Beat the Blues week 2018

This week at CSUN is all about mental health awareness, anxiety and depression. Our students reported factors affecting their academic performance include:

1. Stress 
2. Anxiety 
3. Sleep difficulties 
4. Work 
5. Depression 

The American College Health Association National College Health Assessment II (click here to read the entire ACHA-NCHA II Report) supports the delivery of health care and prevention and wellness services for the nation's 20 million college students. The data is collected every 8 years, starting in the year 2000 (Y2K).

One of the cool events we heard (the barking) was a bunch of therapy dogs on campus. I feel so grateful that I have a personal therapy dog waiting at home for me at the end of every day.

A couple of healthy strategies for me that have been working are:

1. gratitude
2. asking for help

I've written about the struggle for work/life balance in this blog from 2009 when I was about midway through my PhD to 2012 when I was a newly-defended PhD. I documented tales from the "teaching postdoc" at the Claremont Colleges in 2013 and my transition to CSUN in 2015.

2018 has been a great year. I have so much to be thankful for. I was just tracking what we've accomplished with our nonprofit, Bikecar101 this year. It's interesting how we incorporated in 2014 and we are still pushing the active transportation conversation in Los Angeles.

I love my Faculty Development colleagues. I have grown so much as a teacher in the past several years. This blog has allowed me to look back at my thoughts and feelings about a teaching philosophy and finding my place in academia as a part-time lecturer, and I've come a long way.

Commit to be fit family #CSUN60 pic.twitter.com/R9JcJFS2vk

— Dr. Kayla A. Kaiser (@hamerk02) October 13, 2018

We've spent some time in the gym, working on our fitness. I used MyFitnessPal to track the foods I was eating to find some balance in the nutrition department. I certainly am not an avid runner as I once was, but through our Commit To Be Fit (CTBF) family, we are starting to run again.

I have found some time for rollerskating at Skateland and Moonlight Rollerway. What the skating does for my body is lets me release all the tension in my neck and shoulders. I love the music and the good vibes that I get from the other skaters. I'm not a great skater, but I enjoy it.

Right now, I'm writing about mental health because it's been a month of ups and downs. At the beginning of November I was so overwhelmed that I made a TO DO list with 26 action items. Then I obsessed for a while about how I could ever possibly get all those things done.

Reviewing that list gives me some sense of peace because even though I added more tasks, totaling 35 action items, I've crossed off all but 9 of them. The reason I made the list is that I was just doing one task after another and NOT doing the most urgent items first.

With all the tasks listed in no particular order, it allowed me to prioritize and start getting stuff done. So in conclusion, that's how I Beat the Blues. Being as this is my Thanksgiving blog, I am grateful for all the people (and pets) in my life that support me physically, professionally and psychologically.