My colleague David Blanchflower pointed out last month that, while college-age students used to have the highest mental health around the globe, they now have the lowest.
Building off of these findings, Blanchflower and I recently looked at publicly available data in the Healthy Minds Survey. We found that while Dartmouth students have better mental health than average, there are still 26% who report moderate to severe depression and 10% have contemplated suicide.
These figures are alarming and may sound insurmountable to some. Nevertheless, we have seen that even massive public policy problems can be lessened by focused attention on the issue and thoughtful experimentation. I am referring here to successful efforts to reduce smoking, to lower drunk driving deaths and to make seatbelt use in cars the norm.
On that note, Dartmouth and the Upper Valley are abundant in amazing outdoor resources — and guess what? One of the best things any of us can do for our mental and physical health is to exercise and get out in nature. I encourage all students this fall to get outdoors and enjoy nature as much as possible. Luckily, there are many established and upcoming opportunities for doing so that make the outdoors more accessible now than ever.
Two hours a week or more in nature boosts your odds of reporting good or very good mental health by up to 60%, according to a 2019 article in Scientific Reports. Sunny autumn days are a perfect time to build those habits. Dartmouth’s annual PeakBag hike and community picnic on Sunday Oct. 5 is a good place to start. The event raises funds for suicide prevention at Dartmouth. Other programs dedicated to spending time outside are also soon to crop up at Dartmouth, such as NatureRx and ArtsRx, on which Dartmouth has a large interdisciplinary group asking students how to implement those plans. As the name implies, these programs recognize the health benefits of exposure to nature and the arts and give students prescriptions to engage with both on a weekly basis.
Nonetheless, part of the problem may be that there are so many outdoor opportunities at Dartmouth and the Upper Valley that it’s difficult for many students to know where to start. The enterprising students at DALI Lab have built the website Deserto for this purpose. This new tool provides details on all of Dartmouth’s terrific facilities and is brimming with recommendations for local hikes, swimming holes, paddling, skiing and biking opportunities.
As Deserto demonstrates, technology can be greatly helpful in getting students to enjoy the outdoors more, but it can also be a hindrance. Connecting together in person and outdoors, away from screens, is needed now more than ever. Professor of psychology at San Diego State Jean Twenge has written extensively on the link between social media use and phone addiction and the decline in youth mental well-being. It’s not that technology is bad per se, but it’s the positive health-building activities that are displaced by hours a day on social media. New York University professor Jonathan Haidt is another of the world’s foremost experts on youth well-being and put the problem succinctly: “Everyone has a role to play in ending the phone-based childhood and reclaiming life in the real world. Pick yours and let’s get moving.”
Many more opportunities are to come. Dartmouth is a leader in research on mental health, including the award-winning project Evergreen, a highly personalized digital platform to help students boost their well-being. There is so much more happening here at Dartmouth, including Geisel professor Lynn Fiellen’s Play2Prevent lab, which creates video games that boost mental health. Geisel professors Michael Heinz and Nicholas Jacobson recently ran the first-ever clinical trial of an online therapy chatbot.
Amazingly, you can hear from these experts and seven former Surgeons General right here at Dartmouth. We are hosting them all at the Dartmouth United Nations Symposium on youth mental health Oct. 26 to Oct. 28. Please get outside and spend time doing something fun with your peers.
Bruce Sacerdote is a member of the Class of 1990 and a Richard S. Braddock 1963 professor in economics at Dartmouth College. Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
