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[00:00:00] Hi everyone and welcome to Words of Wellness, the podcast for anyone interested in the ways we think, talk and write about wellness. Why do we use so many motifs like journeys, gardens, even battles when we talk about wellness? How do writers explain science and wellness concepts? How can we make sense of the wellness information overload we all face?

These are the kinds of questions we explore. I'm Daniel Anderson, and we're coming to you from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today we have a research reporting episode. Our guests are developing research essays on wellness topics, and we'll share some wisdom. Gracie Brown will discuss anxiety in college students.

Katie Dodson will look at stigmas related to mental health and athletes Ethan Hustler on preventing academic burnout. Natalie Beiser will address anxiety and Generation Z [00:01:00] and Will Novotny will discuss sleep and college life. Let's get started. Hi, welcome back. We are the Mental health group and today we are gonna be discussing individual topics that we all have written about that relate to our group topic of mental health.

So my name's Gracie and I am talking about anxiety found in college students. My name's Katie and I'm talking about the stigma with mental health for current athletes. My name is Ethan and I'm talking about preventing academic burnout. My name is Natalie and I'm talking about the prevalence of anxiety specifically in Generation Z.

My name is Will, and I'm gonna be talking about the universal sleep deprivation that so many college students go through when coming to college. We all know about transitioning and the gaining of the physical and mental wellbeing tactics. So you hear about the freshman 15 that affects you physically, and then you hear about mentally not being able to.[00:02:00] 

Adjust to the transition of leaving home. Will, to go off what you said, how do transitions like coming to college or other life events impact your topic? I think the biggest thing with talking about sleep is that when you're living back at home, you're so regulated, like you're less independent.

And especially for someone like me, when I get dropped off in an environment I tend to have bad habits for myself. Sleeping's definitely been one of the biggest problems for me and that's why I decided to talk about it ultimately. So yeah. Yeah, to go off with that, I know that when being here, I don't get the full amount of sleep that I need when I'm, unlike when I'm at home, because when I'm at home, I feel like your parents go to bed.

Like you're more on a schedule during the week, like with. High school or what, like whatever you're doing, you know that, okay, 11 o'clock rolls around, I'm gonna put down my phone, I'm gonna go to bed. But here in college, you have so much freedom that when it's like midnight, you're up [00:03:00] doing assignments or you're up doing other activities that you aren't getting the full amount of sleep that you need.

To be successful. Yeah. And I feel like in college, and we're in a specific position, 'cause we do go to a really like prestigious university obviously. So there's gonna be a lot more stress though that follows with that name. And I feel like my high school obviously was like. It's not, it's like you make your own prestige there.

And so obviously I was stressed, but I've never really felt the amount of stress you can feel here and you're like surrounded by other people who are like also on that level, which is like in a positive way, always pushing you to be better, but also in a negative way. There's a lot of like comparison there and like wanting to be your best self and pushing yourself to that end, which I feel like can relate to burnout.

I guess if you wanna, yeah, definitely. I'm sure we've all felt burnout, like it's something that's not new to probably anybody in this room. Definitely transitioning to college, like a lot of people must struggle with that. Like I definitely did first semester because you have, you don't really have a [00:04:00] schedule.

You have to make up your own schedule. And say you decide to take a day to rest or hang out with friends more than do homework. Then you get the next day you're gonna have to be doing more homework and it's just like the cycle that ends up, with leaving you burned out and like I was studying and I'm gonna be talking about my podcast.

Essentially the best way to prevent burnout is just to keep a balance every day and then also get restful breaks and yeah, but the transition to college and just how different colleges to high school has definitely impacts burnout and but I think it's something that we all get better with over time, just like figuring it out.

Oh, and especially with studying too, 'cause studying, you're on your own schedule. Like you come up with when you study how early you decide to study and sometimes like the night before you're up all day like studying. Yeah. And that leaves you burnt out. So I would totally like to add on to that.

Learning how to manage time has been one of the biggest things for me coming to college. And I think if you have bad time in management and you have any problem, whether it's sleep. Or any [00:05:00] other sort of physical or mental wellbeing problem, the first thing that you can do is try to manage your time better, and I almost guarantee you, you will probably see some improvement in that facet of your life.

Yeah, and also building off of that, I feel like I saw a lot of differences in my sleep schedule coming to college because I was a lot more busy in high school and whenever I first got here, obviously you can't just do everything at once. So I had so much more time in my day. To where whenever it would come nighttime, I wouldn't really be tired 'cause I would spend the entire day doing like a whole lot of, like nothing.

Like I was so used to having such a strict schedule and like on the relevance of like my topic of like sports and athletes. I feel like if you did a sport in high school and stuff, you can relate to that being like you have a strict schedule, you have someone like keeping you, like strict to that.

And then whenever I got to college and I wasn't doing that anymore, I felt like I had too much freedom and I wasn't doing enough with my time. And then I started to feel like guilty with myself. 'cause I was [00:06:00] like, why did, how am I like not doing as much as I did in high school? Have I regressed with like my motivation or anything like that?

And then I like was like my sleep was all messed up because I wasn't as busy, so I wasn't as tired come night because. I had been spending the whole day just doing not much. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I did cross country in high school, and so like my school would get out at four and then we'd have a two hour practice and then, by then I'd have dinner and then do homework and go to bed.

Like it was very structured. And college, obviously you have classes, but there's, I feel like more breaks in between the classes and not as much as like a schedule. Adding on to that. This is veering off topic a little bit, but I kinda had the same thing where you get up for class at eight, you're at school for seven hours, go to track practice for an hour and a half after that, and I do homework and you'd think, wow, you were gonna be really tired at the end of the day.

And finally when I decided to go to bed [00:07:00] and I find myself weighing there like awake, a little off topic, but I thought that's something that's relevant to bring up because yeah. Yeah. No. Especially 'cause I obviously I feel like if we're going to Chapel Hill, we probably kept ourselves busy in high school and did a lot of things.

And I feel like that was such a big change for me coming to the university and obviously like very beginning. Whenever you first get here, you're trying to get used to a lot of things, so it's hard to immediately get involved in so many things. And I got involved in like a few things and I'm really happy I did because like now having that like specific schedule helps me so much more.

And even in a weird, like roundabout way, it helps me do my homework more because like again, in high school, like I had. Specific times where I could do my homework. Like it was like once I got outta practice, that was my time to do my homework. And then after that I could go to sleep. But now it's like in between this class I can do work and after this class I can do work.

And it's just if I have more time to do it later, I'll procrastinate. And I never used to be like a big procrastinator. And since coming to college, I'll do that because I know that there's much more time in my day [00:08:00] than there used to be. So I just feel like it's it's a big difference, to go off procrastinating.

That's like really what increases. Our anxiety and putting work off to last minute 'cause anxiety is my topic and not getting enough sleep or putting work off to last minute really makes you more anxious throughout the day when you're so stressed out. I have to get this project done. This project's due tonight, and I put it off till tonight.

Like it really makes you more stressed out and you don't understand how. Being in college with that freedom, you do push stuff off or you tend to, if you are not as busy and you don't have a structured plan of your day. So doing that really increases your anxiety and makes you more stressed out and not being able to have more freedom or get better sleep at night because you don't have so many things running on your mind.

Yeah procrastination is definitely another issue I struggle with. I think not only does it literally keep [00:09:00] you up, as in you have to stay up to do assignments, but I, it's probably the biggest thing I talked about with sleep deprivation is that just stress itself is one of the biggest culprits, and it becomes this paradox of you can't sleep because you're stressed out and you're stressed out 'cause you can't sleep, and then becomes an infinite loop after that.

And the other thing I wanted to talk about in terms of just mental health is the use of stimulants in college students. The caffeine and nicotine use over long term after a long period of time has been proven to negatively affect sleep levels. To go off of that, I feel like it also affects. The way that we graduate, like the way that our bodies are when we graduate, because that impacts like if you're drinking caffeine every day or like having energy drinks all the time and I say that and I have one too, like some we're so exhausted because we don't get the [00:10:00] amount of sleep and we're, we push ourselves to the last limit to do work and everything that we feel the need to have an energy drink to keep us up throughout the day or.

People who use nicotine like that affects their, not only their mental health in college, but throughout, like their whole life as they continue to get older. Yeah. And I feel like, so we had this question about how wellbeing can overlap with concerns like related to our topics. And I feel like this falls right into that category where.

Physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing are like tied hand in hand because like obviously having these reliance like on these like things to get your work done makes like bad habits later on. And it's like you don't wanna be going to work and like having to have like your energy drink every single day.

And also like from my standpoint, financially, it sucks because like in high school I was so dependent on my energy drinks and then like after a while, like I literally was like, I have to stop. Like I'm buying so many. But it's hard to have that reliance. But it obviously affects your physical health too.

So [00:11:00] it's it's poor on both of them, but it's such like an easy and fast solution, which I guess is a reoccurring topic in mental health where people want these like easy and fast solutions that can fix something. And I feel like that kind of, we like saw that with our last podcast where we talked about like the books where like people are wanting something that's gonna just happen and they don't want this like entire journey.

They just want it to be fixed overnight. Yeah, it's a little bit of a tangent, but I can't really drink caffeine 'cause it, it just affects me a ton. Coming to college I decided I wouldn't drink any at all. And even though probably my average amount of sleep is six hours, 'cause I'm also a morning person, so I get up like six usually, or seven.

I'm not like that tired. And my friends that I like, like my suite mates drink so many energy drinks and they're way more tired than me. Even though they get like a lot more sleep. So that's just something I've noticed since I like don't drink caffeine and I don't drink coffee, which I guess is caffeine, looks dumb, but yeah, like it's so true.

Like we think it [00:12:00] is energizing us and it'll keep us up today. But like the long-term effects of drinking a ton of caffeine, aren't good for you. I think that's super cool that you can identify that though. 'cause I learned a lot about that in researching for this podcast. Is that some people they can drink caffeine after five o'clock and they're fine.

And some people can have it at nine in the morning or any caffeine at all, and it will affect them for the rest of the week. Yeah. I don't know what it is for me technically, but I just I just noticed especially my senior year being super busy as I'm sure we all were when I would drink an energy drink, I'd be like so much more anxious.

That's why I decided or it was this summer I decided, I was like, I'm not gonna drink anymore. 'cause it just never. Made me feel better. So yeah. I also don't drink happy, mostly just because I don't like the taste of coffee and I don't really like energy drinks, like the taste. But also like I, I noticed I would, sometimes have an energy drink in high school and it made me like very jittery.

And I feel like it did the opposite. Like I was like, I wanted to stay up and focus. And it didn't really work for me. I know I'm sitting here with a Celsius sponsor, [00:13:00] but I also feel like that caffeine has made me more anxious, especially when it's there's one thing about drinking a coffee, but when you're blasting 200 milligrams of caffeine into your system at once, it's not very good for you.

But I think it goes back to the whole sleep and school work thing. I have an anatomy exam today and I think that's how people fall into this loophole of caffeine addiction. I. Yeah. Or whatever addiction it may be. Yeah. I, sorry, I'm gonna go off that real quick. So I just know that in college, like I don't get a stable breakfast every morning or even if I do eat breakfast.

So I think I've turned to I'll just take this energy drink 'cause I can grab it on the go and I can grab it and walk to class. Like it's something like that. But I'm also already like a very anxious person without any thing to add on top of that. So these actually, like for me, it doesn't affect my body because I already have so much anxiety, built up from, 'cause like I'm on anxiety, like I have anxiety medication and everything.

So like I already [00:14:00] have so much anxiety built up that when I do drink these, it doesn't make me as jittery or as anxious, which is actually surprising 'cause you think it would add more to my body. But I think with the. Like ways that I've learned to deal with my anxiety, it's not actually affecting me as much.

And I think that's the big thing with like caffeine and other stimulants. Stimulants, it's the same premise of the podcast that was on earlier with social media addiction. If you haven't ate food or you haven't worked out and you have an energy drink or you have nicotine, you're effectively.

Getting that feelgood chemical you get from eating or working out from something completely artificial and it completely rewires your brain for the worse. And I think a lot of it's also like us mentally telling ourselves, oh, this is better than me going to the dining hall and getting food. This is easier than me doing that.

And so instead of like us actually being like, what's better for our body, [00:15:00] we're rewiring our brain to be like, oh, this is just easier. This is just faster. It. S easier to do instead of going to actually have a good, like stable meal. And I don't know if you guys can relate to this. Because I don't really drink energy drinks, but if I do, it's always whenever I am already anxious, like I, it's like like different than what you guys were saying, but if I'm going into a scenario okay, whenever we did like rush for like sororities, I literally had an energy drink every single morning because I was like so scared and I thought for whatever reason it would help me.

Like I was like, I'll be able to talk easier, which isn't really true. It just made me like more jittery obviously. But if I'm anxious, I think that it's gonna do something better for me. And like even before an exam, like I'll have an energy drink 'cause I'm like, this will make me more awake and do better on the exam whenever.

It's not really doing that. I'm just more like in tune, but I don't know why, for whatever reason, like it stems something in me that makes me think that. I think it's totally just as big. I think when people tell themselves they need something like, and they identify with that, oh, I have a [00:16:00] caffeine addiction, or, oh, I need a coffee this morning.

I think that it can make it all that much worse. And to go off of that, it's what I was saying, like our mental mindset is what's telling us we need that, we need to do this. And I think like I was like the same boat as you. I was drinking 'em every time before I was entering a house because I was so nervous.

But it definitely was a mental thing. Yeah. Okay, so now we'll move on to another question. Yeah. How does culture and the world we live in impact the your wellbeing in terms of your topic? I know for me my topic was the prevalence of anxiety and Gen Z and I feel like there has been a lot of academic pressure recently, especially in high school, like needing to perform and compete academically and, overcommitting to AP classes and summer courses just to get ahead of your friends and.

To get into a good college. And I think that's like more of a recent thing. And so I think [00:17:00] that's especially affecting Gen Z, like self-imposed pressure that they put on their selves to compete with other people. I'm gonna go off of that 'cause I'm anxiety too, but I'm anxiety and college students and I'm really thinking about our class, like the 2028 graduates because we didn't have a normal high school experience because our eighth grade.

Was when Covid happened. So that just made us entering high school, which was like a new stage of life, something you were supposed to be excited for. I feel like I know personally it impacted me and made me like so much more anxious and worried about what I'm gonna do in my future and the way society is gonna view me and what's going on in the world.

And I think that really impacts us as individuals and it impacts everyone differently with. The world we live in and how anxious we all are when it comes to what we're making in the next step. What's gonna happen [00:18:00] in the future? What's this gonna do? 'cause like we've never, none of us have experienced a pandemic like that before.

Yeah, I know. So for Covid it like shut down in eighth grade and then ninth grade it was like you went in one day a week. Or most people would just skip because you could say that I feel sick and you would just get out of school and it was a lot easier to do all your classes online because like honestly, you could just cheat on everything.

So most people just didn't go at all like to school. And I went for the first like probably two months and then everyone just stopped. Going and people would just do it completely online. But then coming in for sophomore year, everyone had to return like face to face. And I don't think I've ever experienced like anxiety like that because the entire summer before I was like, I haven't seen any of these people in a year except for my like really close friends.

And like you don't know what's changed and you don't know. And I feel like everyone went through a lot of changes during that time you were at home because like you just had so much time to sit with yourself and there was just also so much like free time because like you couldn't do anything else.

So [00:19:00] I know like for me at least, like I went through a lot of like changes and like I, I, whenever I like went back to school, I was like, I was very different than like how I was in like eighth grade because it's like a big learning curve, and especially going to high school as anxiety ridden as it is, and then doing that with the added pressure of not seeing anyone for a year I feel was like very anxiety ridden.

Yeah. So my district, we, our first semester of high school freshman year, we didn't go in at all. It was all online, so we didn't start school until our second semester. And it was like you said, going in a couple days of the week if people did come, but we're sitting six feet apart, our desks are spread out and I'm sitting with a mask and then I'm having to eat my lunch with my mask on in the classroom six feet apart from people.

And I'm like, this is weird, because these are the kids that I've grown up with and have went to middle school, elementary school with, and now I'm having to sit six feet apart from them and I can't even talk to them. Or I have to pull my mask up every time I'm chewing and put food in my mouth.

And I think it just made me so anxious. 'cause I'm like, [00:20:00] you don't know what they're thinking either. And I felt just like very, like even though everyone's going through it. I think going like that stage made me feel very like self-conscious and judged and I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And I think it really made anxiety arise in a bunch of us.

I feel. Going back to what you were saying about covid and coming back to school, that's how I feel like after every break we have, like after spring break, it's oh my gosh, I have to go back to my busy college life of doing homework like all the time. Yeah. I think that's like something that's still is like still relevant and it's super applicable to like the covid, but even for like little breaks like a week, it's yeah, this is I guess similar, but it's like taking time off, like really does something to your mental health.

I like danced all in high school and my studio asked if I would come back over the summer and take classes again and stuff. And I'm like very out of practice and I'm like, I don't want to, because I don't wanna like. Show that I guess like vulnerable, like I'm not as good as 'cause I've been like a year like not doing that.

So [00:21:00] you like, it's like taking that time off and then trying to come back is so hard. And I feel like that's why a lot of people go through 'cause I guess this kind of relates to my topic. A lot of people like stop doing their sport in after high school and then like past that point they just don't wanna ever get near it again, because it's like such like a vulnerable spot to not be as good as you once were. So yeah. Yeah. I think going back to that break thing, I think it also draws back to time management for me because I will be so stressed out and so anxious during the period of school that when I have any opportunity to settle down, I just completely burn out and I do nothing.

And then, like you said, when we have to come back to school. I dread it and I tend to struggle to readapt to it. Yeah. I agree like with the break and everything, like you come back and you're just very, I, you don't wanna get back in the routine. And I feel like that was something with that year that we missed.

It affected our mental health. 'cause we were in such a routine of [00:22:00] for what, 14 years? We know, wake up, go to school. Go to after school activities, go home, do homework, go to bed. And like with that break of covid, like we were all sitting at home all day doing school online or, and not getting outdoors or not working our bodies as much as we should have.

So it really affects like our mental wellbeing, which relates to all of our topics and the ways that we act now. But what tips or strategies have you discovered related to your research? I know for me some ways to reduce anxiety were diaphragmatic breathing and there's online tutorial tutorials available and that's something you can do a little bit discreetly if you need to, like deep breaths.

Also they talked a lot about exercise, not just like intense exercise, but even like walk, going for like a walk, like in fresh air or like doing yoga can help. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, for me it wasn't necessarily shocking, but it was more about just take [00:23:00] restful breaks and discuss like some studies that would show it shows especially like scrolling on your phone.

Take like we, we will say let's take a studies break and we get on our phone for 10 minutes. It's actually not restful for you at all. And just talked about do things that bring you joy, like actual joy. Not like when you scroll on your phone, it's do you even remember the last third, like the third reel you just looked at?

Do stuff that matters. That has like meaning, brings you joy and sleep. I. Yeah. So I guess mine doesn't really have like tips since it is about the public's like stigma around mental health with athletes. But I think like the only way this can get further is by it being just talked about more, like having the conversation more that like physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing do go hand in hand and like you can't have one without having the other.

And I think that one of the big things that I talked about on my podcast was in the Olympics whenever Simone Biles came out and basically pulled herself outta the Olympics due to mental health. And it's like people wanna claim so bad. Yeah, we really care about mental health. But then whenever she did [00:24:00] this, like the public was like, that doesn't make sense.

If you're not physically injured, why would you not compete? It's in the same realm of that, like the most depressed I'd ever been in my life was after I hurt my foot. I hurt it maybe a year and a half ago, and I was told it would get better and it didn't. And I think that draw between physical health and mental health is so apparent because not only was I sidelined from sports, but like the day-to-day life stuff, like just socializing and you're in chronic pain, I think that can really affect you.

Yeah, no, same. And I guess this goes back to the taking a break. 'cause whenever I got injured, obviously you have to take a break and then coming back again is like vulnerable. 'cause I don't know what I like am not as good at or where I lack strength in now that I've been injured and have to regain that back.

So I guess it all like ties together in that sense. Yeah. So I think that when you do come back, you're very vulnerable and you're nervous to start a game. 'cause I do know I've broke my arm playing [00:25:00] softball and. When I had to come back again, I knew I was very vulnerable 'cause I was like, I'm not gonna have my starting position because I am in the process of healing.

So it was very like something new. But when you practice with like your mindfulness, relax, relaxation techniques, and you have a support system around you, I think all of our topics can get better and can fix your mental health in many ways. So that's all I have to say today. Does anyone else have anything they wanna add on before we close out?

The final thing I wanna add that I util I've been utilizing very recently is just being present. I find myself, whether I'm waiting at the doctor's office or it's late at night, like scrolling on my phone and I found like just sitting there and doing nothing has been so good for my attention span and my mental health.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. Thank you guys. Bye. Thank you. This was such an enjoyable conversation. The personal insights really opened a window on some of the challenges of transitioning to [00:26:00] college and the tips offered helpful ways of responding. Thanks to Gracie, Katie, Ethan, Natalie and Will. And thanks to our listeners.

Stay tuned for another episode of Words of Wellness.