UBC Faculty of Education Staff Wellness Afternoon

UBC’s Point Grey Campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musequem People. Established in 2007, the xʷc̓ic̓əsəm: Indigenous Health Research and Education Garden at the UBC Farm aims to serve educational and research needs related to Indigenous food sovereignty while increasing knowledge and access to both traditional and non-traditional plants. The xʷc̓ic̓əsəm garden is guided by the principle that ‘food is medicine,’ and thus that a holistic understanding of health and healing includes the food that people eat.

Join us for an hour-long tour of the Indigenous Health Research and Education Garden at the UBC Farm to learn more about the land on which we work and its relationship to our health and wellness.

This activity will take 2 hours. 1 hour to walk to and from the Garden and 1 hour for the tour.

Summertime Stillness Yoga with Nick

To kick-start the afternoon, the first two sessions will be focused on movement and breathing to create physical alignment and mental stillness. For the third session, the aim is to cultivate clarity and inner spaciousness while achieving complete relaxation. Each session will be accessible and beneficial for everybody from the novice to the advanced yogi.

• Please wear comfortable attire as there will be plenty of active movement
• Participants are encouraged to bring their own mat, but there will be mats provided for those who don’t have one
• Participants are also encouraged to bring a yoga block or another prop (like a small cushion) to sit onto for extra comfort

You are invited to drop all expectations, and simply come as you are 🙂

Mindfulness and the Cupcake

This workshop will explore how engaging in decorating cupcakes can serve as a form of mindfulness.

Taking time to quiet your thoughts, re-focus your energy, and be in the moment enables you to re-center yourself and decrease your stress. Pluss the added bonus of getting to eat (and possibly sharing?) your cupcakes!

Particpants need to bring:

• something to protect clothes (i.e. an apron)
• a container big enough to hold a max of 6 medium-sized cupcakes

Pet therapy involves interacting with trained therapy pet and human teams, with a focus on emotional benefits and comfort rather than specific treatment goals. Interactions are spontaneous and social in nature.

Benefits of pet therapy include:

• Increased ability to deal with feelings of loneliness and isolation
• Relief of depression and disorientation
• Improved morale, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-respect
• Lowered blood pressure
• Reduced stress and anxiety

Trek to Wreck

This session will focus on the benefits of being in nature, right in UBC’s backyard! Enjoy a rigorous (but short!) hike up and down the Wreck Beach Stairs, pausing a moment to relax on the beach and take in everything living on the west coast has to offer.

Participants should bring:

• Comfortable clothing for hiking
• Suitable footwear
• Water bottle, sunscreen and anything else if it’s a sunny day!

Did you know that there is a word in Japanese for “forest bathing”? Shinrin-yoku describes bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking the forest through our senses. TIME magazine has described the many benefits of forest bathing including calming one’s senses, easing stress and rejuvenating the mind. As we spend a large amount of our days indoors and in front of a computer, taking the time to go outside and relax not only helps us feel refreshed but also helps us in terms of physical health. Scientific studies have proven the tremendous benefits of immersing oneself in nature. We invite you to join us in taking a mindful and educational tour of the Nitobe Memorial Garden –a place that commemorates the scholar who acted as a bridge between Canada and Japan.

Visit the links below for more information :

• time.com/5259602/japanese-forest-bathing
• botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/visit/nitobe-memorial-garden

This workshop will explore how to express our emotion through simple dots, lines, and colours. Slow down, take a deep breath, look into your own feelings and emotion. Let’s use simple paper marbling skills to express ourselves through water and drops of colours.

• You do not need to have prior knowledge or skills in art
• You do not need to bring any material
• You can bring home one or more of your art creations!

Let's enjoy this creative moment together!

This is a free block where you can relax, read a book, chat with colleagues, and play any of the games available.

Enjoy some free play!