How many hours does it take to make a friend?
I couldn’t go past this paper titled “How many hours does it take to make a friend?” by Jeffrey A Hall, published in the Journal […]
Mental Fitness
I started a meditation program today
This morning I started a program of mindfulness meditation. I was inspired following a discussion with a student yesterday who highlighted the introduction of meditation […]
Embedding mental fitness concepts in your everyday life
On the Student Health and Wellbeing blog I talk about a range of mental health and mental fitness topics. In most posts, I endeavor to […]
Is caffeine a cognitive enhancer?
I don’t drink coffee. I never have. Late in my PhD, I did have a rather unhealthy addiction to energy drinks, but I managed to […]
How to be a 'good' student - the academic stuff
You might be aware from previous posts that we are putting together a Mental Fitness Course for 2019. The course will consist of a series […]
We're developing a Mental Fitness Course!
I’ve talked a bit about Mental Fitness on this blog, and the concept of Mental Fitness underpins a number of the guides that I have […]
Meditation with Dave
Meditation is all the rage… There is some decent science to back it up, and if you practice it regularly for at least 20 years, […]
Meaning and purpose in life
In a previous post, I looked at how to derive a sense of meaning and purpose from your studies. Given that you spend a large […]
Wellbeing for Academic Success FLO topic is live
I like this blog. It is a nice home for me to talk about student health and wellbeing. However, it is not necessarily the easiest place […]
Ask Dr G - What is student wellbeing to you?
I’m participating on a panel on the 6th August for mid-year commencing students that is focused on wellbeing. Ahead of time the organiser of the […]
Dr G's guide to self-care
Update: we now have a new Self Care Mega Guide with extra strategies and our service pamphlet attached to the back. A nice upgrade on the […]
Become A Behaviour Change Expert: Part 3 - Social Support
Welcome to Part 3 of Becoming a Behaviour Change Expert. In this series I am looking at the skills you can develop, so you can […]
The Cognitive Behavioural Model and how you can use it in your own life
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT – which has many variants) is a widely used evidence-based model of therapy that is helpful in addressing a range of psychological […]
A quick guide to self-care for mentors
Note 19/4/19 – an updated self-care guide can be found here. Last week a colleague of mine and I ran a mental health/self-care workshop for […]
Is the idea of 'finding your passion' unhelpful?
The phrases “Find your passion” or “Follow your passion” are so ingrained in western culture that I’m confident that most people have heard them at […]
Become A Behaviour Change Expert: Part 2 - Monitoring and Feedback
In Part 1 of my series on “Becoming a Behaviour Change Expert”, I looked at how to set better goals when attempting to make a […]
Guest author post - 'Handling conflict and misunderstandings in relationshi...
Back when I started my eMental Health Project Officer role at Flinders, I was introduced to Kellie Cathcart from the University of Newcastle (UON). She […]
Become a Behaviour Change Expert: Part 1 - Setting Goals
Most people I’ve known, or come into contact with as part of my work, have at some point in time wanted to make some kind of […]
How to derive meaning from your studies
I’m always on the lookout for research papers, from which I can extract ideas, concepts, tools or techniques that you can use to be better […]
Improving your exam performance when under stress
Many of us know the unsettling experience of memory failure under stress. It is particularly well known to students who find themselves ‘going blank’ during […]
What is the deal with mindfulness?
Back in early May, 2018, some students attended the Port Power Wellbeing and Resilience Program run here at the University. I’ve been communicating with them […]
Use grounding techniques to deal with strong emotions
In a previous post I tried to describe strong emotional reactions in a way that would facilitate dealing with them more effectively. In this follow-up […]
Not coping? - there's a course for that!!
The terms ‘coping’ and ‘resilience’ are thrown around a lot nowadays in relation to university students. The reasons are relatively simple. Studying at university can […]
Understanding strong unpleasant emotions
Unpleasant emotions such an anxiety, fear, sadness and confusion, whilst undesirable, can provide powerful insights into our personal insecurities and if studied, can provide strong […]