The Balance Beam:

"When people learn to experience inner peace-when they work on that level-then they are more likely to make and maintain lifestyle choices that are life-enhancing rather than self-destructive." Dean Ornish, from Healing and the Mind by Bill Moyers

Every day we are confronted with hundreds of choices. Should I roll out of bed for that 9 o'clock class or should I skip it just one more time? Should I go play frisbee or should I actually start that CIV reading? The decisions we make every day can have a lasting impact on our health and well-being. What do I mean specifically by health and well-being? I'm talking mostly about maintaining a sense of balance in our lives, achieving a level of physical, emotional, and spiritual health which allows us to enjoy a fully functional life and to achieve our highest potential in all aspects of our lives. 

What we hope to achieve in The Balance Beam is to equip you with skills and knowledge that will help you make the best choices for you in your life. We do not ascribe to any specific philosophies that we want to pass on, but simply want to present you with information about health issues that you may face in your day to day life at Stanford. All articles are written by students and thus topics are approached from a peer to peer perspective. Thus they often contain personal experiences, which may not always be applicable to all students, but offer a particular, and hopefully insightful, way of looking at an issue. The Balance Beam's formal purpose is to promote the awareness of various health issues that affect Stanford students and college students in general through a weekly newsletter. Topics covered include depression, sleep, and eating disorders.

Keep in mind as you read the following issues that our focus is on choices. It is important to be aware of how the choices we make affect our health. Deciding when to go to sleep at night, deciding what to eat for lunch, deciding whether or not to go to a party with some friends, or deciding whether or not to go to an aerobics class all may affect our sense of balance.

Sometimes we make choices or are put under circumstances which knock us off balance. Things that knock us off balance are going to happen, it's the nature of life; but we do have control over an amazing amount in our lives. If we can make healthy choices, we can avoid some of the disasters that can happen and will have a better sense of balance to be able to deal with some of the bad things that happen without getting knocked down.

Health is an on-going process; it isn't something that you can achieve and then push aside because you will always have it. You have to constantly strive to achieve health and when you are healthy, you have to strive to maintain your health. To use a somewhat cheesy but I think useful metaphor, in this lifelong "game" there will be times when we "trip and fall" and times that we are running faster than we ever thought we could go. The key to the game is to have the times that you are running outweigh the times that you fall and when you fall, be able to pick yourself up and start running again.

If you recognize a problem and want help to regain your balance, you can talk to friends, family members, R.A.'s, and another alternative is calling or stopping by The Bridge and talking to a trained student peer counselor. For we can't always deal with problems entirely on our own.

"Nothing can bring you lasting happiness and inner peace - but you have it already if you just quiet down your mind and body enough to experience it." Swami Satchidananda from Healing and The Mind.

Information and Other Resources:

- The Bridge 24-Hour Peer Counseling Center: 723-3392 (for peer counseling and information and referrals, also, call for current meeting times of support groups that meet at The Bridge)

- Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS): 723-3785 (for professional counseling, by appointment)

- If you are interested in writing for The Balance Beam or helping out with its publication, please e-mail Christopher at chrisili@leland or call the Bridge at 3-3393.

The Balance Beam is sponsored by:

- The Bridge 24-hour Peer Counseling Center and Information and Referral Service at 640 Campus Drive (next to the Bike Shop and the Haas Center),

- Cowell Student Health Center: located at 606 Campus Drive, and

- The Publications Board