It's that time of year again - no, not the holiday season (that's still about a month away), we're talking about the end of year studio deadlines! While many students typically find themselves getting less sleep, less food, and generally less hygienic, they also are getting more anxious, stressed, and fatigued. With the pandemic and isolation only compounding these challenges, it is unsurprising that students this year are more stressed than usual. In this episode we are joined by Dr. Diana Brecher, Clinical Psychologist, faculty member, and Scholar-in-Residence, Positive Psychology for the Thrive RU program in Student Affairs. She shares with us recent findings about the state of mental health in the university, mitigation strategies, and other resources that can prove to be useful to students in the program. From taking her SSH102 Learning and Development Strategies (imagine getting credit for a course on learning minimizing stress while learning!) to her 20-second hack on getting stuff done, Dr. Brecher gives a range of tips for students to survive this term and to succeed in the next.
Diana Brecher Bio:
NCHA data on Ryerson Students can be found at:
https://www.ryerson.ca/student-wellbeing/healthpromotion/data/
The Ryerson report on Student Wellbeing:
https://www.ryerson.ca/content/dam/student-wellbeing/health-promotion/documents/NCHA-II-SPRING-2019-RYERSON-UNIVERSITY-EXECUTIVE-SUMMARY.pdf
Thriving in Action can be found here tia.ryerson.ca
The ThriveRU website, which includes resources such as the Cultivate Your Happiness workbook - https://www.ryerson.ca/thriveru/
The TED talk Dr. Brecher mention on sleep:
https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_walker_sleep_is_your_superpower/up-next?language=en
Dr. Brecher's course, SSH102 Learning and Development Strategies (the for-credit version of Thriving in action) is an open elective and can be found here:
https://www.ryerson.ca/calendar/2020-2021/courses/social-science-and-humanities/SSH/102/