94. Staying Healthy in College: Managing Sleep, Stress, Exercise, Nutrition, Substances, and More feat. Jill + Dave Henry

Apr 7

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Today's guests are Jill and Dave Henry—high school coaches and the authors of The Greatest College Health Guide! We sit down to discuss everything you need to know to have a successful college experience. Topics covered include what makes transitioning to college difficult, why you can expect an increase in stress, things to do before college to set yourself up for success, the identity crisis many students experience, wellness self-assessments, tips to set up an effective schedule, and the 5 health pillars to stay on top of in college.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greatestcollegehealthguide/

Website: https://www.greatestcollegehealthguide.com/

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ The Greatest College Health Guide

+ Atomic Habits by James Clear

+ Holmes Ray Stress Assessment

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

🍓This week's episode is brought to you by Sakara. Sakara is a nutrition company that focuses on overall wellness, starting with what you eat. Use code XOSADIE at checkout for 20% off your first order!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to she persisted. I'm your host Sadie Sutton. Every Friday, I post interviews about mental health, dialectical behavioral therapy and teenage life. These episodes break down my mental health journey, teach skills to help you cope with life and showcase testimonials from individuals, including teens, just like you, whether you've struggled yourself or just want to improve your mental fitness.

This podcast is your inspiration to live a life you love and keep persisting.

Hello. Hello and welcome back to sheep. dead. I am so excited for today's episode. This episode is for college students, incoming college students, high school juniors. If your college experience is on the horizon, this one is for you. I know a lot of high school. Almost all I assume at this point have just gotten their decisions back from colleges.

So if you've applied regular decision, you're probably starting to make decisions about where you're going to be living next year. If college is the path for you. And that's a really big decision at this point, it's becoming real. You're like, okay, what's the weather going to be? Like, what is my routine going to be like, I'm not just going on summer break and going back to high school next year, things are really starting to settle in.

And for college students, you're starting to think about your schedule for next semester, where you're living what's happening over the summer. Things about next year are again getting real. So as everyone is thinking about this next year, I wanted to do an episode talking about tips and tricks for really successfully transitioning to college or having a successful college experience, because there is so many changes that go on. There are so many shifts and your.

Lifestyle and stress and school and relationships, literally every aspect of your life pretty much get turns gets turned upside down. And so having education and information going into the situation can be so helpful. So today's guests are Jill and Dave Henry. They've been coaching entertaining and educating teens in Los Angeles for more than 20 years combined.

Jill is an award-winning statistics teacher. And Dave is an Emmy nominated editor and television producer, And together they are the authors of the greatest college health guide. You never knew you needed. So this is a book that is chock full. There is 101 tips in here, you guys, and they talk about everything from food, booze, stress, X, sleep, and exercise on campus.

It's all the information that you need to be successful in your college experience. They spoke to tons and tons and tons of teenagers and college students and college graduates to hear what they wish they would've known tips they had for students. And with all of that information, they put it in this book and share a lot of it in this episode.

So whether you're worried about navigating the dining hall or managing stress with your classes or making sure to have a good exercise routine in place, or stay on top of your mental health next year, this book, this episode is your resource.

And I think it's going to be really helpful to make this whole experience less abstract.

So before we dive in, I want to let you guys know that Jill and Dave were so kind, and they are going to do a giveaway for one of you lucky listeners to win their book. So if you want to win a copy of the greatest college health guide had to my Instagram at she persisted podcast comment on the most recent post, your favorite part of this episode, and one of you will be randomly selected to win a copy of their book. If you want to add a tip, a trick, a piece of advice that you wish you would've known going into college. I'm sure that would be so helpful for people reading the comments to pick up on a little piece of advice. So with that, let's dive into this episode.

Thank you guys so much for joining me today on cheaper assisted. I'm so excited to have you on the show to start, can you tell me and listeners a little bit about you guys, your journeys and how you got to writing your book?

Jill: Of course.

Yeah. So my background is in high school education and I'm also a high school girl cross country coach, and about five and a half years ago at this point, at the end of a cross country season, we had the seniors over for brunch and we were chatting with them, just, they were in the middle of admission season and filling out applications.

So college was very much at the forefront of their mind. And they confess some concerns about the transition. I think the biggest one was the freshmen 15 because that's, you know, as a teenage girl, the physical changes maybe come to the forefront first. But once we dug a little bit further, they were concerned because they hear the news like everybody does about the mental health crisis at colleges and the statistics on sexual assault and drinking related deaths and suicides on campus.

And They were worried about how they were going to translate what they knew about how to take care of themselves in the high school setting and at home living with their parents, how they would make that work in the college. And so we really wanted to try to give them the best guidance that we

David: could.

And we looked for a while for an existing product that was something like this that was comprehensive, that covered all these topics, but presented it in a way that would be engaging. And we frankly didn't find it. And so we spent three years ourselves researching interviewing health professionals, serving hundreds of college students across the country.

All trying to gather the best information we possibly could, but make sure that it covers everything you need to know from nutrition, alcohol and drug use exercise, stress, time management, relationships, finances, sleep, and most importantly habit building. Because when you show up on campus, you're starting from scratch.

You've kind of lost a lot of the structures that you had in place before you got here. And it was very important to us because this kind of health information typically is presented in a dry clinical way. How do we use our own? But most importantly, current college students, personal stories and their experiences as an entry point into these topics.

So we're not just learning about nutrition. We're learning about. Uh, Senior from UCLA really wished they had known when they were freshmen about navigating the dining hall. And so that was kind of the impetus for our project was how do we take this information and make it engaging and rooted in personal expense?

Sadie: Yeah, I love that. And I think it's so important. I remember, as I was nearing college, there was like a couple of things where people would try and give insight and advice. And I can't remember exactly what the book was called, but it was, I want to say it was like chicken noodle soup or something. Have you guys heard of that?

The advice of the word. I thought it was that. And I was like, if it's not called that, I'm going to be like, what they're going to take. What am I talking about?

David: It's chicken noodle soup for your soul. Yes. Yes.

Sadie: That's it. The soup. I knew something was soup, but I remember reading it and it was it or parts of it.

And it wasn't very helpful because it was like, Blurb from one person's experience. There wasn't any tangible advice. There wasn't any research. And if you're going through that exact thing, it's like, okay, great, helpful validation. But other than that, there wasn't a lot of, to, to go off of. And what I really like about your guys's books or book, one of the things that I've been saying all over TechTalk is James clears atomic habits.

And it's something that is, it's a little bit dense. It's something I think. Directed the teenage demographic, but you guys talked about so many similar principles when it comes to habit building and, and in so much depth, because just building a habit, especially for college students can be so overwhelming, whether it's like nutrition or sleep or studying, like there's so many different areas where you could do that, but you guys go in so much depth and that's what that's, what's important is having that, that knowledge, that education and guidance, because you're on your own for the first time for many people.

So I wanted to start by talking about the transition period. It's something that obviously a lot of students struggle with. It's a huge, huge shift. So talk to me about what are some common reasons that students do struggle and they find it really difficult to adjust to being at college.

Jill: Yeah, so the, the research and the feedback from the students, we spoke to points to three major things. The first one. The shift in identity on the second one is sort of the circumstantial and biological timing of when kids go to college. And then the last one is really the freedom, which ironically is a thing that students look forward to the most and ends up in reflection being the thing that challenges them.

Starting with the first, the identity shift. We were talking to a group of seniors yesterday, actually, and I, you know, we asked them, what are you most nervous about? And that's actually one thing that a lot of them hadn't queued it on. Was that when you leave behind the familiar setting of high school, You will likely no longer be the exact same person to that you were to your teachers and your coaches and your friends in high school.

You probably won't be that same person to your professors and your friends and your roommates at college. And that's particularly important thing to recognize for kids who are really high achieving, whether that's excellent students or excellent athletes, great performers in their high school, particularly those who went to smaller.

Because oftentimes what happens when you go to college is now it's small fish in a big pond. And so if you have spent a lot of your high school existence, sort of thriving off of the praise of other people around you, and you've sort of built this persona of being who you are, particularly, if you're great at things, it can be really hard to adjust to.

Now I'm just one of many great athletes are great performers, great students. That identity shift is hard for everybody, but it's really worth recognizing for the kids who have, have found that in high school, they really thrived to be prepared for that change in identity. And Dave actually grappled with that personally in his

David: transition to college.

Yeah. I kind of had a hard time in the sense that football was really important to me and it was something that I was pretty good at and I got a chance to play it in college. And only for a year. And then I stopped playing and I transferred to a different school and I was only a commuter student.

And so it, wasn't just the issue of the external way that the world views you or where you're a football player. And that's what you do. And those are my expectations for you. It was internally for me. How am I going to spend my time now? Because so much of it was dominated by something that was outside of my control, that made up who I was to myself, that when all those things were removed, I had all this time to try and figure out, well, what do I really care about?

And what do I want to pour my energy into? And so that, wasn't something that I had been preparing for. That was something that just happened in an instant. And then now I've got to try and figure it out and it took me years to really navigate this way or that way. What is it that I want to learn about what is it, how is it that I want to spend my time?

And it's one of the things I wish I'd been asking myself, those questions.

Jill: Yeah. And then the circumstantial thing, what we found in our research that I thought was fascinating. There was something built in the late sixties called the homes, race, stress assessment. And so essentially it's a cataloging of life's 43 most traumatic events.

And it's really designed to help practitioners figure out, you know, advise their patients of whether or not they should expect an upcoming dip in their mental health. And three of the things that are in that catalog are starting at a new school. Change and residents and taking out a loan for a lot of students, all three of those happen when they start college, you combine that with the fact that that 18 through 22 year age range happens to be included in the age range of the average onset for a lot of different mental health concerns.

So generalized anxiety disorder and depression, suicidal ideation disordered eating. Alcohol abuse disorder, even something as simple as changes to your circadian rhythm, which impact your sleep. All of that tends to be captured in that 18 to 22 year age range. And so. Some kids find themselves dealing with these things for the first time.

And that's compounded by the fact they're also dealing with a lot of other things for the first time. And so it can be sort of hard to figure out like what's changed. Why don't I feel good because there's so many different variables that have shifted. So the circumstances and the timing make that really complicated.

Yeah. The

David: irony of what people are most excited about before they go to college. And then what they wish they knew more about when they were seniors is kind of the same thing we saw in our survey results that everybody's so excited about the freedom, about the independence, about the ability to control what I want to do when I want to do it.

And they should be excited about that. You know, they've spent 18 years having everybody tell them what to do and where to be in winter. And so to have that freedom is empowering and it's important, but seniors who are answering the question of what did I wish I knew before I got here? What, what was I'm more prepared for?

Was that, that same freedom? That same independence was completely overwhelming because yes, you have more free time than you're used to having before. But you also have just as much if not more things to do. And so it's completely up to you to manage that schedule because you no longer have a parent telling you where you need to go to bed.

It's late or a coach saying you need to show up at practice. It's three or a friend who it can even look at you after. It's been a couple of weeks and Hey, you're looking a little off. Are you. You know, those are the kinds of things that when you lose the structures of familiarity, that you've been so accustomed to, and you gain that freedom.

It's now all on you. And so if you haven't spent any time thinking about how do I want to do this, or where can I manage my schedule to get some of these things in that I know I need, then it can be completely over. Yeah.

Jill: And the last thing I'll say on that, the reason that we talk about these things with students and we mentioned them in our book is that part of the conversation sometimes gets buried in the excitement of the transition.

When we were talking to seniors yesterday, the presentation started with the speaker that introduced us in. We're going to have these people here talking to you about college. These are going to be the best four years of your life. And we had to open and be like, that's true. It's going to be great. It's also super hard.

Yeah. And we share this statistic with students from the national college health assessment. That's given every year to hundreds of college students with thousands of college students around the country, 98% report feeling overwhelming. Disappointment with how they're doing, whether it's academics, sleep, social relationships.

And so we try to tell students it's okay, that you feel bad. In fact, if you don't feel bad, that's probably lexer make probably more surprising. And I think that that's gotta be something that as a society, as coaches, teachers, parents, we just let young people going to college. If you struggle, don't be surprised and you will get through it, but that that's going to be a part of the transition.

Change is hard and it's made harder by the circumstances of this timing and the fact that you haven't had to practice being on your own before. And with that practice, Difficulty and some pain,

Sadie: a hundred percent. There's, there's so many things there. I think we know that growth comes with discomfort.

And if there wasn't discomfort in college, that there wouldn't be that season of growth. And it's important to remember that even when people are like, Best four years of your life. Like there, there are those hard parts as well, which you guys touched on. I think what you mentioned Joe, with the identity crisis is a huge thing at Penn, especially the first semester is something that I heard so many people talking about because you're at the school where there's so much highly concentrated.

Drive and talent and intellectual ability and people are pulled from all over. And that was something that I felt kind of lucky about going into college because I came from the bay area, which was such a highly concentrated area with high students. Gore peak Silicon valley. Like all these kids want to go to these amazing schools.

And I went into college knowing like there's some things I'm really good at. I'm really passionate about mental health. I'm really passionate about the podcast. I have a lot of drive and that kind of things. And I was also like, well, I am not good at math. And that's really hard for me and learning languages sucks.

And so I didn't have that moment where I was going in and I was like, I'm good at everything. I'm better than all of these people because of. Not how it works at college. And I felt really lucky to already know that going in, that I wasn't going to be the best in every single class. And that things were going to be harder for me in certain areas.

And I think that's something. Important to remember. And that's true at any school. I feel like a lot of people have asked me, like, what are the classes like at Penn? Like expecting them to be like crazy different. And I think if any college was doing their classes on a completely different way, people would be like, what what's going on?

Like, how is this degree going to transfer to other schools? And it's not that it's just, you have so many kids that are so highly achieving and. Really good at the classes they want to be there and they're interested. Whereas in high school there was the experience of like two kids really raising their hand and engaging, and everyone else was like, I just have to be here.

And so it's that shift. But it's yeah, so many important points that you guys made

Jill: Yeah, one thing, one thing just, I thought of, as you were saying it, one thing that's super important that it seems like you had practice and, you know, contextualized for yourself before getting there is for students to think about what makes them happy.

That's internal. What things are they passionate about? That no one can take away from them. That's not tied to a grade or somebody else's praise. Like you, you saying you have your podcast. That's something that you do. And you're proud of. And I think. Students before they transition need to start taking a moment to look inward and be like, what can I do for myself on the regular?

That's not attached to my peers that makes me feel good inside. And that's something that we tend to not focus on or really have training to focus on as people. So just the looking internally, rather than looking for the external validation is an important skill for students to get comfortable with before.

Sadie: hundred percent. And I think what goes hand in hand in that is the, the how much free time you have and how much do you have to decide your schedule? If you. Like most college classes. Some of them you'll have homework due every class, but a lot of them it's like reading that. They're not really checking.

They're hoping you're doing it, but there's not an external factor there. You might have a test every couple of weeks or an essay due for a midterm, but a lot of it is like done at a self-paced way. And if you're not able to structure your schedule and structure life so that you can get those things done, also do things you enjoy and balance you that they're healthy habits.

It's going to be really difficult. To thrive from like a, a subjective perspective. And so it's really. It's it's getting those skills in place before you make that transition. And I found, interestingly enough, packing my schedule more, made it easier to stay on top of things, because when I go home, even for spring break and I'm like, okay, I'm going to record a new intro for the podcast.

And I have seven days where there's not much going on and I'm like, oh, do it tomorrow. Like there's no rush, never got done. Whereas it called. Like there's there's readings, do there's quizzes coming up there's essays. I have work deadlines. I have the podcast. And so there are like these smaller deadlines built in that means I have to optimize my time and if I don't meet the deadlines, like there's there's consequences.

And so it's helpful to build those in.

This week's episode is sponsored by teen counseling. Teen counseling is better helps online therapy program for teens with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network. A huge part of having a successful transition to college for me was having weekly therapy sessions to be able to check in complain when necessary and be a hundred percent accountable with the goals and intentions I was setting for the transition.

So getting support with interpersonal challenges, getting support with making sure that I was staying on top of my. study schedule making sure that I was getting enough sleep and not becoming too overwhelmed with stress and really just taking it easy and giving myself grace throughout the transition and a huge part of being able to do that was having support in therapy.

So teen counseling offers support on things like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more which so many college students struggle with. And the great thing is that they offer support via text talk and video counseling. So depending on what level of support you're looking for, they can go ahead and meet you where your need is at. So if you just want someone to text and get advice on how to improve, say healthy habits, so that you're less impacted by stress, or you want to have the weekly video sessions to really work through a couple of weeks of feeling, really depressed, whatever it is, they can meet you where you're at and match you with a therapist that meets your.

So, what you're going to do is you're going to go to teen counseling.com, Sashi persisted. You are going to fill out a quick survey about what you're hoping to work on. So whether that's stress, depression, anxiety, relationships, all the things that I mentioned and using that information, they're going to match you with a therapist that specializes in that area.

From there. If you are under 18, you were going to put any parent or Guardian's email to give consent for treatment. None of your information is disclosed. I sent that email to myself. It just says Sadie or whatever your name is, is hoping to work with a licensed therapist with teen counseling, please click here to learn more, give consent for treatment and provide payment.

So it's all super secure. Your privacy is protected. The therapist, patient relationship. Completely intact. And from there you're matched with a therapist and you start meeting via talk, text or video. So if you want to start your therapy journey or check out a new therapist, you can head to teen counseling.com/sheep resistant.

Again, that is teen counseling.com Sashi persisted to find a therapist today.

I would love to dive into. The things that are important to practice and get in place with the transition. So those different domains of wellness and, and learning how to do the wellness, self assessments, which you guys touched on. Because I think that's one of the really concrete things that's important to be aware of, to be successful in that transition.

David: Well, and it's something that a lot of us don't have a ton of experience in beforehand when you're doing a self-assessment of how do I feel? You know, we typically think about the most. Acute severe examples of that. Like I ate a whole pizza. I'm pretty sure I know how I feel. Or if you, or if you pull an all nighter, everybody kind of understands that feeling of what that feels like, but not, we're not regularly asked to check in with ourselves.

How does my body, how does my head feel? What am I feeling right now? And then the kind of second step to the assessment, which is even more important, which is how have I been spending my time. And so it's not just a matter of getting to the root of, well, why does my stomach feel like this? You just ate a large pizza.

Okay. Well that makes sense. It's more about regularly every week kind of checking in with yourself and being, how did I do this week? Am I on top of my studies? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I having too much fun with my friends? Whatever those questions are, whatever the answers that you find in terms of how you've been spending your.

The most important thing we can encourage you to do is be honest with yourself without judgment. This isn't for social media, this isn't for your parents. This is for you. And so if the answer might be not satisfying in terms of how did you do with your schoolwork this week? That's okay. What's, it's more important that you're able to look at it for what it is.

I didn't do well this week and I can do better next. Rather than not doing it. I'm not staying on top of what I need to, and I'm spiraling now. I'm, I'm in a situation where I, I feel terrible. It's no, it's what did you do? And then how can you do it differently if it's not making you feel the way that you want to feel?

Jill: Right. Yeah. And in terms of building things in one of the things that we suggest is start small and think about the anchor, the bookends of your day, right? So little habits that you can put in place. That make you feel grounded and in control. And when we talk to students, it's think about things that take a minute or two.

So craft a little morning routine for yourself. So that every day you at least start the day feeling like I got this and it might fall apart later, but at least you start the day on the right foot and then have an evening routine that is also somewhat controlled so that you go to bed feeling comfortable and calm and ready to open the door on the next.

And then you nailed it Sadie with the idea that the more structure you can put in place for your day throughout the day, the more control you have or your time. And so one of the things that we talk about in the habit section is the idea of connecting habits. And I think. Classes in college tend to be somewhat scattered, right?

You have Tuesday, Thursday, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And they're all at different times. So your weekly schedule is very different than high school where you're in school from eight to two 30, or wait till three, then you have some time for homework. Then you have sports, whatever. It's all the same Monday through Friday.

So one of the things to think about with college, On my Mondays, can I dock a workout after my biology class or, you know, what time will my meal be? And then what can I do productively after that? The one thing that I want to add on in terms of the academics is hormonally. We are most focused in the most.

So I know for myself personally, I saved a lot of my work in college for the evening because that's when I did it in high school. Yeah. But social obligations pull you in the evening in a way they didn't in high school because you're not in, you know, at your parent's house, in your bedroom, you're in a dorm surrounded by friends.

And so one of the things we pitched to students is you have to schedule homework. Yeah, like it's your job. And the best time to do it is in the morning because you're free from social obligations to an extent. And also your body is sort of at peak place for concentration and focus and cognition. And so it's a great time to do your heart assignments.

You can return emails at night, but don't save your most important papers or, you know, the w the hardest readings that you really need to absorb for those evenings.

David: And while that is absolutely true. From a research standpoint, you know, that there's going to be a percentage of the population. That's like, dude, I am not getting up early to do my homework and that's, I am the population and I'm a night owl and that's.

That is also okay. But if you schedule that time and hold yourself to it and say, I'm going to be in the library from eight 30, until 10 30 at night. I know exactly the place of the library that I go. I know the drink that I bring in with me before I sit down, whatever those rituals are that you use to help you stay on.

The most important thing is that you've carved out that time in your schedule to do those things and like anything, it takes practice to do this and that, and you're not going to get it right all the time. And that's also okay. But the more you start putting these things in place, the easier. Well,

Jill: the last thing I'll say on that, that was a big piece of importance for us in the book to communicate was there, there will be so much failure in taking care of yourself.

And that's a message that seems to be lost in a lot of health books and a lot of communication, particularly with younger people who are just getting started, taking care of themselves is imperfection has. I'm sorry, only imperfection has placed in that conversation. That's the trial and error is a requirement for figuring out what works for you.

What works for Dave and how he works and structures. His time is not what works for me. There's not, unfortunately, a one size fits all plan to figuring out how you spend your time and how you structure your day. And so one thing we really tried to give credence to, with our personal stories and the stories of other students.

Th the failure is inevitable and the sooner you can get comfortable with the idea that it's going to take some time to figure out and even. Let's say you have a nice morning routine and a nice night routine. At some point, you're going to fall out of that. Whether it's you go home for semester break, and then you realize like, wow, I'm so unproductive when I don't have my structures or you're just get really busy studying for midterms.

Even the best intention plans will fall. And all you have to do when that happens is recognize it and be like, oh, I got to try to put things back together now. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes as people who have been doing this for, you know, practicing this for a long time now, it's we have to communicate to students constantly.

We still struggle with this. It's a human thing to struggle with this. Nobody is perfect with it. But the more you do it, the easier it gets,

David: your health is not pass-fail right. It's your. To get back on track. That's what's important. That's the thing that matters. It's not a balance beam you're trying to stay on.

And if you fall off, well, I guess you're not making it to the next round. Sorry about that. It's your ability to get back on track and say, okay, well maybe I'll try this better.

Sadie: Yeah, I love that. And I think it's really aligned with the idea that if you're not progressing or digressing, and even if you have a day where you totally sleeping and stay up way too late, are you going to go and study for.

An hour that day. Are you going to take five minutes to go on a walk and get outside? Like those tiny movements are still putting you on the right track. And, and helping you work in the right direction. I would love to hear what kind of factors are really important to stay on top of, as you go to college, obviously, structure is really important.

These habits are really important. We talked a little bit. Sleep and exercise. I'm sure nutrition is important as well, but what are the different things that you guys recommend teens be really aware of? As they're entering this transition?

Jill: So we think, and we pitched this in our book. There's sort of five dependable places that add as a college student in that.

You can end up just feeling like garbage. And so the first one is the one that I think a lot of students are most aware of is the complication of the dining hall and sort of the, all you can eat, access to garbage, pretty conveniently. If you eat too much garbage, you will feel like garbage. And so that's one.

The second one is. So either too much consumption or too frequent will make you feel like garbage exercise, I think is a really hard one, particularly for kids who are high school athletes, because they are so used to having a time to show up and knowing what. And so having to restructure that as well is hard, but for most kids, the absence of exercise does not make them feel good.

A lot of students, we talked to thought walking to class would fill that void, but it's different. You're not sweating. You're not working your muscles in the same way. And so for that age group in particular, they reported that just not moving, made their bodies feel different and not in a good way. The academic avoidance, when things got overruled.

Some statistics we found were interesting was that 88% of students felt dis disabling anxiety about their academics. But then 72% said it's because I procrastinated. It's very clear that they're not unsure about why they feel that way. And so staying on top of academics is another one. And then the last one, like you nailed earlier is sleep.

So those are. Those are sort of the five key areas that students should be aware of. And then try to protect as best they can with some habits. So easy ones. We pitch our, when things get out of control with food and you're trying to get back on track, make bad foods, and I'm putting this in quotes because no foods are bad.

It's just certain ones. Don't make your body feel good. They're not as nutritious. Inconvenient where you can't. So one of the traps I fell into as a freshman was I have a real soft spot for Cheetos. And so I would just pack bags of Cheetos into my dorm room. And as a result, I would eat bags of Cheetos.

There is a study that came out of McGill a while back that basically debunked the idea of Wilton. Instead, it's not willpower that some people have and others have it's access. And so if you can try to limit your access to things that don't make you feel great, that's a stronger thing than trying to strengthen some willpower muscle.

So with food, it's, it's the idea of leveraging inconvenience. And the other way that shows up is if you know, you have a soft spot for food, ordering apps or financially, that's putting you in a tough spot, take your credit card or debit card information off of sort of the auto. So that you have to go through the hassle of putting it in.

And in that moment you can decide, is this something that I really need to do? And that can prevent you from sort of the late night, like for dinner or spending money that you didn't, you know, didn't want to be spending. So those two things work with the leveraging inconvenience piece around

David: food with drinking, because it's kind of a.

Zero to 60 situation for a lot of kids, you know, we're not encouraging people to drink before they're 21, but the truth of the matter is that most college students will become legal drinking age while they're in college. And so starting some realistic information about what alcohol does to your body and what are the potential pitfalls is useful information for everybody who is going to college.

Even if you decide not to drink. Your roommate might end up in a bad spot. A friend of yours might be in a bad spot. These are things everybody should know. So from a quick tip standpoint, if you can learn how to set intentions for your week first and foremost, I know I'm only going to go out on Thursday and Sunday or whatever the days are.

If you can take some control over when you're going to do it, you can avoid this kind of a free for all ideology. It's Tuesday on a and somebody on your dorm room's going to, or somebody on your hall is going to come and be like, what are you doing? What do you want to do? That has potential to happen in the college setting?

And so if you can take a little bit of an ownership situation over when you are going to blow off some steam, that at least is something you can quantify where at the end of the week, maybe you didn't stick to your two days, but you know, you got. And you had an idea of what you wanted to do. And so it gives you an idea of what you can do differently the next week.

And then probably the most important thing for college students is understanding how to set limits for your personal ceiling of what your body can handle in the advice of don't drink until you're 21. What is lost in that information? What does it, or excuse me, what is lost in that advice? That idea of apps.

Is that if you drink too much alcohol at one time, you can die. It happens every single year on college campuses across the country. And we're not trying to use scare tactics to get people, to make certain decisions. It's understanding that alcohol is a poison. If you drink too much alcohol, you will suffer from alcohol poisoning and there are mathematical ways to take your gender and your weight and find the limit for what your body can handle within a frame of.

Okay. So we saw so many students by their senior year, have the survey questions of what I needed to know. What I had learned was that I can only have three drinks in the night and that's my limit. And so whoever you are it's important to understand what is your limit. And I'm sure that for many, there'll be some kind of exploration in terms of finding that.

But there's such a tipping point of when the positive feelings of alcohol, the euphoria, the excitement, the relaxation, the lowered inhibitions, completely nose, dive off a cliff at a certain blood alcohol content or BAC number. And that's 0.1. Everybody's kind of familiar with 0.08 is this is what the legal drinking age or drunk driving age, excuse me, the driving number for what I can drink and kind of stay underneath.

But what's not talked about is that after your blood alcohol goes over 0.1, two euphoria turns into dysphoria, which is the opposite anxious. Restlessness. And when you get up into 0.15, you start to black out. And when you get into 0.2, you start to pass out and by 0.3 and 0.4, you can enter a coma and you can stop breathing.

That's not explained to college freshmen when they should. On for orientation on day one. And so you see paramedics or ambulances outside of dorm rooms. And the most dangerous time of year is the first semester of freshman year because you've got a bunch of people who were like, we've been waiting so long and we're here.

And they weren't prepared to understand that if I overdo this, this can have horrendous consequences for myself. I could hurt other people. And it's not to say that you can't drink responsibly or you can't have a good time. That's absolutely possible, but you should discover what your limits are. So you can make that intention of tonight.

I'm only going to drink this amount and this week I'm only going to go out on these.

Jill: And the, and the one thing I'll add to that is 25% of college students don't drink at all. So they're, if you're hearing this and you're like, well, I don't need to know those things cause I'm not going to drink. You will find your people, right.

One in four kids at college don't drink. So it's not, it's not as though you won't be a part of the social scene. If that's your move, it's just that it needs to be communicated to kids. You can't chug a bottle of whiskey and you hear those stories every year and it breaks our hearts because. It's science.

There's a number. Everybody has a number. And if we could just, as, as a community, try to be comfortable with the idea, even though that students are 21 under 21, and we know it's not legally okay for them to drink, some of them may choose to. And the best thing we can arm them with for their safety is an understanding of what is safe and what is.

And so just delving into that, if students could, you know, just know what that number is before they get to school, that's one way that they can protect themselves a bit from the consequences while we're doing it.

David: And on a slightly lighter note, talking about. How do you make adjustments with exercise when you're coming from a setting where you had a PE class in high school, or you used to play sports and now you don't have anything explore what your college offers at their fitness center, because if there's a class and maybe it's Zumba or maybe it's yoga, or it doesn't matter what it is, but if there's a class that you can sign up for that is free or close to free, all you gotta do is show.

Yeah, and then it will, the rest of it will take care of itself. And that's kind of one of the hardest things to learn, how to self motivate when you've been on teams before is okay. Well, I put on my running shoes and I got on my basketball shorts, but what do I do now? And then I'm 10 minutes in and I'm sweating.

I'm like, okay, well I think I'm good. I think I'm good for it. We did it right. We did it. We walked up the stairs a couple of times. We're good. So we really recommend looking into what is it that your school offers and use that to your advantage because it will make it easier on you.

Jill: Well, and you know, to that point, it's the idea of leverage convenience.

So sign up for the class or wear workout clothes to class, and then go to the gym after you're done. Find a workout, buddy. It, if all else fails. You know, have an activity tracking watch so that you can be inspired by your own motivation to close your rings, which is what drives I say personally most days.

And so just looking for ways to, to make exercise easier, because a lot of students will confess motivation for that. Is that a big, low, when you don't have a coach, that's expecting you to be there and you don't have games anymore and you're not training for anything. So that's another one. And then the last one we'll say for sleep, cause we already talked about academics a bit.

I know it sounds lame. Have a bedtime set. It doesn't have to be nine 30. It could be midnight. Quality of sleep is impacted by consistency. And so if you're trying to go to bed around the same time, at least Monday through Thursday, that sets you up for just more restful sleep cycles. And the other thing we pitched the students is don't make your room, the party room Monday through Thursday, have an agreement with your roommate.

We go to other people's rooms. It's a lot easier to just sneak out the door than it is to kick people. And so in terms of trying to stick to healthy sleep schedule, that's the little ways that you can have a bit more control over your weeknight rest. Yeah. And that's,

Sadie: yeah. I think those are huge and all very manageable and reasonable.

If it's a goal for you and again, making it easy for yourself, making these things convenient. Building an accountability are, are all super helpful.

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Now.

We did touch on this a bit, but I would love to hear what the most common things that college students are struggling with.

I think when you're in college and when you're in this new experience, a lot of the times it feels like you're the only one that's ever been through before. It's very isolating. What are some of the common things that people have reported experiencing and are like, no one else has, has this happened, but, and you're like, actually everyone is struggling with this.

Jill: We had a quote in our book that I really loved. And it was from a senior at NYU who was. You know, but basically her overarching advice was seek help when you need it. And she was like, you might feel like you are overwhelmed and white knuckling it through life. And that's just the way it needs to be. And it's not.

And you need to remind yourself that you don't have to just keep pushing through, seek out help from the resources that are on your campus. There it's a whole environment designed to support you. You have an RA on your floor as a freshman. Who has been trained to at the very minimum point, you in the right direction for help, you have a campus wellness center with people who are experts in this stuff.

And the other thing that that came through a lot in student feedback was know who you can call off campus because sometimes being on campus is a source of stress. And so just reminding students to, before you leave, put some numbers in your phone or names, right? When you were at like an eight or nine out of 10 and you feel like you're going to burst because you're just not doing well, have some names of people you can call trusted adults, family members, coaches, teachers, that you can just open up to and be vulnerable with.

And. Sometimes the solution to your problems is taking a step back from your campus because that can be a source of anxiety in that transition. And so a lot of students were just like, look to look to your old support systems and also set some intentions about trying to maintain those relationships best you can.

Because that's, that's an important part of your happiness is feeling like you do have strong relationships and invest some time in maintaining the ones that. You left high school with. And so I know as a coach, that's been such a highlight of my life is feeling like my runners can reach out to me when they're at college and they're in a bad spot.

And to be. Person for them is an honor. And I know a lot of other adults feel the same way. And so if you're a student hearing this, know that the people in your life who love you want to be there for you and know that you can always call them. Yeah. And

David: just to add to that too, when you go off to a new school in a new place, you're surrounded by new people.

It is a different world, right? And it's, it's brand new and it's overwhelming at times, but what you frequently. When you're a couple months in or a few semesters in is that, that world that you've entered, that your in the middle of is not the only thing that exists. And so it's so easy to get lost in this idea.

The grades and the friends and the experience that is all around me is the only thing that I have to pull worth or value or purpose from. And that when you find yourself in those moments of I'm overwhelmed, I need to step away from what I'm doing. That's why it's so valuable to have that list in your phone of people you can call because they can help remind you that there's so much more.

Then what is right in front of your face at the moment, you know, and whether it's your new best friend that you found out is not your new best friend or an internship, you really wanted that got to somebody else, whatever it is. It's so easy to forget in that moment that that's not the only thing that exists, that there are other people I can lean into.

Jill: Yeah. The one last thing I'll say on that is particularly for students going to schools in cities or college towns that have sort of a vibrant college community outside of the school itself. Get a job off campus. If, if you can or invest your time into the community in some other ways, so that you have some other outlets that are local, but they allow you to remove yourself purposefully from the college environment.

And that can be somewhat of a lifeline in terms of just taking a step back and taking a breath and resetting and being like I have other things it's not all just being at this school. That is my life. That gives you a little bit of. Perspective that can be helpful.

Sadie: Yeah, I think that you're also making your own life a lot easier.

If you can see that bigger picture and have that connection with the outside world, because when you get to your post-grad years for like, I'm good, I've got this. I already am somewhat in touch with these other communities and, and, and things like that. And you don't go through the whole thing again, of having that really rough transition high school to college, the college to grad life.

And so I think you're doing yourself a favor. Push through that discomfort when you're in college and you're really setting yourself up for success. What is one piece of advice that you guys would give college students or teens that are about to enter college?

Jill: This, oddly enough was a piece of advice I received when I was pregnant with our first trial that I think translates to this type of situation.

Make a list again on your phone. Have some reset practice. So that when you are at a five or a six on your little stress scale, and you just need a step back, you know what to do because in that moment, It can be really easy to forget what is it that calms me down or allows me to shift focus. And the reason I like it on your phone is that's always with you.

When, when I was pregnant, we had it on her fridge. So Dave can be like, Hey, you should go get a coffee. Cause you said that makes you feel good. And I would also suggest students share this with their parents or whoever they tend to talk with the most so that they have other people who can remind them.

The ideas for this are keep them relatively cheap. So that money is not an issue. Keep them easy. Convenient. When we talk to students, we say, have a few of them be things you can do outside of your dorm room in case roommate conflict is an issue. But I think as people we don't often allow ourselves a moment to just step back and be like, what makes us happy?

What can I do that will recalibrate me and give me a moment to, like we're saying. Reflect on how I'm doing and hopefully find some gratitude in the way that I've been living my life. But at least give me a moment to look at if I need to make changes, where do I need to make them just some, some space builder activities, and these don't need to be everyday things.

Hopefully you can build them in a few times a week, but at the very least when things feel overwhelming and you need to take a step back, do you take. Do you go get some coffee? Do you take a hot shower? Do you, Dave used to sneak into the music building and play their piano. And I think so, whatever you can do that, you know, makes you happy.

The list is different for everybody, but being prepared with some tools so that you have an option to reset when you need, it feels like a very simple thing you can do to have a little bit more control when things become. Yeah.

David: And I'm as an additional tip, I'm an enormous believer in micro goals. I'm not a naturally organized person.

And, you know, being on top of things is something I've had to work really hard over the years to kind of conquer. And so you kind of touched on it a little bit with when you analyze your schedule and you packed it, you felt like you were more on top of this and more on top of that. So you're taking a day or a week and you're breaking it down into smaller substantive.

Well, I would do this exact same thing when it's time to work on school. So it's not just about setting aside three hours to go to the library, and now I'm going to do this. And all of a sudden 45 minutes went by and I got my second cup of coffee and like, wait, what was I trying to work on? Break it down into micro goals.

So I set a timer on my phone. For 25 minutes and I'm put it over away from me. So I can't touch it. And I'm only going to read this section for 25 minutes and the flow state, by the way is real. You have a super power, you can tap into that when you decide to engage into something and you continue engaging for longer.

You'll just keep cranking away and you'll be so much more productive than you were when you were like, oh wait, what? Notification just went off on my phone or, oh, I'm out of coffee. I got to get up again. I mean, you can't sit here without like coffee that's is what it is. So for me, that's been extremely valuable because it also gives you the opportunity to practice.

It's time to work. Right. And it's so easy to kind of find this excuse or that excuse. And for me, totally, that that happens all the time. And so I'll look at the hour and say, well, what can I do before that hour? I'm going to set the intention. It's 43 minutes from now until. Set the timer go. And if you don't hit it, who cares?

You're working and you're not looking at your phone and you're not standing up and walking around. And so if you can find a way to use micro goals to your advantage. So it's less about, okay, my to-do list says do all homework on Wednesday night. It's no read chapter two in the next 10 weeks. And then reassess what's next on my list.

Well,

Jill: and I think that translates to anything that's, time-based exercise socializing. If you find that you're kind of paralyzed by social anxiety, when you get to school and are afraid of making friends and going to clubs. Setting those little micro goals for yourself. It's like, I just got to go for 20 minutes.

I just got to go to the gym and sweat for 20 minutes. I just got to try to talk to people, even if it's 10, just setting some really easy goals for yourself so that you can spend your time in a way that serves you is the quickest way to making sure that you're moving in the right direction. Like you said earlier, it's like one tiny step in the right direction has a potential to have a real snowball effect.

The last thing I'll say about it. All the areas of our health are connected. The sleep, the exercise, the eating, the stress management, they all work together. So if you just pick the area that feels easiest for you, if you're like, I like sleeping, I can go to bed earlier every day. You'll notice once you start getting more sleep, then you're like, oh, I have the energy.

Maybe I could exercise. Once you start exercising. You're like, I feel pretty good. I'd like to keep feeling good. Maybe I won't eat a pile of pizza at lunch. And so one small action can trigger this lovely waterfall of other things that fuel your soul and make you feel good in your body and in your mind.

And it all starts with just one tiny little. Yeah,

Sadie: I think that's huge. And I think all of this really ties in to the idea of maintaining your baseline before you get to that point. Like you talked about reading those headlines where kids are really struggling with their mental health and some crisis happened.

It's making sure that before you ever get to that point, you are maintaining these habits and, and moods and goals. And it really ties to something that we talked about in my psychology class, which is. These really acute cases of depression or anxiety or suicidality or OCD, whatever they are, they get treatment very quickly.

Like the timeline of when they ask for help. And when they get support is a lot shorter than people that are struggling with anxiety or depression, but on a lower scale. But those people that are struggling on the lower scale. For years longer without asking for help. And in that way, it becomes much more intense.

It impacts a lot more of their life because there's that not that acute need to make a change. And so being aware of that, like five or six middle, like things aren't great. And I'm kind of aware of that. Yes, they could be worse, but they also could be better, is huge. And I think it's something that if you can get on top of these basic things as a college student, you're setting yourself up for success, not only in college, but your life after.

Where can listeners continue to consume your content, get your book follow along and all of that.

Jill: So our book is anywhere books are sold. Amazon probably gets you to it and the most quickly, but if you love to support Indies, like we do, you can get it from a lot of indie bookstores with your IndieBound or bookshop.

As far as content, we're so excited, we're starting. This is a thing next week on social media. And it'll be continuing now three times a week of takeover as with current or recent grads current college students or recent grads talking about the stuff that's in her book, where did they struggle?

What do they wish they had known? What were they most excited about? And what were they most surprised by? And we've got some amazing students lined up who are really excited to share about their experiences. So students prepare to go to school or in school, we're hoping to create a real community of just sharing and then also providing resources and research where we can on that page, but in a fun kind of snappy way, just like we do in our book, but we really want to create and provide a community for students so that they feel.

Everybody's kind of struggling. Even if what we see on social media looks happy, everybody we're all in it together. And that is something that we really want to promote. So that'll be on our, at greatest college health guide Instagram and our personal Instagram is at two coach Henry's. If you want to see cute pictures of our children, cause that's primarily,

Sadie: I love it.

I love it. Well, thank you guys. So, so much for coming on cheaper assistant. I know this episode is going to help so many people and I'm so glad we got to do this.

Jill: Yeah, us too. Thank you so much for having a SAIDI. It's an honor to

Sadie: be here. Okay. Of course,

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