Mindful Strategies for Helping College Students Manage Stress

A Guide for Higher Education Professionals

Lacretia Dye, Monica Galloway Burke, Cynthia Palmer Mason

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000362244
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Istruzione superiore

This practical resource offers a much-needed introduction to the why, what, and how of supporting college students through mindfulness and stress-releasing strategies.

Higher education professionals are in a unique position to support, coach, and teach strategies with students to manage anxiety and emotional distress and improve well-being. Drawing on experience from the disciplines of Mental Health, Counseling, and Student Affairs, the authors provide evidence-based practices and tangible techniques supported by the latest brain-based research and neuroscience. Full of tools that college students can use daily to assist with their relaxation, meditation, focus, and stress management, this book helps higher education professionals who are not trained mental health practitioners to effectively and confidently incorporate activities to support the whole student.

Chapter 1

Mind, Body, and Spirit

Community Connection and Relationships Matter

If you have ever conversed with a college student about their life or how they are doing, it is likely you have heard comments about how they are dealing with multiple deadlines, stress, anxiety, fatigue, and/or burnout. At its core, college is an environment filled with independence and new opportunities to learn, grow, interact, discover, choose, and evaluate. Unfortunately, during college, students are also vulnerable to a wide range of emotional and mental health challenges that could impact them physically. The college years can be one of the most stressful periods in young adults’ lives since they need to manage their own lives (Cress & Lampman, 2007). In addition to dealing with college life, students are also in the midst of emerging adulthood that comprises identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in between taking responsibility for themselves and not completely feeling like an adult, as well as possessing possibilities as well as unparalleled opportunities (Arnett, 2004). While attempting to balance the many responsibilities and expectations of college life as well as their navigation into adulthood, college students are at risk of developing unhealthy behaviors and adverse consequences associated with their mental, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and physical well-being at the micro (e.g., student and their performance in the classroom) and macro (e.g., academic, residential, and social) level of the campus community. Such experiences and emotions can impact a variety of aspects of a college student’s life, which underscores the need for them to learn strategies to help them through life’s difficult moments.

Considering the scope and importance of the personal well-being of college students, higher education professionals have a distinctive opportunity to support and advocate for the mental and emotional and health of students, especially at a particularly vulnerable point in students’ lives. In addition, higher education professionals are in a unique position to understand and support students’ psychological and social resources, which can amend their experiences with overwhelming stress. Psychological resources (e.g., an individual’s attitudes and dispositions) are what we are taught and what is modeled for us by mature adults in our lives. These resources are our perspectives—such as hope, patience, and encouragement—and the skills we learn—such as relaxation, mindfulness, asking for help, and tolerating anxiety (Burke, Laves, Sauerheber, & Hughey, 2020). Social resources are, essentially, the people with whom we have relationships or can be found in the groups we belong to or are affiliated with at the time. Having a support system (e.g., family, friends, and acquaintances) and the relationship skills to find and maintain relationships with these supportive people can also help buffer the effects of stress (Burke, Laves, Sauerheber, & Hughey, 2020). Higher education professionals can aid students by working with them to help mitigate their stress and by securing resources to offer appropriate support in order to help students cope with stress.

Understanding the connection between the mind, body, and spirit and the relevance of our connection to others is a first step toward helping students, through the use of mindful strategies, manage stress. We simply cannot ignore the idea that as humans, we are whole beings, that our overall health includes our mental states, physical condition, and social environment, and that they all influence each other.

A Student’s Voice

While in college, I wish I would have learned how to better put time aside for my mental health. To this day, I find myself putting all of my energy into work and academics until I “crash.” Self-care is something I wish could have been better talked about by not only schools, but also parents, professionals and counselors while I attended undergrad.

—A 24-year-old graduate student

Mental Health and the College Student

Our mental health, a state of well-being in which an individual can cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to their community (World Health Organization, 2018), includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being and determines how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. When our mental health is in a good state, we manage our basic cognitive and social skills; recognize, express, and modulate our emotions; are flexible and able to cope with adverse life events; function in social roles; and modulate a harmonious relationship between our body and mind (Galderisi et al., 2015). Of course, as we grow in life, we are at times presented with obstacles and circumstances, seen and unforeseen, which can negatively impact the state of our mental health, bringing forth emotions such as anxiety, fear, worry, frustration, disappointment, sadness, and anger. Specifically, an unforeseen circumstance such as the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which impacted the academic and environmental realms on many college campuses in the United States, accentuates how an unexpected event can cause psychological stress, put students’ coping strategies to the test, and may lead to unfavorable effects on their academic performance. The unexpected changes to learning formats, living situations, proximity to peers, relationships with friends and partners, extracurricular activities, work and finances, routines, the job market, and academic celebrations triggered anxiety and stress for some students. These changes occurred in addition to concerns regarding infection and transmission of COVID-19 to others. A consequence of increased stress and anxiety due to unexpected changes such as a pandemic can lead to mind wandering, which then competes for limited cognitive resources; this has a number of real-world consequences, such as effects on academic performance and the ability to complete daily tasks (Boals & Banks, 2020). Additionally, the national protests for racial equality and justice in the United States also presented unique challenges for the campus and students, particularly the mental health of Black students. Seeing and hearing disparaging comments about a dimension of who you are, from which you cannot hide, in media and on campus can have a detrimental impact on the psychological well-being of students of color. Currie and colleagues (2012) found that the most common psychological reaction for students experiencing discrimination was to feel a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Racial battle fatigue (RBF) has also been used to describe such experiences of students of color in postsecondary settings, which affirms that the cumulative, negative effect of racial microaggressions causes them to often become physically and emotionally drained (Smith, 2009). Therefore, when uncertainties enter the lives of college students and they are not able to effectively stay well in their mind, body, and spirit, they can face mental health challenges.

Particularly, there has been more attention on the mental and emotional well-being of adolescents and emerging adults, especially the stress and anxiety of college students, over the past few years. Today’s college students continue to suffer at least as much as previous generations and may be less able to function as self-assured and autonomous individuals (Burke, Sauerheber, Hughey & Laves, 2017). In fact, studies have shown that common mental health issues reported by American college students include depression, stress, anxiety, and suicidal ideation in addition to concerns about feeling lonely and overwhelmed, relationships, family, and interpersonal functioning (American College Health Association, 2018; Brandy, Penckofer, Solari-Twadell, & Velsor-Friedrich, 2015; LeViness, Be...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Authors
• 1 Mind, Body, and Spirit: Community Connection and Relationships Matter
• 2 Brain Basics
• 3 Relax and Release
• 4 A Meditation a Day
• 5 Mindful Movement
• 6 Helping Students with Focus and Choices for Change
• 7 Self-Care is the New Health Care: Prescriptions for Well-Being and Being Well
• Index