The Health Education Resource Center is providing a panther sleep open session for students on Thursday to learn whether or not they are getting enough sleep at night in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

This open session consists of two different presentations: “Stress and Sleep Management,” which is at 5 p.m. in the Martinsville Room, and “Sleep Like a Panther,” which is at 6 p.m. in the Effingham Room, immediately following the previous presentation.

Staff from HERC will educate attendees about good sleeping habits—what they are and how students can develop them—at this open session.

Gage Daily, health promotion coordinator and presenter at the session, will talk to students about how sleep is a big part of students’ health and why they should care about healthy sleep habits.

Everyone knows people need eight hours of sleep every night, Daily said, but many of them do not realize if they do not get that necessary sleep, it can cause health issues, where they “don’t feel normal and (instead) feel drowsy.”

When people do not get the full eight hours of sleep they need, they are “under slept and sleep deprived and don’t realize it,” he said.

Daily said stress is another factor that can negatively affect healthy sleeping in college students.

Everyone should go to the open session, he said, because it gets students thinking about sleep—something vitally important for everyone—and the benefits healthy sleeping has to offer college students.

These open sessions allow for students to engage with the presenters, and anyone interested in learning more about healthy sleeping habits can attend, he said.

Daily said he will be leading the “Sleep Like a Panther” open session at 6 p.m., and Kasey Brown, the mental health promotion coordinator, will be presenting the “Stress and Sleep Management” open session at 5 p.m.

According to HERC’s newsletter, the next “Sleep Like a Panther” open session after Thursday will be held March 29 at 6:30 in the Effingham Room, and the next “Stress and Sleep Management” open session will be March 26 at 1 p.m. in the Martinsville Room.

Brianna Lewis can be reached at 581-2812 or at bdlewis3@eiu.edu.