Depression on campus is an ongoing issue that colleges must face. According to the American College Health Association, the number of students who report ever being diagnosed with depression has more than doubled since 2000, from 10 percent to 22 percent in the spring of 2017.
But Dr. Paul Granello, an associate professor of counselor education at Ohio State University (OSU), is trying to turn those numbers around with his creation, the Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) Lab. “We keep losing people to suicide on college campuses around this country,” he says. “The stress of the college student has gone up significantly.”
Related content: What is your campus doing to help students manage stress?
An idea is born
A few years ago, Granello, whose wife is an OSU professor who counsels students in the college’s suicide prevention program, was looking for additional ways to prevent suicide. Treatment programs for anxiety and depression had been sufficient, he says, but preventative programs—before students get to crisis mode—were lacking. So Granello developed a SMART lab that pairs wellness coaching with biofeedback. The biofeedback, provided by HeartMath, offers scientifically based tools and technologies to empower students to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors to reduce stress and unlock intuition.
Angela Pascopella, a newspaper and magazine writer/editor for nearly 30 years, is a freelance writer in Connecticut.
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