UNIVERSITY RESOURCES
The University of Michigan already offers some resources for brain health and mental health, especially when you feel stressed out from academics or other factors in your life. U-M Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) provides short-term counseling for individual students or couples and offer services for urgent concerns, walk-ins, and 24-hour phone support.
The CAPS Wellness Zone is also open for walk-in students at 3100 Michigan Union. This area offers different resources to help students manage stress, rest, and relax such as massage chairs, yoga and meditation tools, Xbox Kinect systems, biofeedback software, and seasonal-affective disorder light therapy. The Wellness Zone is open during CAPS hours, 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, and until 5 p.m. on Fridays.
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MDining serves a large population on campus, especially freshmen and sophomores who participated in our survey. Though the dining halls advertise their healthy options, most meals still contain a high calorie content and few options contain the positive nutrients necessary for maintaining one’s brain health. Healthier options such as salads and sandwiches are available, however, which are made to order so the student has the control over what they put in their meal.
GOING FORWARD
The Wolverine Support Network is another resource for improving brain health through lowering stress and promoting rest. WSN is a student organization that promotes well-being on campus and strives to create a supportive community against the stigmas of mental health issues at the university. The Wolverine Support Network offers support groups for students to share their struggles in a healthy, safe, and confidential way.
The University of Michigan also offers a areas for students to improve their brain health through exercise. There are three recreation buildings that are located on Central Campus, South Campus, and North Campus equipped with weight rooms, treadmills, volleyball courts, basketball courts, tennis courts, indoor tracks, and indoor pools. The university also offers many fitness classes and intramural sports on campus that students can join for a less-competitive, organized environment in which they can continue to be involved in sports.
We believe that providing education about why students should care about their brain health, not simply what affects it, is essential to creating a healthier student body. The University of Michigan provides educational resources about how to consume alcohol safely, for example, but does not detail how this drug and other drugs may seriously affect one’s brain over a lifetime. Including such education about the effects of certain behaviors in orientation activities and periodically throughout one’s college career may make brain health more important to students.
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In addition to education, we believe that the increasing demands from courses, extracurriculars, and work can take a serious toll on one’s brain health — even though this health is necessary for succeeding in these areas. It is in the best interest of both students and the university to spread awareness about brain health and offer more resources for maintaining it. Our survey shows that students know what they need to be doing to maintain their brain health, but a lack of education about the consequences of their unhealthy behaviors prevent them from making it a priority.
We encourage the university to not only spread awareness about the long-term effects of these six behaviors, including Alzheimer’s and cognitive impairment, but also provide more resources for managing one’s brain health throughout university life. Excusing an assignment due to students’ stress, prioritizing quality of food over quantity in dining halls, and incorporating mind-stimulating games into courses would effectively encourage students to take care of their bodies and minds for the sake of their education. Going forward, we hope that students and the university alike will stop compromising brain health for success in college — and instead promote it for this reason.
Though the University of Michigan offers resources for reducing stress, exercising, and maintaining a balanced diet, students still are not making their brain health a priority. In our survey, we asked participants about which practices they believed affect their brain health. An overwhelming majority responded correctly, acknowledging that they knew the effects of games, exercise, sleep, alcohol and other drugs, stress, and diet on their brain health. Then why do most students still report that they need improvement?