A community development society in southeast Rocky View County is hosting a wellness challenge throughout the month of March to inspire and promote positive lifestyle habits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The idea of it came from wanting to give people a chance to focus on their wellness, especially with the year everyone has had,” said Coralee McIntosh, community development and operations manager with the Synergy Youth and Community Development Society – the Chestermere-based charity that is organizing the initiative.
In devising the challenge, McIntosh said Synergy representatives consulted the municipality of High River, which has hosted a similar wellness initiative for roughly 10 years. She said gathering ideas from that town helped shape Synergy’s challenge.
Considering many people have been mentally taxed from working at home and having to exclude regular activities from their lifestyles, McIntosh said a challenge like this is a positive way to make sure people are focusing on their own personal wellness, rather than negative aspects.
“It’s always good to take a few moments to focus on yourself,” she said. “We haven’t been able to connect with other people the same way we normally do.”
McIntosh said Chestermere residents can join as a team in order to encourage each other to stay on track. She said there are many things participants can do to improve their day-to-day health, both physically and mentally, throughout the challenge.
“You can find yourself asking when we are going to get out of this,” she said. “This is something fun that we can do as a community.”
According to McIntosh, throughout the month, teams will be able to track their points, which will lead to earning prizes by the end of the challenge. She added teams gather points by participating in easy day-to-day activities.
“We are not trying to take up more of people’s time,” she said. “We are not trying to make it harder for everybody, but we are going to provide participants with strategies they can do to build healthy habits.”
Each week of the challenge will focus on a different theme, according to McIntosh. The five themes are centred around sleep, work or school, eating habits, love and relationships, and play.
Throughout the challenge, she said Synergy will publish different videos featuring local experts and professionals, who will provide different tips and tricks on what people can do to improve in these areas.
McIntosh said the challenge is not limited to Chestermere residents, but surrounding areas as well, such as Indus and Langdon. Interested participants have until Feb. 28 to sign up. The challenge carries a cost of $10 per participant or $40 per team.
More information can be found at yoursynergy.ca
Jordan Stricker, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @Jay_Strickz
