UCL Students Celebrate Student Support and Wellbeing’s Beat the January Blues Festival

For two weeks in January, Beat the January Blues, run by UCL's Student Support and Wellbeing, aims to boost your mood and help you forget about the winter weather. Our UCL Student Storyteller Zoe Dahse went along to find out more.

The days after the Christmas break leading into the new year is a time when we are all settling back into everyday life following a festive and rather joyous time. Nationally these days are (rather pessimistically) referred to as the January Blues. January, and indeed winter, can be a difficult time for many students given the weather and seasonal changes they bring. 

In support of beating these so-called January Blues, UCL’s Student Support and Wellbeing Services put on ‘Beat the January Blues’, a series of events across a two-week festival to get students to gather, giggle, get outside and meet others to boost their mood and help them forget about the winter weather. 

Events included art workshops, a visit to Kew Gardens, games and puzzles afternoons, a drawing evening at the Petrie Museum, a karaoke night, and much more. 

I attended several events, speaking to students to gain some insight into why they attended and what they learnt. 

The festival began with a sleep webinar, led by Dr Guy Meadows, sleep psychologist and founder of the Sleep School. Dr Meadows gave some helpful pointers across the hour-long session to attendees to help them understand why sleep is so important during the winter months. 

Sleep is often something I will (unfortunately) forgo while chasing deadlines or choosing to prioritise social efforts. On a note on my pinboard lies a half-lucid thought I’d scribbled down while frustrated at deadlines and constantly feeling on edge that reminds me of this – “I hateeeee not sleeping enough”. And it’s true – the next morning I can’t focus, I feel groggy, and I get irritated with people. Recognising that this is a problem, and that the ultimate act of self-care is ensuring you sleep the way your body needs you to, has been an invaluable lesson for me throughout my UCL career. 

Guy highlighted that sleep deprivation is very common and that on average every adult in the UK will go about their daily lives with about 1.5 hours of sleep loss a week. Tips that Guy gave throughout the webinar included explaining that because of the darkness that winter brings, we are chronically light-deprived. Therefore, it is important to prioritise natural daylight exposure, for example by switching on bright lights as soon as you wake up. It also helps to have your desk by a well-lit window – a study showed that between two groups of employees, those who were sat closer to natural light had lower depression and low mood scores, as well as reduced cravings. 

Guy also advises darkening your environment 2 hours before bed as when we light up our environment, we are opening our gut and encouraging it to eat. He also recommended a light therapy lamp or box to reduce melatonin and boost serotonin. 

For those suffering from insomnia, he advises accepting that you are awake against struggling to get to sleep, as this more flexible relationship with thought will help. As well as this, it’s important to bear in mind that the clocks will spring forward on 30 March at 2am, meaning we lose an extra hour of sleep and will have to adapt our bodies to that too. Overall, the sleep webinar was highly valuable to all attendees. 

Next, I went to UCL Comedy Club’s comedy night. Each amateur standup comedian had 5 minutes to perform their bit, and they all drew a lot of laughs from the crowd, depending on the shock factor. As is always the case, laughing and giggling acts as a natural anti-stress agent, just like hanging out with friends does. 

I then attended the newly-created ArtsUCL Community Choir. The choir director James Burns enthusiastically welcomed us all by saying “I believe anyone can sing” and joyfully explaining the purpose of the choir as having a “choral poppy vibe” every week, with a different song being covered each time. We split into altos, basses and sopranos, and sang along while he played the accompanying piano. We covered Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out for a Hero’, and at the end of the hour-and-a-half session a genuinely good version of the song had been created. 

Vandani, a 2nd-year English student, told me: “I am so glad I participated in the choir as it gave me a chance to do something I love. The teacher and class were so fantastic: quick-paced, energetic and provided an incredibly welcoming environment to people of all levels of experience to create something special”. 

Music is also a well-known serotonin booster, and happy, upbeat songs are a great way to lift yourself out of a low mood. The ArtsUCL choir will take place every Wednesday from 17:00-18:30 in the Bloomsbury Theatre Conference Room, and anyone can participate in this low-commitment and fun activity. 

The last Beat the January Blues activity I went to was a Dance Fit class at Project Active on Friday evening. We danced along to hits such as ‘Señorita’, ‘Fast Car’ and ‘La Bicicleta’. Working up a sweat and moving my body made me feel good automatically. As Guy had said in the webinar on Monday: “exercise is a neurological calming agent, designed to chill us out too”.  

Becca, a final-year Sociology student, told me that she “often [forgoes] exercise, and then when I do it, it’s a realisation of just how good it is for you”. And I couldn’t agree more – just like sleep, it’s often a core aspect of my mental and physical wellbeing that I decide to put on the back burner. After attending these activities, I realised it’s time to refocus on them. Project Active has a lot of low-fee, low-commitment opportunities on their website, with many classes on offer such as Barre and Yoga, so I highly recommend that you go and try them out. 

Sally Kettyle, Student Projects and Events Co-Ordinator in UCL’s Student Support and Wellbeing Team, told me that “the value and quality of our events campaigns are measured by the positive impact they have on our students, and from conversations so far with students during Beat the January Blues, it’s been a huge success! Students have told us they’ve made new friends, tried things they’ve never done before, been places they’ve wanted to visit for a long time, and ultimately had a great time. This is what UCL Student Support and Wellbeing Services’ events are all about! We can’t wait for our next campaign, Exam Season Toolkit, coming up in March.” 

Student Support and Wellbeing offer events year round too, and I highly encourage students to get involved with them as much as possible and to try new things out. I had a fantastic time at the Beat the January Blues Festival, as did many other students, too. 

For more information on Student Support and Wellbeing Services' Exam Season campaign, starting on 10 March, see below: 
Exam Season Toolkit | Students - UCL – University College London 

 

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