‎3 Tips to Improve Student Mental Health‎

1. Have high standards: Lowering expectations for students, however well-intentioned it might be, may have counterproductive effects on students' performance and mental health. When students are expected to adhere to high standards, they often achieve excellence because students have the agency to do well, sometimes in spite of their harsh circumstances.
2. Write weekly—or daily: Writing, as many students and teachers can ascertain from experience, keeps the mind engaged, focused, and productive. As the English author E. M. Forster once said, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” We write to find out what we think and to stay engaged, focused, and determined. Writing, and syllogistic reasoning in particular, is a good training for the mind. Especially in college, most achievement is determined through writing assignments. Therefore, developing an adept facility with writing is a good exercise for the mind.
3. Just show up: When students experience mental health challenges, they have a tendency to skip classes and disappear from their social circles, but that isolation may cause loneliness, which then exacerbates their conditions. As the American filmmaker Woody Allen once put it, “90 percent of success in life is just showing up.” According to a study published in Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, researchers find that students who show up achieve outstanding academic performance, compared to those who skip classes.

The Promise of Counseling