A rejuvenating end to the academic year
30 Jun 2014
Last week's Wellbeing Wednesday marked a sunny and successful end to this year's Wellbeing events
At 8:30 anyone walking by the grass at the side of University Place would have seen 40 staff and students practising Tai Chi in a session led by Professor Colin Hughes, Associate Vice President for Sustainability at the University of Manchester. Standing in the sunlight in group focusing and relaxing was a good start to the day. As part of her recent trip to China US First Lady Michelle Obama was shown how to perform the traditional exercise of tai chi. Perhaps our early morning session on Wednesday will turn out to be the start of a sessions of outside Tai Chi at the University.
Over 400 people came to events on the day. There were popular sessions on mindfulness, calm your busy brain, managing stress and learning how to relax, also as well as the early morning Tai Chi there were yoga and Pilates classes. Fifteen beauticians from the Central Manchester College of Health and Beauty were kept busy for four hours offering massages and other treatments. There was cake: the team now knows you can never over-estimate the need for cake at the end of a busy academic year.
So this was a successful end to 2013-2014 Wellbeing days. If we think about what “wellbeing” is, we would probably want the term to include the ability to develop our potential; to work productively and creatively; to build strong and positive relationships with others; and to contribute to our community. The Wellbeing Week and Wellbeing days are now established as part of the development of focusing on the psychological wellbeing and health and physical health of both staff and students.
Please put in your diaries a reminder for the next Wellbeing week: November 11th , 12th and 13th 2014.