Naps at school? Snoozing event provides sleep strategies

As part of Student Appreciation and Wellness Week, students are invited to visit the You Snooze, You Win table set up by the fireplace in the King Student Life Centre on March 13-14 from 1-3 p.m.

Graduate students Thiviyan Sithganesan and Julia Van Brussel (both Masters of Social Work at King’s) and Katherine Schmidt (Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology at Western University) will answer questions and give advice regarding better sleeping strategies.

The event is taking place on March 13-14 due to the timing of Student Appreciation and Wellness Week (March 11-15) and World Sleep Day, which takes place March 15.

Joanna Bedggood, Manager of Student Wellness at King’s, says the event came about after speaking with students and observing how proper sleep improved their lives, including a positive impact on grades and relationships.

“People do better in all areas with good sleeping routines,” Bedggood says. “Students often say that with grades, friends and sleep, you can have two out of the three. We’re trying to show they can have all three and all three support each other. Proper sleep improves every area of your life.”

Visitors to the table will be able to pick up sleep trivia, learn about sleep strategies, and take home a word search game. “We thought the word search would be a healthy activity people could do before bed, instead of being on their phones or in front of a screen,” Sithganesan says.

Ballots for door prizes will be available. There will also be Sleep Bingo Cards featuring activities such as “drinking tea” that will help people sleep better. “It’s like a win for themselves,” Sithganesan says.

The students will also be handing out bananas. As a good source of potassium and magnesium, both natural muscle relaxants, bananas are a perfect fruit to induce sleep.

For more information on Student Appreciation and Wellness Week events, please visit https://www.kings.uwo.ca/about-kings/visitor-info/calendar-of-events/student-appreciation-week/