As the stress levels of UW-Madison students build up before final exams, the Campus Information and Visitor Center is hosting the Wisconsin Wellness Weekend to provide some much-needed relief.
\When a person is feeling stressed, they can be affected in a number of ways ... They can have difficulty concentrating, their health can be negatively affected,"" said Nancy Sandhu, assistant director of CIVC. ""I believe there's a correlation between stress and performance on final exams.""
Seeing this correlation, CIVC Director Steve Amundson said the weekend is aimed at educating students, faculty and members of the community on health and nutrition.
""Basically, a healthy body is a healthy mind,"" Amundson said.
A range of events will take place for this purpose Friday and Saturday. According to Eric Macza, senior programming director for CIVC, all the events are free.
In previous years, the event has been held over the course of a week, Amundson said. In order to keep the interest of students, the stress-alleviating events will all be condensed into one weekend.
According to Amundson, there will be events geared towards all age groups and CIVC hopes to engage with a range of hands on activities.
On Friday, Macza said the events will include tie-dying, fitness and dance classes and an event termed ""pet therapy"" in which employees of University Health Services will be providing dogs for students to pet.
CIVC is also hosting two public figures to speak during the event. Saturday, Sandhu said, national nutrition speaker Donna Weihofen will be discussing the seven nutrition habits for highly healthy people.
Along with Weihofen, Amundson said comedian Tim Clue, who has opened for Jerry Seinfeld, will be performing at the Memorial Union Saturday at 7 p.m.
""Laughter is sometimes the best medicine, especially to relieve stress,"" Sandhu said. ""When you laugh really hard for one minute, it's equivalent to something like one hour of workout.""
Tickets for the free event will be available at the CIVC building Friday and Saturday.
Emphasizing a relationship between the community and UW-Madison, Library Mall will be home to a health and wellness fair Saturday.
""There will be a lot of free stuff including samples from local businesses, giveaways and raffles."" Sadhu said. ""We've just secured one or two tickets to Las Vegas.""
Stress is a part of everyone's lives, not only at finals time. Sadhu said that CIVC hopes the event can educate people on how to de-stress and keep balance in their lives.
