Wellness week: Mental, physical health matters

Dyneira Brown, Reporter|February 28, 2023

The LiveWell office hosted the annual Wellness Palooza Wednesday, Feb. 23 to give students, faculty and staff a chance to relax before spring break. This is the largest event during Wellness Week, highlighting many approaches towards achieving a healthier lifestyle. 

The Wellness Palooza was held in the HTC Student Recreation and Convocation Center and displayed many groups with activities to help ease the built-up stress through the first half of the spring semester.  

Coastal Carolina University junior Matthew Weiner said this was his first time at the palooza and was impressed with the entertainment and prizes, as well as their mission to advocate for students’ well-being. 

“Well, I am pretty motivated by free stuff, but, on the other side, I think it’s good to raise awareness about how important physical and mental wellness is to just about everybody here on campus and I think it’s something that should be advocated more for,” Weiner said. 

The Wellness Palooza had many stations that got people involved including a self-affirmation mirror, a table to make your own smoothies, and therapy dogs to play with and pet. Various campus organizations were also there to spread more information about maintaining control over health and wellness. 

Chris Donevant-Haines, assistant director of the LiveWell office, said this event is essential and beneficial to students because it allows them to relax and learn more about themselves. She said having access to so many forms of wellness are important to achieve success in the future. 

“We really want to give every student at Coastal a chance to interact with a lot of the campus resources and opportunities to get interactive, do games, and really be an active participant in their own wellness,” Donevant-Haines said. 

The Wellness Palooza has grown to be a tradition at CCU. Donevant-Haines said 2023 is the event’s 10th anniversary. The community was encouraged to take ownership of their health, whether it is physical or mental, and make time to step away from stressful situations in the future.