Mercy and moderation – students’ tips for taking care of your mental health

Wednesday, 19th April was Students’ Mental Health Day. Students’ Mental Health Day is organised annually by OPHY, the student wellbeing network coordinated by Nyyti ry, to raise awareness on students’ mental health crisis and to encourage everyone to work towards advancing students’ mental health. The campaign is coordinated by Nyyti ry, an organisation that promotes students’ mental health issues, who chose moderation as this year’s theme. Through the campaign, Nyyti encourages everyone to bring more moderation into their everyday lives, and to draw attention to the structural issues within our society that demand unreasonable amounts of accomplishment and performance.

On Student Mental Health Day, TREY participated in organising a mental health fair on the Hervanta campus. At our stand, we were interested in hearing students’ tips on how they take care of their own mental health. Students shared their own ways of looking after their mental health, thank you to all those who shared! Next, we’ll list some of the tips that we heard.

Several answers related to maintaining a functional everyday routine and the pieces it consists of. Numerous students told us about how good sleep, regular meals, sports, exercise, and other hobbies positively affect their mental health. Additionally, seeing and hanging out with friends was found important.

Another common theme among the answers was ways of processing and dealing with things. Students had a couple of different tips for this. Some deal with things by clearing their mind through exercise or other hobbies, others calm their minds and process things with the help of breathing exercises. Some brought up the importance of conversation, be it with a friend, family member, other close acquaintances, or a professional.

The last common thread we’re highlighting went well with this year’s campaign theme. Students raised the importance of prioritising oneself. They encouraged each other to be merciful to themselves, and to realise that sometimes adequacy is quite enough. They highlighted the importance of one’s own time and making good use of it, how one should respect their free time and enjoy it – there are other times to focus on studies and work.

It is evident form the answers that mental health, and taking care of it, is the sum of several parts. We hope this list gives you some tips as to how to take care of yourself and your mental health.