The Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) of Northwest Missouri State wanted a way to help people relax during finals week, a time where 1 percent of the semester holds 99 percent of the stress. With so many college students already maintaining incompetent sleeping habits, unhealthy diets, and excessive substance abuse, finals week only adds to the building quantities of stress and irritability. As a result, too much added stress only leads to people coughing up a lung in our coffee shop and a dramatic decrease in the number of available energy drinks on our shelves. However, even through all of the side effects, the worst part is that students think that it is fine to partake in these habits as if they can be unhealthy for just 1 week out of the year. SHAC wanted to show students not only the disadvantages of these habits, but also how to live through finals week the healthy way, without having to OD on Monster.

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SHAC wanted the event to give students a way to relax from their studying, but also enlighten them on the why it is important to stay healthy during finals week. The program was held in the Station (our on-campus convenience store), in a large meeting room area. The Station is a very popular place for students to hang out and study, so it was accessible to numerous individuals and we were able to meet students right where they were anyway. SHAC arrived 1 hour early to start setting up for the event by setting up tables around the outer edge of the room, constructing the DJ music, and placing the materials in their proper places. The Stress Less Fest consisted of several different activities, each taking place in an area of the meeting area on an hourly time schedule.

As students walked in, they were greeted with candy, magnets, frisbees, and a chance to enter an hourly drawing for prizes like laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, t-shirts, and sweat pants. Students could grab cookies, water, iced tea, trail mix, or Rice Krispy treats as they walked in. From 6-7 pm, students could participate in yoga with a professional yoga instructor. There were also several different stations to create stress balls using flour and water balloons. Students could also finger paint on posters on the walls, draw pictures with sharpies and markers, or build fantastic structures out of legos. With the stress balls, students played a football throwing game in order to try to throw the stress balls into small holes in the wall in order to win even more prizes. At the end, all of the flour was used for a massive, outdoor, doughy, tasty flour fight.

From 7-8 pm, dogs and trainers from our local humane society chapter brought therapy dogs that students could run with, walk with, play with, and just sit and pet. All of the dogs were specifically trained to play with students appropriately and help them have fun. During all of this, our university 's radio station was playing classical music through their speakers instead of the usual pop music, also helping students to relax and experience a new type of music they are not used to listening to. At the very end, students were entertained with a large dance party and an opportunity to hang out with their friends before the next day finals.

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The main goal of the program was to provide an opportunity for students to take a break from studying and enjoy a time with their friends in a healthy social environment. With so many students fretting about final exams and with thoughts running rampant through everyone's mind, SHAC was able to successfully fulfill their task while also providing an educational standpoint. Thus, the second goal was to inform students about the unhealthiness of common finals week tasks such as downing energy drinks or receiving 3 hours of sleep per night. With around 300 people coming to the event over the 6 hour time span, there was a fair amount of knowledge spread on how to be healthy, and an awareness was raised about the significance of staying healthy during finals week.

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One of the immediate positive effects was that students were really glad that they took a break from studying in order to hang out with their friends and release a lot of stress. We haven't heard of any students that regretted going to the program instead of studying. In fact, on the contrary, the students liked to take the break and found the benefits of getting the extra sleep the day before their final exams.

Additionally, this is one of the first programs that SHAC put on during their 2 year tenure here at Northwest. This shows how great this community is by providing services to make sure we are taking care of each other. Students learned how to take care of themselves, and as a result, can help the peers in their residence halls.

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Overall, the program was quite successful with hundreds of students coming out over the course of the program. There were several different activities, so it was feasible for everybody to find something they were interested in. The location was ideal since so many students were already in the same area. It was easy to allow them to take a break and enjoy the program since SHAC practically brought the program to where everyone was studying. Additionally, the massages were extremely successful. Residents were able to receive massages free of charge from professional therapists which attracted a lot of attention from residents. Students could also learn some of the techniques that the therapists use to relax muscles while watching their friends get a massage.

In total, there is not much that really needs to be changed about the program except that we could get more residents involved in the program by allowing other organizations on campus such as the Residence Hall Association and Student Senate to provide funds to make it even better. We could also get some companies in town to possibly donate some prizes for the drawing.

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The first major part of adapting this program is to put it in a popular location where students constantly move through and there is lots of traffic. Some campus hangout spot like a coffee house or cafeteria area would be perfect. Additionally, one should find lots of other assistance , whether it be from other organizations, RA's, or hall directors. The more people that are involved in putting on an event, the better it becomes. They could even get an opportunity to advertise for themselves, and t-shirts could be made for the event with the organizations' and comapnies' names on them in order to provide an incentive for others to help sponsor the event. Finally, and most importantly, one should have fun with the event. After all, as long as students relax in a healthy manner during the most stressful time, that is the ultimate goal. If they learn about being healthy along the way, then that is even better. The learning will come along with having fun.

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