By Arden Berry | Staff Writer
Two sophomores arrived at Baylor from across the country, far from their northern homes and, together, founded a new health and wellness organization.
Hermantown, Minn., sophomore Bella Piede and Grand Rapids, Mich., sophomore Sofia Larson founded BHE Well during their freshman year to help students improve their mental health through physical activity and community.
“We’re far away from home, obviously, and we just wanted to create a safe community for people that — because I came here, I didn’t know anyone when I moved here,” Larson said. “I don’t have any family in Texas, nothing. So it’s just like a safe space for everyone to talk if they need to talk to someone.”
BHE stands for Baylor Health Empowerment. Piede said trying to fit in and find friends is hard for students, especially freshmen, so that BHE Well would be a safe space.
“We wanted to create something that freshmen and people of all grades could come in, find their people, have a little community that’s aside from everything else that we can just move our bodies, get our mental health up,” Piede said.
Larson said BHE Well helps busy students stay active.
“We realized freshman year, we weren’t moving our bodies as much as we used to in high school,” Piede said. “With everything that was going on, all the schoolwork, the extracurriculars, everything that you want to be involved in, it became a lot, and our mental health was decreasing a lot.”
The connection Piede and Larson make between exercise and improved mental health is supported by many studies. “Role of Physical Activity on Mental Health and Well-Being: A Review” is a paper by Aditya Mahindru, Pradeep Patil and Varun Agrawal that summarizes the current understanding of this connection.
“Systematic evaluations have indicated better outcomes for mental diseases with physical activity,” the paper reads. “Numerous psychological effects, such as self-esteem, cognitive function, mood, depression and quality of life have been studied. According to general results, exercise enhances mood and self-esteem while decreasing stress tendencies, a factor known to aggravate mental and physical diseases.”
BHE Well holds brief general meetings where they discuss specific topics that their members vote on.
“Last week we had a meeting over meal prepping,” Piede said. “So we just went over the basics of that, what that looks like, how this affects your life and your mental health and then we had people do their own, too. We hand out little worksheets.”
Their first event was playing volleyball and pickleball, and their next event will be hiking on Nov. 8. Piede said the organization continues to grow with each event.
“We’ve seen so many new faces every time that we host something, so it’s been so nice to meet so many new people,” Piede said.
Overall, BHE Well is a synthesis of physical activity and community, which Piede and Larson said come together to improve its members’ health.
“We just want people to get to know other people outside of their comfortable circle,” Piede said. “And we just want to be that source for them to go have fun with your body, be super chill and relaxed.”
