Dr Nic Hooper is a psychologist in the UK who writes about student mental health and wellbeing. He’s like the capable version of me. Reading time ~ 2 minutes.
On my arrogant days I like to think that I am the repository of all relevant self-care and mental health knowledge.
Thankfully, I don’t have many of those days, and when I do I know I am wrong.
If you take even the smallest interest in self-development/ self-improvement then chances are you are going to accumulate knowledge and ideas from a range of different people. The building of a beautiful house involves the work of many craftspeople.
At best I might be the person that kick starts you, or points you in a useful direction.
One way that I do this is transparency about the sources of my self-improvement knowledge. I draw on a range of people, podcasts, videos, books, websites, newsletters, articles to stay up-to-date with self-care theory and practice. Maybe some of these will be helpful to you.
The other is to use this blog to point you to useful new resources/people when I find them.
The other day, an article showed up on one of my favourite sites – Psyche. It was an article by Nic Hooper titled ‘How to make the most of university‘.
It combined a mix of sensible mental health focused lifestyle tips with a longer-form discussion of how to tackle avoidance (e.g. procrastination) through the development of psychological flexibility. As an interesting aside, our Studyology program teaches the same psychological flexibility tools to tackle procrastination.
In some ways, I felt like I was reading an article by a smarter, funnier version of myself (damn you Nic!).
Turns out Dr Nic has been guiding university students through the experience for over a decade now.
He has a book called The Unbreakable Student which has some rave reviews by some big hitters in the mental health field and 5 star reviews on Amazon.
He maintains a website where his other interests and books (with a focus on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) are profiled.
You’ll also find him on Twitter, which, despite all the recent hoopla, is still in my mind the best platform for academic exchange, connection and sharing (outside of LinkedIn)
So if self-development/ self-improvement is part of your uni experience, or you just want some grounded suggestions on making university life a little easier, Nic would be a great author to pursue. Start with his Psyche article and then if that floats your boat, maybe Kindle his book.
Have a great day…