Dental school can be incredibly stressful. Even the healthiest and most confident student can succumb to hard days, external pressures and self-doubt. Depression and burnout are real concerns. In spring of 2014, ASDA lost our past president, Jiwon Lee, to suicide. Later that year, then-president Dr. Kris Mendoza wrote, “We wished we would have known that she was suffering. Everyone wishes they could have helped her. But she kept her troubles to herself.”
That’s why the Wellness Initiative is a priority at ASDA, and why we celebrate Wellness Month in September. ASDA wants to ensure that all of our members have access to essential resources and an understanding of where to go for help when you’re not doing well.
ASDA’s second annual Wellness Month kicks off this Friday, Sept. 1. Here are five ways you can get involved on your own or with your classmates:
- Sign up for free webinars. This year’s slate includes:
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- Predental wellness: Dealing with rejection
September 11, 7:00-8:30 p.m. - Recipes and helpful hacks for healthy eating
September 13, 7:00-8:00 p.m. - Balancing relationship wellness and dental school
September 20, 7:30-8:30 p.m. - Surviving dental school: Overcoming stress, burnout and depression
September 25, 7:30-8:30 p.m.
- Predental wellness: Dealing with rejection
ASDA’s past wellness webinars are also available as recordings on YouTube.
- Join the Step Out for Wellness challenge. Walking just 30 minutes a day is an easy way to boost personal wellness. Use your FitBit or fitness app to track your total steps, then submit the number to your chapter. At the end of Wellness Month, the individual student with the most steps walked will win a $100 gift card. The winning chapter will win lunch.
- Take part in activities planned at your school. Most chapters are planning some kind of wellness event. Offerings range from group yoga classes to lunch and learns on nutrition and mental health. Find out what your chapter is planning and make time to get involved.
- Share your personal wellness activities on social media and win prizes. Use one of our speech bubble signs in an Instagram post, showing off your favorite wellness activity or how many steps you walked that day. Or create and post a #WorkoutWithASDA video.
- If you’re struggling, tell a friend, a family member or a professor about it. Ask for help, and you’ll find that there are resources to help you stay balanced and healthy. You don’t have to go it alone. Your ASDA family wants to help. Don’t keep your troubles to yourself.
ASDA’s Wellness Month is generously supported by ADA student members insurance plans underwritten by Great-West Financial.
~ Kasia Chalko, ASDA marketing manager
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