Last week, starting Feb. 9, Jefferson’s Active Minds club sponsored Mental Wellness Week. Each day focused on a specific aspect of human health, from physical fitness to relaxation to sleep, in order to promote overall wellness in the Jefferson community.

Each day’s aspect was accompanied by special activities, such as a Just Dance competition on Monday, Pajama Day on Tuesday and even an eighth period yoga session on Wednesday. Students were enthusiastic about the exciting activities that took place during the week, knowing it would be an overall uplifting experience.

“I’m excited, because there’s something happening each day that I’m looking forward to, and I’m especially looking forward to Pajama Day this Tuesday, along with the exercise activities because I like to stay fit,” freshman Melanie Kurapatti said.

While Jefferson students greatly appreciated the opportunities given to them during these seven days, the teachers also enjoyed using their time to educate their classes about mental wellness. Biology teacher Aubrie Holman, for example, dedicated some time at the start of class to stretch alongside her students. Similarly, English teacher Mary-Beth Kochman used some brief time to talk about mental wellness and about articles discussing diet, exercise and similar concepts.

“I think my teachers have done a great job of echoing Mr. Myers’s messages in their emails and blackboard posts,” junior Vinay Simlot, a member of Active Minds, said. “If more teachers do that, we can have even more awareness for the week.”

As Jefferson has been known as quite the source of stress for students, this week acted as an outlet for them to relieve the constant pressure of tests and quizzes. Not only that, but members of the Active Minds club even provided ways for both students and teachers to make it easier on themselves during the year and in their daily lives by passing out slips of paper in the morning pertaining to the day’s aspect, each slip containing an interesting fact and/or source that discusses methods to help deal with certain problems and issues. Furthermore, they also had a way for people to send motivational messages to friends, other peers and even complete strangers.

“These messages that are given to people by their friends or even anonymous people can truly affect that person mentally as they know someone has acknowledged them,” freshman Jahnavi Prabhala, a leader of one of the Active Minds committees, said. “Though it seems like a small piece of paper, it truly shows the meaning of altruism and how it can affect both parties: the giver and the receiver. I think the motivational messages will, and already have, created a huge impact in the TJ community; though these things seem to be just small slips of paper, they can really affect a person by making their day much better with that small push of encouragement and motivation. Ultimately, the main purpose of these messages is to make people smile.”