Embrace Your Shadow, Release Your Power

Photo booth for Stress-Free Campaign 2018

Stress-Free Campaign 2018 was organised by the Counselling & Guidance Unit under the Department of Student Affairs (DSA) at Sungai Long Campus on 30 and 31 October 2018. Themed, “Embrace Your Shadow, Release Your Power”, the campaign aimed to raise the awareness of focusing on de-stressed life, to boost motivation of students in the campus and to remind everyone regarding the importance of managing life. The campaign also aimed to publicise the services provided by Counselling and Guidance Unit at UTAR.

During the campaign, a workshop called “Stress Free with Expressive Arts Therapy” was conducted by DSA Counselling & Guidance Unit Tan Chin Yee. Expressive Arts Therapy is a form of therapy which uses arts, music and body movement to express inner feelings and thoughts. The workshop was organised to enhance students’ intrapersonal and interpersonal skills (EQ) and to build bond and trust among each other. It also served to enhance the communication skills and personal development of the students. Most importantly, the workshop hoped to help students relief stress and help them to focus on the present moments.

  Participants during Expressive Arts Therapy workshop

Meanwhile, two talks were conducted by Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) Department of Nursing lecturer Thavamalar Paramasivam and London College of Clinical Hypnosis (LCCH) Asia Trainer-cum-lecturer Eric Yap. They presented on “Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)” and “Self Hypnosis for Stress Management” respectively.

Thavamalar delivering her talk on “Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)”

Thavamalar gave a brief introduction about EFT and its history to the audience and explained how to balance stress through EFT. She also demonstrated how EFT works on stress. “Suppression of emotion can lead to cancer which might cause one to die early due to the disease. Therefore, I would recommend you to use EFT to overcome stress. EFT is a fast, easy and effective way to remove negative emotions and anxiety. Doing EFT helps one to focus.  Tapping our body, for instance, helps to release blockage and allows energy to flow in our body. EFT helps to reprogramme negative belief patterns into more life-affirming ones. It also balances the energy fields in the body which affect thoughts, emotions and physical states,” said Thavamalar. 

Shadow dance performance by Year 3 Bachelor of Nursing (Hons) students

The talk then saw the performance of Shadow Dance by Year 3 Bachelor of Nursing (Hons) students namely, Cheng Pay Wei, Teo Jin Yan, Len Xun Mei and Raadshini Vejayakumar with the song titled “In my blood” by Shawn Mendes. 

Eric Yap delivering his talk on “Self Hypnosis for Stress Management”

“Stress can produce miracle but it can also kill people,” said Eric Yap. “Stress is not just about ‘bad stress’, stress can be good as well. Small doses of stress are good because it helps us to meet daily challenges, motivate us to reach our goal and improve our heart rate. We can have a stress-reducing lifestyle by having a proper meal, exercising regularly and having a good sleep. Also, set goals for your life, it can help to reduce stress.” Meanwhile, he also shared with the audience about the signs and symptoms of depression, how to release stress using Environment Relaxation Technique and how our routines can help to reduce stress.

The campaign also saw various fun and interesting stress-free games which were conducted for two days to bring fun and laughter to the participants. 

Eric Yap (second row, third from left) and DSA Counselling & Guidance Unit Navamani Nagappon (front row, second from left) with the participants 

 Some fun stress-free games for the participants