Linda Schreier continually finds creative and fun ways to encourage her colleagues to participate in employee wellness at WashU:
- She regularly emails her office mates “wellness moments”, reminding them to take moment to get up from their desks;
- She’s been a team captain for the Division of Biostatistics in Tread the Med, WashU Moves, and now 10K-A-Day activity challenges;
- She was one of the first Champions to utilize a Wellness Connection bulletin board and updates it regularly;
- She used her crafting skills & tools to help us design the Champion motivation activity for the January 2019 meetings; and
- She’s hosting a dedicated screening event for her office to help her colleagues know their numbers.
Linda’s story
Our Division of Biostatistics Wellness Moment emails were started during this past year as a way for us to try to be more health conscious by randomly reminding Faculty and Staff to take a moment to stretch, walk, or stand. We have recently gotten standing desks and were looking at ways to get everyone oriented to them but also add a little zing to it. Have you tried standing on one leg lately to improve your balance?
Our Division also posts upcoming events & opportunities on a bulletin board provided by Wellness Connection at our Division main entry way. Here we can showcase all the amazing opportunities provided for us at Washington University. I am a rubber stamper/paper crafter and have many tools of punches, stamps, and die cuts that I envision using to help embellish the board and other handouts, and have also used my punches for a Wellness Champion meeting.
Our office is hosting one of the Wellness Onsite Screening Events. We hope that everyone can get their numbers so they know how to proceed with their health care. They may find out something they weren’t aware of and catch it early enough to prevent more damage.
I have been our Team Captain for all our Wellness Events. I have a competitive spirit in me and thrive on the challenge of the games and incentives. One of my sisters & I compete with our tracking devices and she is an inspiration to me. She is hard to keep up with and is a good pace/race car for me. We chat often about our exercise and squishing it in our busy schedules. When we have University challenges, the whole office is a model to me. My other inspiration is my mother who has passed away. She was overweight, diabetic, & had high blood pressure. I keep her picture in my mind and hope that I can prevent getting those health issues.
When my day starts getting crazy, I take a hike up and down the stairwell for a mini break. One other favorite activity is Contra Dancing. It’s a little like square dancing but you dance with lots of people and to live bands and a caller. The dances keep you moving and thinking and everyone is welcome. They have a short lesson before each dance and all dances are taught. If you haven’t tried it, check us out at http://childgrove.org/. It’s fun to travel around and drop in on dances in other communities and attend dance weekends.
I challenge you to step out of your box and participate. You may be surprised at how much you can do and have fun.
Linda, thank you so much for sharing your story and for all of the work you do to foster a culture of wellness within your office.
If you’d like to learn more about the Wellness Connection Champion network, check out our website: https://hr.wustl.edu/wellness-connection/champions/.