Mesa College Student Health Services is offering a comfort tent to any students who want to release any stress or anxiety they might have.
The comfort tent provides drinks such as water and coffee as well as snacks like pretzels and calming music. There are also relaxing techniques and conversations with a licensed therapist or a mental health peer educator. The tent also has a scarf activity that is soothing and calming, where the colors of the scarf symbolize an object or students can draw, color and study.
Twice a semester before midterms and finals the comfort tent is set up and designed through Mesa College students. It is open during midterms and the last two weeks of finals. The hours are Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. This tent is a place to relax and to talk to someone and to feel cared for and loved for.
Director of the Health Services Center Department Suzanne Khambata, said, “It is important to interrupt your stress and anxiety.”
The comfort tent attempts to make students feel that they are important and it’s a place for refuge. Students can open up to any professional health care and it’s confidential.
Senai Melake a student at Mesa College said, “I enjoy this comfort tent it helps me relax and makes me feel like everything is going to be okay especially since finals are here, it lets me escape for a little bit.”
This is the second year that the comfort tent has been open to Mesa College students and can possibly make a difference to students who suffer from prolonged stress or anxiety.
Besides the comfort tent Student Health Services also offers free doctors, nurse practitioners a pharmacy and a lab and a licensed therapist. There is a little charge for medication and the pharmacy lab. Student Health Services also works well with any financial problems like purchasing any medication such as depression.
Suzanne Khambata said, “No problem is too small or too big.”
The comfort tent and the Student Health Services Department is the place to be for any problems whether it’s stress or anxiety or just the need to talk to someone. Come and check out the comfort tent and escape from reality for a little bit.
