Bring your own teddy bear

Isabelle Webster ’22

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In October, the Good Life Center—a space dedicated to promoting student well-being—moved into its new home in the Schwarzman Center. (Its previous home in Silliman College is also open, for now.) Designed to incorporate the evidence-based ideas about happiness and well-being that psychology professor Laurie Santos teaches in her course Psychology and the Good Life, the space features a lounge where classes on yoga, meditation, and mindfulness are held; a “green room” for engagement with nature; and a “gratitude room,” where students are prompted to think about things for which they’re grateful—a practice that has been shown to contribute to mental well-being. But the biggest hit is the nap room (left), with its four large beanbag sofas, low light, free sleeping masks, and earplugs. “It’s our most trafficked room,” says Alexa Vaghenas ’20, who oversees the center’s operations and programming and was lead designer for the center’s new home in Schwarzman. She sees students going to the nap room “just as soon as the space opens.” That’s at 10 a.m.