WELLWVU’s Office of Wellness and Health Promotion will educate students about basic sleep hygiene tips in order to improve the quantity and quality of their sleep in March.

Sleep difficulties are the second-highest factor affecting academic performance, according to West Virginia University students who took the 2011 National Collegiate Health Assessment.

sleepWELL is the March theme for the overall liveWELL marketing campaign. Throughout the month, educators will try to help students understand the relationship between sleep, academic performance and quality of life.

sleepWELL will kick off on Monday (March 5) during National Collegiate Health and Wellness Week. sleepWELL and all other liveWELL theme games and activities will be available in the Mountainlair from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and at the Student Recreation Center from 4 to 6 p.m. Activities will continue in residence halls across campus throughout the month.

Activities include: sleep habit simulator (a hands-on game that challenges students to create an ideal sleep environment by adding or removing items in a room that affect sleep), sleep hygiene self-assessment (a quiz based on a sleep hygiene scale that teaches students the effects certain behaviors and things have on sleep) and sleepWELL wellcasts (videos that provide tips for creating a quality sleep environment and a “sleep script” that students can listen to while falling asleep).

To learn more about sleepWELL activities, “like” WELLWVU on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WELLWVU. WELLWVU’s website has interactive games and articles related to sleep at http://well.wvu.edu/lifestyle_fitness.

-WVU-

td/02/29/12

CONTACT: Colleen Harshbarger, WELLWVU
304-293-3574, Colleen.Harshbarger@mail.wvu.edu

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