Author: Khadija Faruqui

I Tried Energy Healing (Reiki) for Stress
22Nov By Khadija FaruquiNo Comments
A skeptic's self-care journey, Column

I Tried Energy Healing (Reiki) for Stress

By: Khadija Faruqui  I’m lying on a table in a dimly lit room. A woman I have just met has her hands clasped around my head. Save for the soft whirring of the fan above, the room is silent. I wait with bated breath, after all, if this worked, my life would never be the same. The woman is Mrs Riffat Irfan, and she has been a reiki practitioner for the last 22 years. Reiki is a Japanese energy healing technique which seeks to promote a healthy flow of energy in the body. Enthusiasts believe that whenever the body experiences trauma – mental or physical – the energy in the body stagnates. That’s where reiki comes in: the practitioner acts as a channel for ‘universal energy’ or ki and transmits it to the recipient’s body with their hands, thus allowing the en...
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Choosing to Stay on Campus
8May By Khadija FaruquiNo Comments
Campus News

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Choosing to Stay on Campus

By: Khadija Faruqui  After the imposition of the new SOPs following a COVID outbreak on campus and the subsequent lockdown, many of the students residing on campus began checking out in droves. Although, there still remain a significant number of students on campus, most have returned to their homes as they found campus life under the new restrictions to be increasingly stressful and debilitating to their mental health. Since the friends of many hostelites were day scholars, the revocation of campus access for day scholars exacerbated the feelings of isolation felt by these students. Fatima Qazi ‘24, a student who left campus in the beginning of April, said, “It’s so depressing here. I had a breakdown because there is no [family] support system. ” In the case of first-year students...
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All Out for the Semester: PSL Postponement
27Apr By Khadija Faruqui3 Comments
Sports & Travel

All Out for the Semester: PSL Postponement

By: Khadija FaruquiOn March 4, 2021 the remaining matches of the sixth edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) were postponed due to a COVID outbreak among the players. Considering everything the pandemic affected, the arena of sport and especially cricket in Pakistan was the one thing, which served to distract people from the anxieties of post-COVID life and online learning. Although the decision was made with regards to ensuring players’ safety, LUMS’ avid cricket watchers mourned the postponement of what seemed to be the only form of escape in a stressful semester.Before the matches were postponed, a forum where the excitement of LUMS’ students to attend the matches could be seen was LDF as it was flooded with frantic requests for tickets, indicating people’s desperation to experienc...
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