The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

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Health center opens Living Well Lounge

The Living Well Lounge, created and operated by staff members at the Klotz Student Health Center, opened on Wednesday.

The Lounge is intended for students to have a place on campus where they can learn about health issues and have a place to hang out.

“The goal is really to make this kind of a hangout/chill/resource center,” said Amy Reichbach, health educator at the Health Center.

The Lounge is planning on offering students health education classes, peer counseling as well as a place where students can go to get information on health issues that may be of concern to them.

During the grand opening, the Lounge offered raffle prizes, including a rolling back pack and a one-hour massage.

A health center chiropractor was at the Lounge to advise students on better ways to carry their backpacks and to inform them of the consequences that follow along with carrying an over weight backpack.

Reichbach said a student’s backpack “should not weigh more than 10 to 12 percent of your body weight (?) it’s just so unhealthy.”

The raffle for the one-hour massage was for students who participated in a game that was set up on a laptop outside of the Lounge.

The game, Health Jeopardy, is played the same way as regular Jeopardy, except with health questions. The game is “very popular with the students” and at Tuesday’s U-Matterdor Fair, hosted by the Health Center, students were playing in teams, Reichbach said. She also said that at the Lounge grand opening, students were playing more individually, but they were still getting a great experience out of it.

A peer counselor, Ytzel Fernandez, helped promote the event by passing out flyers to students who passed by the Lounge.

Fernandez will be hosting workshops and hopes to show videos and “have a discussion afterwards so the students can take care of themselves.”

Fernandez said the lounge is a great place for students to be more active in the campus community. She said it’s frustrating that students are not more involved in the campus and events and organizations that CSUN has to offer.

Throughout the course of the grand opening, which lasted from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Reichbach said there were about 150-200 people that stopped in.

Although specific hours for the Lounge are not decided yet, Reichbach said it will be run by the peer counselors who staff it.

Public Health major Daisy Ahouansou, junior, was at the grand opening. She plans on utilizing the resources that Lounge has to offer and thinks it’s a great place to make new friendships.

There are two computers that students can use in the Lounge and a campus phone will be set up that students can use to make appointments at the Health Center.

Derek Chan, senior Finance major, said the first thing he noticed about the Lounge was the big screen TV. He said all they needed in the Lounge was a Nintendo system.

Chan did say the Lounge is a great place for resting and it much more comfortable than the Information Lounge which is set up in the Sol Center in the USU and is also run by the Health Center. The Information Lounge is a smaller room and is built more for individual use. Chan said the Lounge “is bigger. The chairs are nice and more comfortable.”

Reichbach expects the Lounge will put on movie nights, students will be able to checkout books and movies and they will have sessions hosted by massage therapists and acupuncturists.

“We hope there will be a lot of incidental learning,” Reichbach said.

Students can pick up informational pamphlets on STD’s, birth control, piercings and meningitis, just to name a few.

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