Mental Health Initiative
What is Mental Health
Mental health is one part of our holistic well-being. Commonly, mental health is only paid attention to when we perceive a disparity or experience a mental health challenge. However, mental health is more than the absences of challenges or stress. While definitions vary, mental health is a state of mind in which people can:
- Cope with the ordinary demands and stresses of life
- Regulate their emotions and behavior
- Realize their abilities
- Maintain healthy, constructive relationships
Mental health, like many aspects of our lives, exists on a continuum and is experienced individually person-to-person. Our mental health is affected by various factors, including psychological, biological, social, economic, geological, and environmental. These factors can be either risky or protective, making us more vulnerable to mental health challenges or strengthening our resilience.
To maintain and promote our mental health, one of the best things we can do is take a day-to-day approach. As individuals, we can build healthy habits including self-care, boundary setting and time management, mindfulness, and asking for help. At Hokie Wellness, we seek to help people learn about mental health topics and empower them to build those habits in a meaningful way to them.
Self-Care
Everyone is deserving of self-care; unfortunately, sometimes in college, we feel like it is a reward we must earn. Self-care is most effective in maintaining positive mental and emotional health when it is done consistently -- not just during the times we feel overwhelmed with stress.
Self-care is the practice of maintaining, restoring, and promoting our health and wellbeing. This includes any and all activities/behaviors that help us to:
- Promote psychological or physical health
- Prevent and manage physical and mental illness
- Achieve a sense of well-being
The best way to develop healthy, consistent self-care practices is to create a plan.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a practice that brings your awareness to the present moment. Mindfulness techniques can help us accept thoughts and feelings without judging them or getting lost in them. Oftentimes, when we are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, mindfulness can help us return to the present moment, calm our stress response, and remember what we have control over and can do.
Benefits from mindfulness include:
- Stress relief
- Improved mood
- Increased focus and attention
- Improved relationship satisfaction
- And more!
- Mindfulness Institute for Emerging Adults: If you are interested in exploring various mindfulness practices, MIEA has a variety of guided practices that are free to students.
- Campus mindfulness: Virginia Tech has Mindful campus practices featuring the Drillfield, Hahn Horticulture Gardens, and the Duck Pond.
- Community Resiliency Model: CRM is a skills-based, stabilization program that has been brought to Virgnia Tech whose primary focus is to reset the natural balance of the nervous system.
- Atlas of Emotions: A vital part of mindfulness is to understand what we are feeling. The atlas of emotion is a way that we can improve our emotional vocabulary.
Workshops
Mental Health Initiatives within Hokie Wellness offers a variety of workshops, in-house and by request. Our topics can be found below:
In college it can feel like everyone has already found “their people'', but the truth is: it’s not uncommon to experience loneliness or have difficulty navigating support systems. In this workshop, we will practice communications skills and learn about different types of support that can help us build meaningful connections.
In this workshop we learn how to go from simply reacting to stressors to thoughtfully responding to them. Together we will learn how our beliefs and emotions shape our behavior. Additionally, we will explore some common ‘mind traps’, also known as cognitive distortions’, and learn how to dismantle them when these types of thoughts arise.
What do you say to yourself when you make a mistake or experience a setback? What are your beliefs about your intelligence or abilities? In this workshop we will learn how to shift into a growth mindset by exploring concepts like receiving feedback, using supportive self-talk, and the power of effort.
Do I have to earn self-care? Is mindfulness all it’s cracked up to be? How do I know if my current coping skills are genuinely managing my stress? In this workshop, we explore all these questions and more. Together we work step by step through a realistic self-care plan as we learn more about effective self-care and engage in some introductory mindfulness practices.
In this workshop we use journaling as a tool for exploring the intersection of mindfulness and emotions. We will take some time to journal individually and engage in dialogue collectively about the “what”, “why”, and “how” of our unique emotional experiences.
In this workshop, we will discuss how to recognize the symptoms of sadness, depression, and other forms of possible distress. We will take some time to learn how to engage with a person we care about and discuss ways to get them further help. We will practice evidence-based techniques, such as motivational interviewing skills, that will develop skills in supporting others.