HEALTH AND WELL-BEING AMONG IIUM STUDENTS
NAME: NURAMIZA BINTI ABDUL KADIR
MATRIC NO: 2215684
Assalamualaikum w.b.t to all my friends from IIUM. I hope all of you are always healthy mentally, and physically. I'm Nuramiza binti Abdul Kadir, year 1 student from IIUM Kuantan. I'm from Applied Plant Science student. For our reflective journal 1, I will talk about health and well-being issues among students in IIUM Kuantan.
INTRODUCTION
As we all know, health and well-being is a very important topic for us to talk about as a student because we need to live healthily to study well, and achieve our ambitions in life. These days, mental and physical health problem among students is very common issues and continues to increase along with current changes, especially during Covid. Students are prone to have health problems because we are often exposed to problems such as financial problems, unbalanced time distribution and constant stress while studying. This problem will continue and increase, causing long-term adverse effects on students if not dealt with properly and awareness of this problem is not disclosed. So, we can say that IIUM students are also experiencing this problems. Some friends of mine and me myself are having problems related to physical and mental health issues that give effect to our study. Another issues related to general health and well-being also may occurs based on some observations that will be explained later. I will explain about some of the factors that be the cause of this issue and the possible initiative that should be taken to provide solutions regarding this problem.
FACTORS
1. Financial problem
Financial problem can be one of the factors that will affect IIUM students health and well being because we need to have balanced finances to cover living costs and university fees. I come from B40 family, so sometimes I'm also facing this problem during my study. From my perspective, financial problems can affect students' health either physically or mentally in many ways. Without enough budget, students cannot get proper meals every day. Some of us will prefer to eat fast foods to replace healthy meals as it is very cheap and easy to get. But, as a long term effect, if someone practice that habit regularly, it can cause various health problem. Some of the students also will eat only one meal a day to overcome their financial problem. This bad habit also can cause them to have gastritis. Other than physical health problems, unstable financial condition also can cause mental health problems among students, as it can lead to constant stress to them.
2. Unbalanced time distribution
Unbalanced time distribution are also known to cause stress among university students. As a students, it is normal to have to deal with numbers of assignments and needs to attend classes every day in the same time. So, a proper time management is a need. But, some of the students just doesn't know the right way to manage their time properly, and failed to overcome this problem. Poor time managements also can occur when a student does not get any counselling session or sharing to help them with this problems. As a result, serious stress and health issues can arise among them. Poor time management can lead to unbalanced diet, irregular meal intake and lack of sleep among students. Stress and anxiety will also be a serious issue as a result from unbalanced time distribution.
3. Poor emotional management and lack emotional support
Stress is very common among students. It is a very normal condition in most of the case, but poor stress and emotional management can lead to serious mental health issues, and in some case can lead to mental illness issues such as depression and anxiety. Students need a good emotional management to continue their life as a student that is full of challenge. Those who want to graduate successfully with good grades and good health needs to manage their emotion wisely. Without a proper management of emotions, students are prone to constant stress. In the other hand, emotional support is also an essential elements in university students, life. Lack of emotional support will also leading to mental illness problems, and can make the students become weak in overcoming their challenges throughout their studies.
INITIATIVE
Some initiative must be taken in order to prevent those issues among IIUM students from becoming worse. The first initiative for the first factor is to provide financial assistant to the needy students. Some of us really needs financial assistant because they cannot afford the high living cost and fees in university. This initiative will help the students to cover their fees and living costs while studying in IIUM.
Other than that, the initiative that can be taken is to provide free meals for B40 students, which is already running at this time. But, in my opinion, this initiative must be improved to cover more needy students and should be provided more often.
The other initiative to help students with the second and third factors which is poor time management and poor emotional management and lack emotional support is to provide counselling session and support on a wider scale. The Counselling and career service unit of IIUM can conduct counselling sessions either in group or for individuals on a larger scale. The counselling unit can conduct a counselling program to encourage more students to get counselling sessions that will help with their problems. Counselling unit also can conduct sharing program that related to emotional managements, and issues regarding mental health. This preventive measure can help students understand themselves better, and realize the importance of managing their mental health, because a a lot of students still doesn't have enough awareness and knowledge regarding mental health. Deep awareness and knowledge about this issue will help to reduce health problems among IIUM students physically, and mentally as the two of them is related to each other.
In the other hand, the students themselves play an important role to take care of each other and support each other to overcome challenges and problems throughout their studies. Everyone as a Muslim should carry out their responsibilities to take care of each other. If this kind of mentality is widely spread among students, a lot of problems related to mental health issues and lack of support can be reduced.
RELATION WITH SDG AND ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE
Those issues explained is related to SDG 3, which is good health and well-being. Health and well-being is connected together, and included the physical and mental health. It is crucial to take care of this issues among students to to produce students who are healthy from all aspects, and able to lead society and the country in a better direction. In Islam, it is very important to take care of those things to produce a better Muslim community that can lead this world to be a better place to live. To produce a better Muslim community, we must be strong mentally, and physically and need to have a good health. Ibnu Majah has narrated a hadith that mentions that the Messenger of Allah, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: "Ask God for health and well-being because there is nothing better than health after faith.". This hadith shows us that, Islam highly encourage their people to take good care of their health mentally, and physically. Having a community with a very good health and well-being can make that community to live harmoniously. Thus, as a good Muslim, we need to respond to this order as our responsibility to form a more capable Muslim society and guide the world towards a better direction, and to be successful in this world, and in the hereafter.
