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Show Monday, Jan.; 5, 20Q9 Students use pet therapy as a way to cope with stress and depression By STOREE POWELL staff writer REMY, AN AUSTRALIAN CATTLE DOG, is one of the two dogs involved with the Counseling Center. Students are eligible for pet therapy if he or she is a student on the Logan campus with at least six credits. The therapy is free and confidential, photo courtesy ofUSU COUNSELING CENTER Depression is the number one diagnosis at the USU Student Health and Wellness Center, according to Jim Davis, medical director for the center. A statistical survey conducted by the Student Health and Wellness Center in 2007 sheds some light on the high levels of depressed students. Students surveyed responded to multiple questions concerning their happiness, anxiety and behavioral levels. According to the survey, when students were asked if they had recently felt depressed or wondered if anything was worthwhile, more than 40 percent of students responded they were feeling various levels of extremely high to moderate depression. Responses to other related or similar questions showed many students suffered anxiety and emotional instability enough to make them concerned over its affects, like losing control. But why are so many students struggling with these issues? Davis said his theory is that most of the students currently at USU are of the Generation Y. These students, he said, were sheltered and protected by parents, teachers and coaches growing up. "Your parents strapped you into a car seat, and scores weren't kept at little league," Davis said, "so these students have not experienced the same stress levels previous generations have. They don't know how to manage stress when they are in college." Davis said stress is related to depression because anxiety and stress cause serotonin levels in the brain to deplete. Davis said Serotonin is the brain chemical that makes a person happy and motivated, so a lack of it will cause a person to become depressed. "The thing to realize is that if the depression is interfering with the person's ability to cope, that's the threshold to when a student needs to seek care," Davis said. There are many methods students use to cope with stress and depression, but not all are beneficial, Davis said. Though not common, shopping, drinking, eating disorders and drug use are detrimental methods. But exercise, being with friends and pet therapy are positive ways to combat depression, Davis said. In the last 20 years, pet therapy is an area that has received more attention in research and use nationwide, including academic settings, said Mary Doty, psychologist and pet therapist at the USU Counseling Center. Doty said pet therapy is becoming less based on anecdotal evidence, but experiments that are revealing important information to the therapy world. The research shows that pets can lower stress and increase health by decreasing blood pressure and heart rate, she said. A person who has a meaningful interaction with a pet can increase their living time and alleviate depression, all of which are important to successful therapy of students, Doty said. "This research is just giving credence to what See THERAPY, page 7 Bashful to stage light Student performs in more than 30 plays ByARIE KIRK editor in chief For a kid who used to get embarrassed ordering pizza on the telephone, USU student Luke Bybee has come a long way - performing in more than 30 plays for crowds of hundreds. "I was extremely shy. In high school I was a nervous wreck and I had a hard time talking to people," Luke said. "Put me in a room and I couldn't even speak." Mary Bybee, Luke's mom, agreed, saying he was very bashful. Now, however, "He just gets up and shines and is a different person." While Luke didn't consider acting until five or six years ago, Mary said as a child, he certainly had the look of it. "I never noticed it before but when I look back at pictures now, at old pictures " she said, "he was posing." It was Luke's shyness, in part, that led him to begin taking acting classes after working for the Utah Festival Opera Company building sets. He worked construction but Luke said he realized that was not going to be the life for him. "I wasn't satisfied enough," Luke said, then thinking, "There has got to be something better than this." That, he said, is when he started attending USU and became involved with the theatre department. His roles have included Edmund in "King Lear", Pablo Picasso and, most recently, Ebenezer Scrooge. In December the Caine School of the Arts and USU's department of theatre arts performed Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," in which Luke had the lead. Luke said Scrooge has been one of his favorite performances for a few reasons. "First of all, it's not that often that a 27 year old gets to play Scrooge," he said. "I mean, you have to be Patrick Stewart's age and British." Luke is also a Dickens fan, one of his favorite books being "Great Expectations." "I am a huge fan, huge fan, of Charles Dickens," he said. He praised the eloquence of Dickens' writing and the messages conveyed, especially in "A Christmas Carol." After reading or watching the Christmas classic, he said people always want to be better and it helps everyone appreciate humanity a little bit more. "You don't want to be a person who stands off in the wings and just watches," Luke said. "You need that sort of thing at Christmas time." Luke did his own makeup for the production. He said the application took about an hour and a half. "When I got it on though, it was super cool. It was part of the fun," he said. "I felt like an old man." Not only did Luke look and move like an elderly man, he sounded like one, too, speaking the entire play in a raspy, spiteful, aged voice. Getting the right voice, he said, was a bit of a challenge. "It took a lot of work. I was really nervous," he said, adding, "It took a lot of experimenting. I'm a huge fan of that - always trying something new because that's how you get good ideas." The role of Scrooge was his mom's favorite . too because it illustrated the versatility of the personalities and conditions in which Luke can act. Mary said, "I really like it because you could see the diversity of what he could play. It is so different from Luke, playing that old man." Luke said he also enjoyed playing Scrooge because he got to work with a lot of his friends, including the man who directed him in his first play. Lee Daily, who played Dickens in "A Christmas Carol," directed Luke in the children's show "Blue Horses," which was produced by the Unicorn Theater. To prepare for a role, reading and studying are key. "Just read the play over and over and over again," Luke said. "The number one thing is research, research, research. You can never do too much research." When he first gets a script, Luke said he USU S T U D E N T A N D ACTOR Luke Bybee has been in more than 30 productions, including Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in which he played Ebenezer Scrooge. Bybee did his own makeup for the production, the application taking about an hour and a half, photo courtesy of LUKE &YBEE highlights all of his lines. Using another color, he highlights what other characters are saying about him and then, using yet another highlighter, he marks his character's actions. By time he's through, he said it looks like a rainbow. Then, he reads. Fortunately, Luke has a good memory. "I'm really good at memorizing things. For me/it's repetition. If you're excited about it, you memorize it pretty quick," he said. To practice his lines, Luke said sometimes he'll use method acting and rehearse them with other people. For example, if a scene takes place in a restaurant, Luke goes out to eat and tells his lines to someone. Some worry about people listening in but, "Nobody really cares," he said. Adding, "It gets you into character, I think." [ I See PERFORMING, page 7 |