Your Healing Space: Staying Social

Wellness @ Columbia

Your Healing Space is embracing a new, longer-form format to share more detailed information with the Columbia community. This month's edition is focused on trying to find balance while the semester is in full swing with an emphasis on staying social.

W@CSubmissions
We want to hear from you! Send us your thoughts on wellness in word or visual form. Select submissions will be shared in future W@C communications. Email Richard your submissions - rchin@colum.edu 

Now that we're here and the semester is going, we want you to take a minute to reflect on how you are doing and if your life is feeling balanced. The wellness wheel below might not be new to you if you had a Big Chicago class, but to those who haven't seen it, we want you to tak ea moment to reflect on the 8 dimensions of wellness and think about where you are currently struggling and how that might impact other areas of your overall wellness.

• Environmental - What is your living situation like? Are you having roommate difficulties? Is your commute really hectic? 
• Physical - Are you eating and sleeping well? Are you feeling healthy? Are you getting exercise?
• Social - Do you feel connected? Are you spending time with friends and acquaintances? 
• Career - Are you feeling overwhelmed by looking for an internship? Is your job feeling overwhelming? Do you feel like you are developing a career path?
• Spiritual - Are you living in your values? Do you find meaning in your life?
• Financial - Is the cost of tuition or housing stressing you out? Are you finding it hard to develop and stick to a budget?
• Academics - How do you feel about your classes and coursework? Are you feeling behind on assignments?
• Emotional - How is your mental health right now? Can you manage your emotions right now or are they impacting other areas of your life?

As you reflect on where you are for each of these dimensions, we hope you will also think about the resources around campus that can help support you for areas you want to improve. A comprehensive list of the support offices with links to each is here: https://students.colum.edu/ 

Staying Social

This month we are highlighting your social wellness and encouraging you to keep working on your connections even as your studies get busier. Below are a few tips and recommendations for you to consider!
 

Stay in your clubs and join one if you haven’t already
Columbia has about 100 student organizations and you’ll probably find at least one that you can relate to. Sometimes it’s easier to socialize when you have a specific time and topic for you to prepare for. If you’re not already engaged in a group, we encourage you to check one out, and if you are, keep that time protected on your schedule. It’s easy to drop things from your schedule when things get busy, but once you do it’s harder to add it back.

Find a study-buddy
Sometimes we make connections in class and don’t know how to take them outside of the room. Setting up time to study with a classmate can help you make closer bonds and make you more likely to follow through with your plan to study.

Schedule a hang-out
When things are slow, you might spend a lot of time with your roommates or friends, but then the projects start up… Setting a time to hang out makes it easier to actually get together instead of “sometime.” It’s easier to stick to a regular schedule than it is to do something spontaneously, as boring as that sounds.

Try not to flake
Things come up and sometimes you have to cancel last minute, but oftentimes taking a break from your work to go spend time with your peers will lead you to be more productive when you get back to what you were doing. Weigh whether you’re actually getting work done or if you’re just frustrated with the amount you need to do and whether getting away and spending time with others would be more beneficial.  

Highlighted Events This Month

Events