Student Mental Health and Finding Time to Play
By Makena Wood, B.Sc. Neuroscience student
The late weeks of winter and early spring are a seasonally challenging time for lots of us, but are a uniquely stressful time for post-secondary students as they come off of a needed February break and quickly near the end of their school year in April. For students, reading week can often end up being a “band-aid” solution to ongoing mental health challenges; students may take the week off to rest, while jumping right back into old habits the following week and falling behind on self-care. While this approach may get them through the semester, it certainly isn’t helping their brain development. Many students (generally, the age group of 18-25) do not even realize that they are still reaching important milestones in brain development (specifically, the prefrontal cortex does not finish maturing until after age 25, and this structure is crucially important in controlling executive function, an essential skill for students) (Barlow, 2014). Therefore, as this blog will explore, it is critical that students take care of their mental health while also finding ways to support their brain development because they find themselves in a window of both tremendous opportunity for learning, but also increased risk for the onset of mental illness (Brown, 2018).
Student executive function (EF)
The conversation surrounding executive function in post-secondary students may be slightly different than how we consider EF for children, adolescents, or even older adults. As mentioned, students are still working to develop their EF; however, they face challenges, like cognitive overload, within their academics that can impede this development. So, students must juggle finding ways to develop their executive function while also searching for mental release. This seems like a most natural place for play to come in; we know how well play works to build EF, and pleasurable choices in play can be the perfect way to ease the mental burden of information and responsibilities involved in a student’s studies.
In a study examining anxiety and physical activity in college students, Dong et al. (2022) found that physical activity can indirectly relieve anxiety by improving executive function. This suggests that improvements in executive function may mediate anxiety; besides physical activity (the tool used to improve EF in Dong et al.’s study), we know that play also improves EF. Thus, the results from Dong et al.’s study imply that finding time for play could be an important way to manage anxiety.
Meaningful play
Students, in their first few years of adulthood, can find themselves in the early stages of feeling like play should be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, reaching your adult years as a student means getting farther away from the natural ease of play, and many students struggle to look for mental health help because stress is normalized in post-secondary education (Eisenberg et al., 2012; as cited in Brown, 2018). So, it is important for students to work to move past these obstacles to play, and strive to create healthy play habits in their young adulthood to support current and future executive function. We also know that play, as a strengthener of EF, can be essential for both better learning and daily functioning, which only contributes additional benefit to students (Fogel, 2022).
Resources and services
Hopefully this blog has helped to communicate that students should be concerned both with taking care of their mental health (however this looks for each student individually), while also finding time to play within a surely rigorous academic schedule. Importantly, Brown (2018) explains that stigma is often not a major reason why students neglect to seek help, and that a focus on stigma can often take away from other interventions that may be more useful to students. A final goal for this blog will be to provide resources that, with any luck, will address other potential obstacles students find in addressing their mental health concerns.
* University of Lethbridge Mental Health Services
* Building Brains Together Mindfulness Resources:
o Brain Benefits of Mindful Moments: https://www.buildingbrains.ca/blog/brain-benefits-of-mindful-moments
o Mindful Moments activities: https://www.buildingbrains.ca/mindful-moments
* Curriculums of interest to students:
o Adolescents: https://www.buildingbrains.ca/adolescents
o Older Adults: https://www.buildingbrains.ca/older-adults
* A suggestion: volunteer to play!
o Volunteering can be good for the heart and the brain! Get involved with local organizations that serve our community through play. Local sports organizations, after school care programs, YMCA of Lethbridge, and of course, Building Brains Together, may be good places to start!
References
Barlow, E. (2014, October 17). Under the hood of the adolescent brain. Harvard Medical School News and Research. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/under-hood-adolescent-brain
Brown, J. S. L. (2018). Student mental health: Some answers and more questions. Journal of Mental Health, 27, 193-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638237.2018.1470319
Dong, Z., Wang, P., Xin, X., Li, S., Wang, J., Zhao, J., & Wang, X. (2022). The relationship between physical activity and trait anxiety in college students: The mediating role of executive function. Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, 16, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.1009540
Fogel, Y. (2022). Cognitive strategies: Moderating the relationship between executive functions and daily functioning. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416845