Kaleb Poor
Staff Writer
February in Wyoming is a time when most people put their heads down, push through the frigid, inhospitable weather and simply try to persevere until longer days bring warmer weather.
Health is a complicated issue, and not one that can be cut-and-pasted from person to person. Some people need more physical exercise than others. Some need more unstructured time than others. Each of us benefit in different ways from things designed to benefit our overall health.
But health is not just about counseling and exercise. It’s also about social wellbeing. Amanda Matthews, the suicide prevention coordinator at UW’s Wellness Center, said social health is essential and often misunderstood in how it relates to overall wellbeing.
“[Social health is] having positive peer influences in your life and having a set of activities that makes you feel well and you enjoy doing,” said Matthews.
Social health, Matthews said, is not something that can be treated separately from overall wellbeing. Rather, social health is foundationally important in developing good overall health.
“We know that research shows in different settings – take an extreme example [of] isolation in prison – that really brings down your social health because naturally, humans are social creatures. We rely on verbal and nonverbal cues [as well as] affirmations to help us shape how we feel about ourselves and the world around us. So if we’re starved of that emotional social connection, we start to see rates of depression and anxiety, and even things like suicide start to go up.”
Coming to college can be hard on social health. Couple that with the severity of Wyoming winters and the seasonal depression felt by so many, and it can be easy to see why social health has become a problem at UW.
While UW does offer a vast array of programs and opportunities designed to aid students’ wellbeing, Matthews said students still struggle.
“I think this time of year is hard for students,” Matthews said. “Especially with the weather and the stress of coming to the end of a year of school. Sometimes I feel like we get a decline in our social health because people aren’t coming outside or coming to campus activities as much… we just naturally see a little bit of decline not only in social health, but in all areas of health in general.”
As the spring semester can inevitably bring stress, self-doubt and frustration to UW students, it can be important not only to acknowledge the difficulties that come with living in Wyoming, but also to be aware of otheir own wellbeing and the ways it can be helped.
For students struggling with any part of their health – physical, mental or social – UW offers free counseling services through Knight Hall. Matthews also encourages students to look into joining a student organization, to take part in free wellness classes or even to drop by the Wellness Center.
Anyone struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide are encouraged to explore support options, including calling the state suicide and crisis hotline at 1-800-457-9312.
