Take-5 Zones were started here in the counseling center with the idea to do something to help students interrupt their stress and anxiety, and take a minute to just take five,” said Dr. Stacey Pearson-Wharton, director of the counseling center, and dean of health and wellness.
Currently, there are three Take-5 Zones on campus. One in the counseling center, one in the Center for Academic Achievement in Fisher Hall and one in the library near the building’s administrative offices. Initially there was only one zone, the one in the counseling center, which was called the “sweet suite,” but it has since expanded across campus after working with the Amy E. Winans Center for Wellness.
In each Take-5 Zone there are materials and other things students can use to de-stress, including adult coloring books and Play-Doh.
“The star of the show is the massage chain,” said PearsonWharton. “There’s also an iPad in each of them where students are able to go on WellTrack, which is an online therapy app that students can do outside of us.”
“There’s also sunlight in each of them, to help with seasonal affective disorder,” she added. “Students are able to get manufactured sunshine that mimics the sun so that if they have some type of Vitamin D deficiency, and/or they find that they suffer from depression when it’s gray and dark and wet or snowy, that’s an opportunity for them to engage with as well.”
Students can go to one of the Take-5 Zones whenever they want and can spend as much time there as they need to, though at the moment the counseling center has not yet acquired any means of keeping track of who uses the room and when.
“One thing we are trying to do is to track who’s using it,” said Pearson-Wharton. “So very soon we’ll have an apparatus where students will be able to swipe their ID cards and let us know that they’ve been there.”
While there are only three Take-5 Zones currently on campus, there have been discussions about establishing more, says Pearson-Wharton.
“I don’t know where it might be,” she said. “I think I’d be able interested in talking to students to get some sense of where that might be. [Degenstein Campus Center] might be good, Fisher or the sports complex.”
“I just want to encourage students to not forget to take five. I think your lives are very busy, very full, and very scheduled, and the more you’re able to take care of yourself, the better you’re going to perform academically,” she said. “What happens oftentimes is that students think ‘I don’t have time to take five,’ but really you don’t have time to not take five.”