Establish healthy habits.

• Schedule physical activity, healthy eating and stress reduction like you schedule your classes. If you schedule it into your day now, you’re less likely to skip it later. Bonus points for adding in social support – like by joining an intramural or club team, or scheduling fun fitness activities with friends.

Find and explore spaces to help you stay healthy at UNC.

• Campus Rec offers 10 facilities that host all kinds of fitness classes, outdoor adventures, team sports and aquatics. You have already paid to access these facilities in your tuition and fees so take full advantage!
• Dining Services alone has 14 locations across campus, plus there are many options nearby in the community. Look for diverse options and nutrient-dense, yummy food!
• Campus Health hosts a wide range of services including Sports Medicine, International Travel Clinic, Nutrition Services and more. Counseling and Psychological Services is located in the same facility.

Find local health care. Connect to a primary care provider and pharmacy.

• You have already paid for services at Campus Health through tuition and fees, so you can come see a provider during the week at no further cost to you! See a full list of services covered by the health fee at campushealth.unc.edu/healthfee.
• You can also schedule Campus Health appointments when it’s convenient for you online.
• Campus Health offers same day care visits for urgent needs 7 days a week during the semester (weekend visits have a service charge associated with them that is not covered by the health fee or insurance – but all other days are already paid for with your student fees!).
• Visit one of the two on-campus pharmacies – Campus Health Pharmacy or Student Stores Pharmacy to get the prescription and over the counter items you need.

Make your mental health a priority.

• Start making friends! You are now in community with more than 5000 UNC students also new to campus. Some of your soon-to-be lifelong friends are among them.
• Get involved in campus organizations that interest you. This is one easy way to find people with similar interests.
• Seek professional help before things get awful – ideally as soon as you start to feel overwhelmed. Initial visits to Counseling and Psychological Services are available Monday – Thursday from 9-12, and 1-4 and Fridays 9:30-12 and 1-4. These have already been paid for in tuition and fees!

Get involved for a better UNC and a better you.

• Grow your leadership skills, your intellect and your circle of friends by getting involved in something larger than yourself.
• You can also get involved in health through Student Wellness!
  • Attend a health-related event on campus.
  • Connect with Student Wellness or CAPS to provide education and outreach to your student group.
  • Join a Peer Health Organization.
  • Register for a workshop or training.
  • Visit Student Wellness for resources, a piece of fruit, or cup of coffee. On us!

Find a system that works for you.

• Use a planner or an app to stay organized and proactive about your health and well-being.
• The Learning Center offers amazing resources including test prep, academic coaching, peer tutoring, workshops and a website full of resources (all at no cost!). Learn more at learningcenter.unc.edu.
• The Writing Center helps students become stronger, more flexible writers. Work with coaches face-to-face or online at any stage of the writing process, for any kind of writing project. And check out their online resources for tips about many common writing challenges.

We know you want to stay healthy at Carolina, and we are here to help! Reach out if you have questions @UNCHealthyHeels or unchealthyheels@gmail.com.

 

 

Adapted from The Ohio State University

Photos 2 and 3 by UNC Chapel Hill

One of the best parts of summer is having the extra time to socialize with people and enjoy some fun in the sun.  Those cookouts, pool parties, and beach excursions don’t always lend themselves to the healthiest choices, neither for you nor the environment.  Here are a few tips to keep your summer shindigs fun AND healthy!

 

1.       Change up grilling options.

As a guest: Plan ahead and select your favorite grill-able wisely. Think outside of the normal hamburger/hot dog options and go for chicken, fish, or veggies!  If a burger is your thing, look for lean and local meat options.

As a host: Encourage your guests to bring healthy grill choices ahead of time. If you are supplying the treats for the grill, try to offer various healthy options for your guests.

2.       Spice up your drink selection.

As a guest: Not to be a broken record, but hydration is important for overall health and well-being. Drink lots of water, especially if you are out in the sun all day.  If you choose to drink alcohol, make sure you moderate your consumption, as alcohol and sunshine combine for further dehydration.

As a host: Make sure to provide water, especially when you host at a location without fountains/running water.  Having a cooler of water with cucumbers or other fruit in it can be a refreshing option.  Also, spice up the party with festive drink options like this cherry mint spritzer!

3.       Eat what you want, not what’s in front of you.

As a guest: There are all sorts of snack food options that tend to present themselves at cookouts.  Limit your snacking, and if you do nibble away, increase the amount of fruits and veggies you eat.  Also, avoid mindless snacking- just because it’s there doesn’t mean you have to eat it!

As a host: Encourage ahead of time that you’d love for people to bring fruits and vegetables as snacks to contribute to the party.

4.       Fun and games (get active!)

  As a guest: Even if it’s hot out, get moving! Be the person at the party who whips out  a Frisbee or starts a relay race.

  As a host: Plan games ahead of time- even games like cornhole can get people up and moving rather than sitting around. If you are in a backyard, go old school and get out the sprinkler! And for beach/pool parties, have beach balls, Frisbees, and other games on hand to liven up any shindig.

5.       Go green!

As a guest: Always ask the host how they prefer your dispose of leftover food, utensils, etc.  If using disposable glasses, write your name on yours to avoid using multiple cups.

As a host: Provide environmentally friendly picnic products for your guests.  Encourage guests to recycle/compost as appropriate.  Put up proper signage above receptacles to make it clear where certain items go.  Set out a basket/ bin for used utensils, then wash and save them for the next party!

6.       Sunscreen/bug spray. 

As a guest: Apply sunscreen liberally and often, especially when you are near water.  Bring your own sunscreen and bug spray in case there isn’t any available at the party.  For more info on choosing a bug spray click here.

As a host: If possible, provide umbrellas or choose a shady area for guests to relax in.  Lighting insect-repelling candles or a similar product can help keep areas relatively bug free.  Provide sunscreen and mosquito repellant for your guests to use.

7.       Wash your hands. 

As a guest: Yes, this might seem obvious, but when you are at a BBQ or the beach, hand washing may slip your mind.  Use hand sanitizer or wipes in a pinch, or make that extra trek to the washroom before you dig in to your food!

As a host:  Consider putting bottles of hand sanitizer out on tables before the party starts to encourage guests to keep their hands squeaky clean!

Originally posted by Brittany O’Malley, former Assistant Director of Student Wellness in Summer 2014. Edited for clarity.

 

It’s hashtag Spring Break 2019! Grab your shades and your shorts, your credit card and your cozy PJs. Because wherever you’re going, you deserve to have time for you and time for your wellness. Here are some tips to keep you healthy and safe whatever your plans:

Return refreshed

Spring break is the perfect time to check in with your body – what do you need to return to campus refreshed? Good rest, good food, time with people you love and time doing things you love will all help!

Fuel up! 

You need food to fuel you through your spring break adventures. Keep snacks with you while you’re on the go. Eat yummy foods that make you feel good and include fat, fiber, and protein for long-lasting energy. Learn more nutrition tips.

Help your hearing

Whether you’re front and center for your favorite band or catching some ZZZ’s in your room, earplugs can save your day.

Take care of each other

Because that’s what Tar Heels do. Decide your limits ahead of time and help each other stay in those limits when partying – this reduces your chance of injury or doing something you’ll later regret. Stick with the same group of friends all night and decide how you will all get home safely. Planning to drink alcohol? Alternate water between alcoholic drinks, and eat before and while you drink. Traveling alone? We have a whole blog on that too!

Play safe

If you choose to have sex, consider how to keep yourself safer from STIs and unwanted pregnancy. Grab some free condoms at Campus Health or Student Wellness before you depart campus for you or your friends. Request them online at go.unc.edu/SSSrequest Remember that consent for sexual activity is an enthusiastic, mutual agreement that can be revoked at any time. For more information on consent and safety, visit safe.unc.edu.

Save your skin

Sunburns hurt! They also increase your risk of developing skin cancer and cause wrinkles or pre-mature aging. After you get out of a pool, ocean, or are sweating, dry off and reapply. The sun doesn’t discriminate – sunblock is recommended for all akin tones! Sunscreen details

Pause the pests

Keep mosquitoes away with insect repellent. Use it frequently if you’re spending lots of time outside, especially in the evening.

 

Specs to protect

Head outside in style while protecting your eyes from the sun’s UV rays with sunglasses. Eye safety looks good on you.

Spring Break Packing List

We know you’ll bring the fun on your adventures! It’s harder to think about what you’ll need when things don’t go perfectly. So for those less likely scenarios, also bring:

• Copies of your travel documents and ID/passport. We suggest one copy in each piece of luggage (in case a bag gets lost!), one copy with a trusted friend or family member at home, and the actual documents with you.
• Prescription medications – the ones you regularly take (and enough of them to get you home) and any special prescriptions for your trip such as anti-malarials or meds to help with travel diarrhea (the #1 health issue for international travelers).  Bring your EpiPen if you have one prescribed to you!
• Over-the-counter medications – ones you regularly use like supplements or asprin as well as those that might help if you become ill while traveling. Antidiarrheal medication is helpful since traveler’s diarrhea hits so many. Bring first aid items like bandages, antifungal and antibacterial creams, moleskin, a thermometer and hydrocortisone. Also think about what works for you if you get a cold, motion sickness, a headache, constipation, indigestion, etc and bring those items as well.
• Insect repellent containing DEET (30 – 50%)
• Water-resistant sunscreen of 15 SPF or greater with both UVA and UVB protection, plus a hat and sunglasses
• Antibacterial wipes or alcohol-based hand sanitizer
• Health insurance card (consider supplemental travel insurance if you’re going abroad as many US health plans do not cover all of your needs while abroad).
• Earplugs, travel pillow or other sleep aids
• Water bottle – as well as purification tablets or system if you’ll be in the backcountry
• Condoms – for you or to give away. You can get them for free at Campus Health.
• Yummy and nutrient-packed snacks for the trip. Try for a mix of fat, protein and fiber!

All of these items are available at Campus Health Pharmacy or Student Stores Pharmacy, right on UNC’s campus.

Resilience is often misunderstood. A lot of people think of football players when they think of resilience – able to take a hit, pick themselves up off the turf, and go for another play.  Well-meaning students trying to celebrate resilience might support each other staying up until 3am trying to finish a paper.

A resilient person is a well-rested one. When an exhausted student goes to class, he lacks cognitive resources to do well academically, he has lower self-control, and he’s often moody AF (not sure we can use that abbreviation here, but we’re going to because moodiness from not sleeping is for real).

Overwork and exhaustion are the opposite of resilience.

Resilience is the adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or stress. It means rebounding from difficult experiences.

A resilient person tries really hard, then stops to rest, then tries again.

The more time a person spends in their performance zone, they more time they need in the recovery zone. So the more imbalanced we become due to overworking, the more value there is in activities that allow us to return to a state of balance. In other words, the value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.

Most people assume that if you stop doing a task, like working on your Bio Chem homework, that your brain will naturally recover. When you start again the next morning, you’ll have your energy back. But we are confident that most of us reading this has had times where we lie in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep because our brain is thinking about all the things we need to do. If we lie in bed for eight hours, we certainly have have rested, but we can still feel exhausted the next day. Rest and recovery are not the same thing. Stopping does not equal recovering.

What is recovery?

Internal recovery is the short periods of relaxation that take place throughout our day – via short scheduled or unscheduled breaks, shifting our attention, or changing to other tasks when the mental or physical resources required for task completion are depleted.

External recovery refers to actions that take place outside of scheduled work – so evenings, weekends, holidays, vacations. If after your day you lie around and get riled up by news you read on your phone or stress about the paper you have due on Monday, your brain hasn’t received a break from high mental arousal. Our brains need rest as much as our bodies.

In other words – it’s taking time to do things that are fun and enjoyable. It’s doing different things like going outside and moving your body. It’s letting your brain take a rest by unplugging and getting good sleep.

If you really want to build resilience, you can start by strategically stopping to rest.

Ideas to help:

• Have tech free time. Apps like Offtime or Unplugged to create tech free zones by strategically scheduling automatic airplane modes.
• Set a timer to take a cognitive break every 90 minutes when you’re studying to recharge your batteries.
• Don’t do work over lunch. Instead spend time outside or with your friends — not talking about school.
• Get good sleep!
• Balance your class schedule so that no one day is overfilled.
• Take day trips or mini-vacations, preferably outdoors.
• Find things that make you laugh.
• Give yourself permission to get distracted. Sometimes those distractions can be brain breaks.

But when all’s said and done, the best person to tell you how to recharge is YOU. You know what makes you feel refreshed – do those things! At least one of them every day.

This article was adapted from Resilience is About How You Recharge Not How You Endure to make it more relevant to UNC students by Sara Stahlman, Marketing and Communication Coordinator for Campus Health Services and CAPS. 

Finals season might be a daunting time to try something new, but if you’re going to try anything to help you be successful during finals – try mindfulness.

It’s a practice, for sure, but even with one session, you brain will be shifting it’s patterns of worry and anxiety to paying more attention to the present moment with intention, without judgment, and with an attitude of acceptance.

You could start by focusing on how your breath feels, noticing that you’re feeling tired, noticing how the warm sun feels on your skin. You don’t need to do anything about your experience, you just need notice it and then simply turn your attention to whatever comes next.

If you want to do more, consider meditation. You do not have to be part of a special group to start a meditation practice. You can practice alone or with a group of friends.

Basic Meditation

1. Find a comfortable place to sit, whether it’s in a chair, on a mat, on the floor, just wherever works best for you.
2. Sit in a dignified way – not too ridged and not slouching.
3. You can keep your eyes open or even half open. You can also close them if that’s comfortable. Just try to avoid falling asleep.
4. Now, bring your attention to the sensation of your breath. Notice how the cool air feels as it enters through your nostrils.
5. Now move your attention down to your chest and belly. Notice how the chest and belly expand out with each inhalation, and contracts or flattens out on the exhalation. See if you can count at least 5 exhalations.
6. If you notice that your focus starts to drift away from your breath and to your thoughts, for example, just notice that this has happened and slowly, without any judgment, bring your full attention and awareness back to the sensation of the breath. Just be sure that you don’t beat yourself because your mind wandered
7. Try and keep your attention on the breath for just 10 minutes. It’s not easy, but keep at it!

If it’s easier, you can do this with audio instead of written instructions.

Walking Meditation

You can do this as you’re walking between classes, or anywhere on campus, and no one has to know that you’re doing it (unless you want them to know).

1. Bring your attention to your feet, and notice what it feels like to have them firmly on the ground. You may notice how your shoes and socks feel on your feet.
2. While lifting each foot and leg off the ground, try to notice how it feels to lift your foot and leg into the air.

3. While alternating each foot and leg, notice the experience of your weight shifting as you move forward.

4. Bring your awareness to your upper body and pay attention to your arms as they swing and any other motion you feel in your upper body as you walk.

Audio file version! 

Moving Meditation for Individuals in a Wheelchair

Use a wheelchair? No problem! You can do this too!

1. Bring your attention to your arms and hands as they move back and you get ready to push your wheels.

2. You may notice how the muscles in your back squeeze together or how your shoulder muscles stretch.

3. Notice what your hands feel as they grip your wheels.

4. Finally, see what you experience as you start to push your wheels. You may feel the muscles in your biceps and triceps flexing and stretching. Don’t worry if you don’t notice this. Just bring your full attention to what you do feel.

You’re now on your way to having your own mindfulness practice. Now, go out there and start giving your attention to each moment! You never know what you might discover.

Originally posted in 2014, this post has been updated for clarity. In 2014, Dennis Carmody was an MPH candidate in the Health Behavior department at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and enjoying his summer practicum with the great folks at UNC Student Wellness.

Managing money as a college student is not easy. Tuition, housing, food are all expensive – not to mention the costs of extracurricular activities (the fun stuff!).  Some ways to help your finances stay afloat in college:

1. Make yo’self a budget! This is the most important step. You need to know how much money you have saved as well as income – wages, scholarships, etc. Then you need to try to think through what expenses you might have. This isn’t always easy! But think through costs such as school supplies, food outside your meal plan, personal care items, laundry, cell phones, subscriptions, etc. Then try managing your budget and tracking expenses. This can be done by hand, using a digital spreadsheet, or just signing up for an online personal finance management tool like Mint.com.
2. Separate wants from needs. These are personal decisions. After a few months on campus and tracking expenses (again, super easy with Mint.com or other applications like it), you will be able to see patterns and put a plan into action to minimize unnecessary spending. Some students get out as much cash as they can spend on “wants” each week and only pay with dolla’ bills. Once they run out, they wait until next week for more.
3. Use, don’t abuse, credit cards. College is a great time to start building credit, a crucial aspect for leasing an apartment, purchasing a car, and someday buying a house – but it’s easy to build up loads of debt while at UNC. To build credit, pay off your credit card every month. That means you can only spend on the card what you have in your accounts already.
4. Research loans and financial aid. Understand what your student loan debt will be upon graduation and plan how you will pay it back.
5. Shop smart. Textbooks are one of the biggest college expenses – find ways to make that expense cheaper. Look at your monthly recurring  charges. Subscription services add up – are there any you don’t need? Cell phone bills can often be made cheaper with family and friends plans or using a pay-as-you-go version. Coupons and sales are everywhere. There are almost always ways to minimize costs on purchases!

Employing basic money management now will set you up for success later. Plus good financial habits help you handle more and more responsibility around money when you move on from UNC. For more tips:

CashCourse.org has accurate, easy to understand and college-centric financial management information. Just make yourself a free account using your UNC email address. It covers loans, saving for spring break, studying abroad,  jobs, taxes and more.  There are even worksheets and tools that you can use to help get your finances in order, meet a savings goal or determine your spending allowance.

The Dean of Students Office provides financial literacy events on campus such as “Ballin’ on a Budget” and “Swiper, No Swiping. Debunking Credit Myths.” You can hop into one of those or request one for your organization.