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Table of Contents: Navigating Independency

4-5

Importance of Nutrition

6 - 11

Mental Health/ Finding Yourself

12 - 17

Navigating Roommates

18 - 17

Proper Sleep

26 - 31

Importance of Nutrition

32 - 35

Mental Health/ Finding Yourself

36 - 39

Navigating Roommates

40 - 41

Proper Sleep

42 - 45

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4 Benefits of Eating Healthy in College

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Benefits of Eating Healthy in College

By Rachel Paul There are many benefits associated with keeping a healthy diet. We know most of them without looking it up, right?

Most people know that eating well is one of the key factors in weight loss. Weight loss, in turn, lowers your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and other health problems. The list goes on. Eating a healthy, well balanced diet decreases your risk of certain cancers, high blood pressure and stroke, and low bone density.

It’s not just about the side effects we can avoid, it also has tremendous benefit to our everyday lives. Healthy eating improves our mood, our memory, our gut health and our sleep. Add to that, one more really great benefit, it sets us up to pass on good health habits to the next generation.

I mentioned memory, but that’s not the only way our brain is affected by the food we eat.

Harvard recently published an article on the effects certain foods have on our brain function. Their list included green leafy vegetables, fatty fish and berries, among others. As an added benefit, many of the good “brain foods” also protect your heart and blood vessels.

In 2018, the University of Virginia researched the connection between nutrition and learning in school children.

They found that children who were not only fed, but were filled with the nutrition

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their bodies needed, were more able to focus, and less likely to be disruptive in the classroom.

Brain function and mental alertness they’re all affected by what we eat.

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WEIGHT MANAGEMENT There are a number of things that happen

You may have heard phrases like, “you are

when you start your first year of college

what you eat,” or “you can’t out train poor

that contribute to this notorious weight

nutrition.” Both of those statements are

gain.

true. If the food you put into your body is

First, if you live on campus, you have a dining hall with endless unhealthy food choices at any time of day (and night?).

Second, your sleep patterns are disrupted.

Irregular and inadequate sleep significantly contribute to weight gain.

lacking vitamins and nutrients that your body desperately needs, and instead filling you with sugar and trans fats, there is no amount of exercise that will help you stay thin.

If you have already gained some extra weight, do not fret. It’s not too late

Third, STRESS. Going away to college

to make some changes and turn your

and leaving your family, learning to be

nutrition around. For more information on

responsible for your own schedule and

losing those pesky pounds, read my post

finances, and increased academic load are

How to Lose the Freshman 15.

all brand new stressors. Higher stress levels can also cause your body to store extra fat.

Weight gain can be a major physical and mental health concern. Those who are overweight or obese have higher incidences of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety and decreased self-esteem.

The next three benefits will show you how healthy eating can combat all of the triggers for college weight gain, but the most important thing to remember is that good nutrition is the number one tool to managing your weight.

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SLEEP It’s no surprise that college students often do not get enough sleep. Lack of quality sleep contributes to many health issues both short- and long-term. Weight gain is a short-term effect, in that you can see the effect quickly, and it can be reversed later with proper nutrition and sleep. Other effects of poor sleep include forgetfulness, lack of focus, depression and/or anxiety

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MENTAL HEALTH Are you noticing how it all ties together?

Healthy food fuels the body. It is your source of energy. It also fuels the brain.

Your brain uses energy differently than your body, but it still requires a steady energy source. In the same way that you cannot go run a mile when you

and poor academic performance.

are starving, your brain can’t do all the

Healthy eating habits are key to good

wonderful things it is meant to do without

sleep. High levels of sugar and saturated

all those vitamins and nutrients.

fat during the day has been linked to

A poor diet - high in processed meats,

lighter and less restful sleep at night,

sweet desserts, refined cereals and high fat

while healthier foods, such as fatty fish,

dairy products- has been linked to higher

chamomile tea, walnuts and almonds,

incidence of depression and other mood

turkey, and foods that are higher in fiber

disorders.

will contribute to healthier sleep.

Many of those same foods may also increase anxiety and lower your ability to process and deal with stress.

On the other hand, fruits and vegetables and other plant based foods improve your mood, contribute to lower stress levels and decrease anxiety.

Poor sleep, as I mentioned, may be caused by poor diet, which in turn can cause depression and anxiety.

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ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE In a recent article, The Mayo Clinic shared that eating certain foods and avoiding others could slow brain aging and lessen the chances of developing Alzheimer’s. While Alzheimer’s won’t directly affect your academics, this does speak to the effect of good food and your memory. If there is ever a time in life that you need your memory to be at the top of it’s game, I am pretty sure that time is college.

Good food provides the necessary energy that your brain needs for mental focus and alertness. High levels of sugar will give you a short-term spike in energy that may make you feel more efficient and focused, but it is followed by a crash, where you feel sluggish and often excessively sleepy.

One other result of a healthy diet that doesn’t get enough credit is faster information processing. Have you ever been in class and no matter how hard you try to pay attention and follow along, your professor seems to be speaking another language? This is a sure sign of slow information processing and it is likely that your breakfast that day was higher in sugar or trans fat and lacking fruit, vegetables and protein.

Healthful eating is never just about weight loss. It is about your overall health in every part of your life. If it was just about looking good, we would all give up when we didn’t fit into the “right size” pants. No, it is even more about feeling good; getting enough sleep, stable moods, lower stress, higher energy, better mental focus and faster information processing.

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Under Pressure Under Pressure Under Pressure

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Inside the college mental health crisis

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August 19, 2021 | by Sasha Aslanian and Alisa Roth

Harry Fowler headed to Stanford University in fall 2017 with an

Two campus police officers showed up. For

impressive list of accomplishments: an A student in high school

Fowler, who is Black, it was frightening.

who competed in the National Chemistry Olympiad, ran track and

They texted some friends for help: “Come

cross country, and performed in the school’s drumline.

outside so [the police] don’t try anything

Fowler, who goes by the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” grew up in Beaumont, Texas, a racially divided city an hour east of

Fowler changed their mind. They didn’t

Houston. Fowler wanted to succeed at Stanford and make the

want to go to the hospital. But it was too

town’s Black community proud.

late. Fowler no longer had a choice.

Fowler had endured bouts of depression since eighth grade and

Across the country, colleges and

decided to take advantage of Stanford’s free mental health

universities are facing a huge increase in

services. “I checked myself in for an appointment, because I

the number of students who need mental

was just like, ‘Yeah, I want to kind of rid myself, be perfect, rid

health care, and many schools aren’t

myself of suicidal ideation.’” That October, Fowler went on an

prepared to handle the growing demand. A

antidepressant for the first time.

national survey of college students in 2020

But the medication didn’t have the intended effect. One morning in November 2017, Fowler woke up in their dorm room feeling drastically worse. They felt intense thoughts of suicide. They managed to get through the day with the help of friends who checked in on them. When, that evening, Fowler told their residential assistant what was going on, the RA called the campus mental health center.

It was late, and, Fowler remembers, the RA told them there were no counselors or psychiatrists on-call. Instead, the person who answered the phone at the mental health center said Fowler would need to go to the hospital. So Fowler followed the RA outside to wait for the police escort, which at that time was Stanford’s policy for getting students in a mental health crisis to the hospital.

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sketchy.”

found that nearly 40 percent experienced depression. One in three reported having had anxiety, and one in seven said they’d thought about suicide in the past year. In a survey of directors of college counseling centers in 2020, nearly 90 percent reported that demand for their services had gone up in the previous year. At the University of Richmond, for example, enrollment at the school has remained flat during the past 15 years, but the number of students seeking campus counseling services in that time has doubled.

It’s not just students. Even before the pandemic, more Americans were

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experiencing mental illness, particularly anxiety and depression. The nonprofit Mental Health America reports that in 2017-2018, nearly 20 percent of Americans reported experiencing a mental illness, an increase of 1.5 million people over the year before.

The problem is especially acute among young people. In 2019, nearly 30 percent of people between ages 18 and 25 reported a mental illness. In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, one quarter of 18to 24-year-olds surveyed reported having seriously considered suicide in the previous 30 days.

Exactly what’s causing the increase in mental anguish among young people isn’t clear, though theories abound. Some studies and experts suggest a correlation between social media use and increased anxiety and depression.

Sociologists have pointed to social media’s undermining of teenagers’ selfesteem, particularly among girls. Experts also contend that overprotective parents — so-called helicopter parents — who won’t let their kids fail have contributed to a more fragile generation. By not letting kids experience disappointment or face their anxieties, these theories go, kids don’t learn how to deal with them. Some experts also suggest that as a society, we have overpathologized normal human emotions, leaving young people with the idea that they need a therapist to deal with every rough breakup or bad test score.

And then there’s the decreasing stigma around mental illness. A study using data from the Healthy Minds survey, an annual multi-school survey looking at issues including mental health on college campuses, suggests that young

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people find it far more socially acceptable to talk about mental health, which makes them more likely to seek services.

Whatever the reason, the rising demand has put many schools in a difficult position, with limited budgets to address the growing student need. With demand for mental health care at all-time highs and continuing to increase, schools have been left scrambling for answers.

Outside their Stanford dorm that night in November 2017, Harry Fowler was refusing to go to the hospital. More police officers showed up and surrounded Fowler so they couldn’t leave. The officers handcuffed Fowler and put them in the back of a squad car. This was standard procedure at Stanford, as in many states, at the time, for officers accompanying a person in a mental health crisis to the hospital. For Harry Fowler, though, it was trauma on top of the stress and anxiety they were already feeling.

“I remember just the stares I got from being escorted by police, because I’m sure people thought I was a criminal,” Fowler recalled. “It still bothers me to this day.”

The officers brought Fowler to Stanford Hospital, where they were admitted on an involuntary hold. There they tried to explain that they’d been prescribed an antidepressant a few weeks earlier; Fowler thought it might be making their depression worse. Suicidal ideation is a side-effect of some antidepressants.

They wanted help getting on the right medication, they said.

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They stayed in the hospital for a week.

During that time, an assistant dean from the school came to see them. “‘You’ll probably have to take a year off,’” Fowler recalled the dean saying. “No, that cannot happen. I cannot go back home,” Fowler remembered replying.

But Fowler mistakenly believed that if they wanted to get out of the hospital, they’d have to agree to the leave. So Fowler signed the papers agreeing to take a leave from Stanford. Fowler’s mother flew in from Texas, packed up their dorm room, and took them home. Fowler was devastated.

“It made me feel like a failure,” they said recently. “I didn’t know if I was going to stay in college. I thought I might drop out.”

Back home in Beaumont, Fowler felt like they’d let down the Black community. “I felt as if I’ve failed them,” Fowler said. “I saw myself as like a beacon of hope. And I had just fallen apart because of my mental illness.” They went off the antidepressant they blamed for their problems and went back to handling their depression the way

‘I thought I might drop out’

they had since middle school: gutting it out on their own. Fowler stayed in their room

By the time they were sophomores, Zha and Irvin had dealt with many such calls. They

and studied calculus to keep their mind off

decided to do something more than just help individual students. Attorneys at Disability

their troubles.

Rights Advocates in nearby Berkeley were thinking the same thing.

Meanwhile, back on campus, two of

Students with mental illness are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Fowler’s fellow students were pushing

Like a student who uses a wheelchair or is visually impaired, students with mental illness

for change. Kane Zha and Molly Irvin had

are guaranteed accommodations for their disability under federal law. That might mean

gotten interested in mental health their

changing a student’s housing, reducing a course load, or offering extended deadlines for

first year at Stanford. They’d trained as

assignments.

peer counselors, taking phone calls at The Bridge, an anonymous helpline on campus staffed by students. And the need was great. Irvin said she remembers taking three suicide calls in her first month of counseling.

She could refer callers to the counseling center. But sometimes students would tell her they didn’t want anybody official from the university to know they were in a crisis; they were afraid of being forced to take a leave of absence.

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Schools aren’t supposed to require a leave of absence until all other reasonable accommodations have failed. But looking at college campuses around the country, the attorneys had been surprised at how “either bad or nonexistent some of the policies were when it came to accommodating students with mental illness,” said attorney Stuart Seaborn of Disability Rights Advocates. (If a person is a threat to themselves or others, colleges are allowed to remove students or have them hospitalized against their will.)

In May 2018, Disability Rights Advocates filed a lawsuit against Stanford, demanding the school stop its “punitive, illegal and discriminatory treatment of students with mental health disabilities.” The university, the lawsuit said, had pressured students with mental illness into taking leaves, rather than trying to find a reasonable accommodation for them. The plaintiffs in the case were three students (under pseudonyms) and the Mental

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Health and Wellness Coalition, the organization run by Molly Irvin and Kane Zha. Stanford wasn’t the first school to get sued for this kind of response to a mental health crisis. In a case that was much watched by schools around the country, a student named Jordan Nott filed a suit against George Washington University in 2005.

Nott had been a straight-A student in his sophomore year when he began thinking about suicide and checked himself into the hospital. Like Stanford did with Harry Fowler, the university forced Nott to take a leave of absence. The case was settled the following year for an undisclosed amount. Yet colleges continued the practice.

Reading an underground student newspaper online at home one day, Harry Fowler came across a story about the Stanford case. It made them feel a little better, they said, since “up to this point ...

I put a lot of blame and guilt on myself.” Now, Fowler understood,

Colleges are struggling to meet the surging demand for mental health services on campus, and some schools are wrestling with how much care they owe students.

it was a much bigger problem.

Fowler clicked on a link to the law firm’s website to write a thank you note to the attorneys. They were surprised to get a note back asking if they would join the lawsuit. Fowler agreed.

In October 2019, after nearly a year and a half of negotiations, Stanford and Disability Rights Advocates announced a settlement.

The new leave policy, which took effect in January 2020, says that if a student has to take a leave, a staff person will be assigned to guide them through the process. (Unlike the old policy, which didn’t mention the word accommodation, the new policy uses it 19 times.)

Students now have a two-day revocation period during which they’re allowed to change their minds about taking leave. Stanford officials declined interview requests for this story. The university also later changed its transportation policy. Now, students who have to be taken to the hospital Ad 3.75” x 4.75”

are accompanied by paramedics, rather than handcuffed and escorted by the police.

In the long run, though, student and legal advocates hope the real answer will be that fewer students need to take leaves, and that other schools will take Stanford’s experience to heart and change their rules.

Harry Fowler returned to campus in fall 2018 and started their freshman year over again. Fowler has spent this summer interning at a law firm and plans to return to Stanford this fall for their senior year. Still, they have refused to use campus mental health resources again. Fowler has lost trust in the system.

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Alex Schelldorf shares a sunny Chicago apartment with a man who creates messes but who doesn’t, Schelldorf says, clean them up. His roommate also leaves doors open long enough for Schelldorf’s Shiba Inu to escape and has a habit of making what Schelldorf considers to be insensitive

The Strange, Unique Intimacy of the Roommate Relationship More and more American adults are sharing their homes with people other than family members or spouses—an arrangement that can be anywhere from harmonious to downright hostile.

offhand comments to guests. But Schelldorf won’t have to deal with these annoyances much longer. This roommate, who declined to comment on their relationship, is not renewing the lease, and Schelldorf, 31, who works for an educationand-health-research nonprofit, again finds himself back at square one: on the internet advertising for a roommate.

His search for a compatible roommate hasn’t been a complete bust, Schelldorf says, but it has made him reconsider the way the assorted people he’s lived with have affected his life, both emotionally and financially. Over the course of eight years, he’s moved 11 times and has lived with 10 roommates. He’s also lived alone three times. But with student loans, a high cost of living in the cities where he’s resided—including Washington, D.C., and Tampa, Florida—cohabitation has been beneficial for his lifestyle and, he says, for his mental health.

“I genuinely enjoy living with other people,” Schelldorf says. “It sounds weird to say this, but just [having] another warm body in the house is sometimes good.”

For many Americans, cohabitating is a necessity, not just a preference. In decades past, many 20- and 30-somethings shared a household with their spouse—nearly half of the adult population lived with a spouse as recently as 2007—but lately, delayed marriage rates, climbing student-

By Allie Volpe

loan debt, and rising housing costs have led to increased numbers of doubled-up households, a term used by demographers to describe homes that include additional adults other than the householder or their partner. This includes people who live with

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roommates or parents. In 2015, about a

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quarter of Americans between the ages of

strangers, to cut costs. Zillow found that

18 and 34 lived with roommates, up from

Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco were

23 percent a decade prior, according to U.S.

among the top cities for adults living in

Census Bureau data. Nearly 32 percent of

doubled-up households; nearly half of adults

the overall American adult population lived

in Los Angeles lived with a non-partner.

in a shared household in 2017, an increase

“You think of people moving to booming

from about 29 percent in 1995, according to

job centers and they don’t have a family

a Pew Research Center analysis of census

network to rely on in these areas,” Terrazas

data. In examining housing trends among

says.

young adults, Jonathan Vespa, a U.S. Census

The United States has seen this phenomenon

Bureau demographer, noted that by 2015,

before. As people moved to cities seeking

most adults between the ages of 18 and 34

work in the 19th century, boarding houses

were not living alone, or with a spouse or

became hubs where diverse residents—

an unmarried romantic partner, a dramatic

immigrants, single men and women,

shift from the decade prior when most

workers of all kinds—could live affordably

young adults in most of the country lived

and mingle with others in shared spaces.

independently.

Now, as housing becomes increasingly

Vespa discovered that, on average, the

scarce and rents continue to rise (cities like

type of person most likely to live with

Orlando, Salt Lake City, and Knoxville are

roommates is between the ages of 18 and

experiencing the fastest rent growth in the

24, has completed some college, but is

country), the boarding-house experience is

usually enrolled in school. People who are

back, just at a smaller scale. Along with it

unemployed are more likely to live with

comes the proliferation of a unique sort of

roommates, Vespa found, and rent either

relationship—sharing your home life, and

a single-family home or an apartment

all its little intimacies, with someone, or

together.

multiple someones, who you aren’t related to, and who you may not even be friends

The trend may have been spurred by the

with.

2008 recession, when unemployment rates peaked at 10 percent, according to the

Susan Fee, a Seattle-based therapist and

Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it seems

the author of My Roommate Is Driving Me

like a recovering economy hasn’t led young

Crazy!, hears her fair share of roommate

people to change course. Shacking up

woes. Living in a city where many young

with roommates has persisted “despite an

people move for work, she says, has

improving labor market, despite more young

impacted the way adults in their 20s and 30s

grads getting jobs,” says Aaron Terrazas, a

live. “This is not out of loneliness,” Fee says.

senior economist for the real-estate-and-

“They really have no choice; they can’t afford

rental website Zillow. In a survey, Zillow

it any other way.”

found that 30 percent of American adults

What’s surprising to Fee though, is when

aged 23 to 65 lived with roommates, up

renters don’t take the proper precautionary

from 21 percent in 2005. “We thought this

measures to vet potential roommates

would be a cyclical phenomenon, but it’s

on important topics like expectations

turned out to be quite durable, which is

of cleanliness and how to handle

quite surprising.”

disagreements. When things go sour, “they

One possible explanation is that many

see it as any other sort of rejection,” Fee

young adults and recent graduates who

says, “and it hurts and it makes them wary

flock to expensive coastal cities for job

of people.” Instead, she believes framing

opportunities find themselves shacking

these conflicts as social lessons provides a

up with friends, or sometimes complete

unique benefit. By learning

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from the shortcomings of one living situation—like a lack of chore division or poor communication—and not placing blame on the other person, Fee explains, being a roommate can allow for individual growth.

To smooth the social boundaries, Fee suggests taking a pseudo-dating mind-set when interviewing potential roommates and inquiring about past living situations.

Because these relationships are not necessarily as intimate as friendships or romantic partnerships, it’s imperative to have clear definitions on if cohabiting is purely a “financial transaction,” or if the roommates expect to have a social relationship, too, Fee says.

Alex Schelldorf, the nonprofit worker in Chicago, thought he took the necessary screening precautions with his current roommate. But he ultimately ended up feeling like they weren’t on the same page about chores, which Schelldorf says he did the bulk of. These housekeeping items were routine chores growing up in a southern household, he says, and there was an expectation for each family member to do their fair share. If disagreements arose, “in family situations, people yell, you argue, but you still love each other.”

Schelldorf translates the lack of cleaning cooperation as a lack of respect. The fact that the two housemates aren’t relatives—or even friends, for that matter—has led him to wonder what emotional responses, if any, are appropriate when tensions are running high. “That sucks a lot, to know that someone doesn’t care about you enough to take out the trash or to put something in the dishwasher,” he says. “How is that supposed to make me feel as somebody who has to breathe the same air as you?”

“In relationships in general, we tend to blame a lot of what happens on other people,” says Amy Canevello, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “The data suggests that really we have a whole lot of control over how we feel about things” based on how we perceive certain actions. “It’s objectively not [about] what the roommate is doing, but how I’m orienting myself in that situation.”

In research examining social dynamics and motivations within non-romantic cohabitation, Canevello found that the motivations behind roommates’ behaviors—like not taking out the trash or bringing home dinner for the group, for example— often don’t align with how other housemates view them. One roommate may perceive a well-intentioned gesture as manipulative, for example. Instead, she theorizes that roommates perceive their household in one of two ways: as a socially dynamic ecosystem, where each household member feels supported, or as a self-serving “egosystem” in which fellow roommates’ actions are seen as either helping or hindering your ability to fulfill your needs—like respect and belonging. In the case of a roommate who never takes out the trash, “the ego response is ‘This person doesn’t care enough about me,’” Canevello says, “versus an eco response to that can be ‘Maybe I haven’t explained to them enough and they don’t understand,’ or ‘There’s something that’s keeping them from doing it that I don’t know about.’”

Taking these different perspectives, Canevello says, can help explain why people may have difficulty interpreting their roommates’ intentions. “I think that when other people are sending signals that they care about you, that’s very clear—that’s not something I’m going to reject easily,” Canevello says. “When somebody is sending a signal that they may or may not care about your feelings or care about your needs, it’s confusing.”

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After a few months of living with a woman new to Philadelphia, Anna Lockhart

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began to question her roommate’s motives. The two women

lived—in close quarters and with a stranger— though not

connected via Craigslist in late 2016 and began living together

unprecedented, weren’t common in every generation. “We’re in

without having met before. From the get-go, Lockhart says, she

a time where everyone kind of laments our [generation’s] social

and her housemate, Caroline, avoided confrontation, frequently

skills because they’re being usurped by social media,” Lockhart

hiding objects they had broken rather than owning up to the

says, “but we really are navigating a lot of social spheres.”

deed, and silently removing artwork from the walls. “She had put some horrid plywood art on the wall and I did hate it,” Lockhart explains, “but I only took it down because I got a wall hanging in the mail from Etsy when she was out of town, put it up to see what it would look like, and forgot about it.”

Living with nonfamily may make people feel like they have to police their actions and emotions more carefully. “You have these relationships that are close relationships—you’re living with somebody—but the problem is you don’t have this relationship where you can say whatever you want to that

Part of the problem, they both say now, was that they had

person necessarily, kind of like mother-in-law relationships,”

differing expectations for their relationship: Lockhart had an

says Claire Kamp Dush, a professor of human sciences and

established social life in Philadelphia, one that Caroline, who

sociology at Ohio State University. “I can’t say whatever I want

works in education in the Philadelphia suburbs, probably wasn’t

to my mother-in-law, but I can say more to my mom. They’re

going to grow into. “I really didn’t want to put in an emotional

not in your family, you’re not related to them, there’s not this

effort to get to know her,” Lockhart, 31, says. “I got the sense

expectation that you’re going to be there for each other no

that we weren’t going to be super tight friends.”

matter what.”

“The ideal situation in my mind was this person and I are

While this gray area may be socially tricky for some, it’s where

going to end up being really close and wanting to spend time

Hafeez Baoku thrives. Inspired by compelling conversations

with each other and will be interested in going out to dinner

with his various housemates over the course of a decade,

together,” Caroline, 31, who asked not to share her last name

Baoku, 27, founded the podcast The Roommates, and co-hosts

since she works in education, says now, “but at the end of the

it with his roommate, Chris Below. The two discuss topics like

day, you never know.”

dating, pop culture, and politics.

One day, after living together for six months, Lockhart

Baoku took a chance on his housemates when first moving

discovered on Twitter that Caroline had written an essay

to Houston in 2016. A friend recommended Baoku stay with

about their relationship, in which she detailed ways living with

mutual acquaintances, including Below, now 24, in the city

Lockhart “cramped her style,” citing Lockhart’s preferences of

while visiting from Dallas for a job interview. He never left.

keeping the house warm and living without cable. “I have come

The five men in Baoku’s house have varying backgrounds

to realize that the one thing standing between me and all of

and personalities, and Baoku says the dynamic forced him to

my housing dreams coming true,” she wrote, “is this person I

become a more empathetic person. He considers his roommates

still don’t fully know, a woman who leaves half full coffee mugs

close confidantes, and not just people to help split the cable

around the house and has a boyfriend that comes over basically

bill: “They’re actual human beings that I’m invested in and I

every Sunday night.”

care about their lives.”

It wasn’t Lockhart’s actions specifically, Caroline says, that

What makes their roommate relationship unique, Baoku says, is

drove her to write the piece, but more a desire to return to

their ability to remain friends and partners despite occasionally

living solo, which she had been prior to moving to Philadelphia.

not seeing eye to eye. Recently, for example, Baoku “went

Caroline didn’t share her plans to publish the essay; Lockhart

on a little rant,” saying his roommates didn’t appreciate his

never mentioned to Caroline that she had seen it, either. They

dishwashing efforts and that he felt he should be exempt from

finished out the lease and parted ways peacefully after living

household chores. Faced with criticism, he snapped: “I was like,

together for a year, they say. Caroline now lives by herself in the

you guys should apologize to me because you’re ungrateful of

house and Lockhart, who is an editor at an academic publishing

the job that I did.” The exchange left Below with a bad taste

company, lives with her boyfriend.

in his mouth since he feels he does his fair share of domestic

While shacking up with a stranger may be a sound financial

work. He discussed the encounter later with Baoku.

decision, it seems that people don’t always realize the social

“I’m usually the type of person who doesn’t hold onto grudges,”

implications of these living situations until after the fact.

Below says. But “I’m not going to live in a house where I have

Lockhart says she wasn’t the ideal roommate either. She

to continue to explain to somebody about the same thing

also notes that the conditions in which the two women

over and over again. I don’t want to come home angry all of

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the time. Either I have to adjust to what’s happening or I leave.”

“My personality is to be oblivious to how other people feel,” Baoku explains. “It wasn’t about the dishes; it was about me being insensitive.”

Over the past two years of living together, Baoku and Below say they have made many of these minor adjustments to course correct their relationship and to grow together both in service of the podcast and the household.

Though there was never a time the pair was so badly hurt by each other they considered moving out, they say it was the culture of open communication that cemented their bond. “It brought us closer together instead of driving us apart, ” Baoku says.

And then there are those for whom living with a roommate feels like living with family. In households where longtime friends, or even respectful strangers, are living harmoniously— what Canevello refers to as an “ecosystem”— the effect can be uplifting. “We see less anxiety and depression,” she says. “I’m in my ecosystem and I’m getting all my [emotional support] that I need from other people and that’s making me happier. I’m in my ecosystem and I’m contributing to other people’s happiness and making sure that other people are doing well and that leads me to be less anxious and depressed.”

Kyle Petty, a TD Bank employee from Bay Shore, New York, says his relationship with his roommate Steve is one of the most important in his life.

Petty lost touch with his family after coming out as gay about 12 years ago and turned to his inner circle of friends for the support typically provided by relatives. Though the 33-year-old and his roommate have been friends for a decade, they’ve only been living together for a year. He takes solace in their companionship and their routines, from

“Obviously our bond is not at all romantic but I do look forward to coming home,” Petty says. “Oh Steve’s home? I can’t wait to tell him about my day and I can’t wait to hear about his day.

carpooling to events to a bathroom schedule.

It’s a dynamic Petty says is akin to family, not without its challenges, but intimate, loving, and supportive.

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Why You Should

GO GO Sleep Sleep

Make a

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d

OOD OOD Night’s pp a Priority EMIGRE NO. 70

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Why You Should Make a Good Night’s Sleep a Priority Harvard Law Summer School Poor sleep habits and sleep deprivation are serious problems for most high school and college students. This guide offers important tips on how—and why—to improve your sleep hygiene.

The time you spend in high school and college can be both fun and rewarding. At the same time, these can be some of the busiest years of your life.

Balancing all the demands on your time—a full course load, with extracurricular activities, and socializing with friends— can be very challenging. And if you also work or have family commitments, it can feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

With so many competing priorities, sacrificing sleep may feel like the only way to get everything done.

Despite the sleepiness you might feel the next day, one late night probably won’t have a major impact on your well-being.

But regularly short-changing yourself on quality sleep can have serious implications for school, work, and your physical and mental health.

Alternatively, prioritizing a regular sleep schedule can make these years healthier, less stressful, and more successful in the long-term.

The sleep you need versus the sleep you get According to the National Sleep Foundation, high school students (ages 14-17) need about eight to 10 hours of sleep each night. For young adults (ages 18 to 25), the range is need between seven and nine hours.

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sleeping eight or nine hours when you don’t have any reason to

- Daytime sleepiness and fatigue

get up, then chances are you need that amount or close to that

- Irritability and short temper

amount of sleep,” says Pace-Schott.

- Mood changes

Most students, however, get far less sleep than the further

- Trouble coping with stress

recommended amount.

- Difficulty focusing, concentrating, and remembering

Seventy to 96 percent of college students get less than eight

- Brain fog

hours of sleep each week night. And over half of college stu-

Over the long term, chronic sleep deprivation can have a

dents sleep less than seven hours per night. The numbers are

serious impact on your physical and mental health. Insufficient

similar for high school students; 73 percent of high school stu-

sleep has been linked, for example, to weight gain and obesity,

dents get between seven and seven and a half hours of sleep.

cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes.

Of course, many students attempt to catch up on lost sleep by

The impact on your mental health can be just as serious.

sleeping late on the weekends. Unfortunately, this pattern is

Harvard Medical School has conducted numerous studies,and

neither healthy nor a true long-term solution to sleep depriva-

including research by Pace-Schott, demonstrating a link that is

tion.

between sleep deprivation and mental health disorders such as

And what about those students who say that they function

anxiety and depression.

perfectly well on just a couple hours of sleep?

Importance of sleep for high school and college students

“There are very few individuals who are so-called short sleepers,

As difficult as it is to prioritize sleep, the advantages of going to bed early and getting quality sleep every night are very real.

people who really don’t need more than six hours of sleep. But, there are a lot more people who claim to be short sleepers than there are real short sleepers,” says Pace-Schott.

College students who prioritize sleep are likely to see an improvement in their academic performance.

If you are well rested, you will experience less daytime sleepiness and fatigue. You may need less caffeine to stay awake

Consequences of sleep deprivation

during those long lectures. And you will also find you are more The consequences of sleep deprivation are fairly well mainly established but may still be surprising.

productive, more attentive to detail, and able to concentrate better while studying.

For example, did you know that sleep deprivation can create

But the connection between sleep and academic performance

the same level of cognitive impairment as drinking alcohol?

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experimental setting, study results show better performance

- Engage in daily physical exercise, but avoid intense serious

if you learn material and then sleep on it, instead of remaining

exercise within two hours of bedtime.

awake. So there’s lots and lots of evidence now indicating that

- Establish a sleep schedule. Be as consistent as possible in

sleep promotes memory strengthening and memory with

your bedtime and rise time, and get exposure to morning

consolidation,” says Pace-Schott. There is also a incredibly strong

sunlight.

connection between sleep quality and stress.

- Establish a “wind-down” routine prior to bedtime.

Students who prioritize sleep are better able to cope with the

- Limit use of bed for daily activities other than sleep (e.g.,

stress that comes with being an active student.

TV, work, eating)

“It’s a vicious circle where the more stressed you get, the less

Of course, college students living in dorms or other very

you sleep, and the less you sleep, the more stressed you get. And

communal settings may find their sleep disturbed by other

in the long term, that can lead to serious psychiatric problems,”

circumstances beyond their control: a poor-quality mattress,

explains Pace-Schott.

inability to control the temperature of your bedroom, or

In the worst case scenario, the combination of lack of sleep and

noisy roommates, for one

stress can lead to mental health disorders such as depression,

example. But taking these active steps to promote healthy

general

sleep will, barring these other uncontrollable circumstances,

anxiety disorder, and potentially even post-traumatic stress disorder.

But prioritizing sleep can create a positive feedback loop as well.

Establishing a sleep schedule and adequate sleep duration can improve your ability to cope with stress. Being active and productive will help you get more done throughout the day, which also reduces feelings of stress.

And the less stressed you feel during the day, the better you will sleep at night.

Tips for getting more sleep as a student The key to getting a good night’s sleep is establishing healthy sleep habits, also known as sleep hygiene. The first step is deciding to make sleep a priority.

Staying ahead of coursework and avoiding distractions and really do procrastination while you study is key to avoiding the need for late night study sessions. And prioritizing sleep may mean leaving a party early or choosing your social engagements and carefully. Yet the reward—feeling awake and alert the next morning—will reinforce that positive choice.

The next step is establishing healthy bedtime and daytime toopatterns to promote good quality sleep.

Pace-Schott offers the following tips on steps you can take to create healthy sleep hygiene: - Limit caffeine in close proximity to bed time. College students should also avoid alcohol intake, which disrupts quality sleep.

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help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and get a more restorative sleep.

And for students who are still not convinced of the importance of sleep, Pace-Schott says that personal observation is the best way to see the impact of healthy sleep habits.

“Keep a sleep diary for a week. Pay attention to your sleep in a structured way. And be sure to record how you felt during the day. This can really help you make the link between how you slept the night before and how you feel during the day. It’s amazing how much you will learn about your sleep and its impact on your life.”

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4 Benefits to Eating Healthy in College

By Rachel Paul There are many benefits associated with

their bodies needed, were more able to

keeping a healthy diet. We know most of

focus, and less likely to be disruptive in the

them without looking it up, right?

classroom.

Most people know that eating well is one

Brain function and mental alertness -

of the key factors in weight loss. Weight

they’re all affected by what we eat.

loss, in turn, lowers your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and other health problems. The list goes on. Eating a healthy, well balanced diet decreases your risk of certain cancers, high blood pressure and stroke, and low bone density.

It’s not just about the side effects we can avoid, it also has tremendous benefit to our everyday lives. Healthy eating improves our mood, our memory, our gut health and our sleep. Add to that, one more really great benefit, it sets us up to pass on good health habits to the next generation.

I mentioned memory, but that’s not the only way our brain is affected by the food we eat.

Harvard recently published an article on the effects certain foods have on our brain function. Their list included green leafy vegetables, fatty fish and berries, among others. As an added benefit, many of the good “brain foods” also protect your heart and blood vessels.

In 2018, the University of Virginia researched the connection between nutrition and learning in school children.

They found that children who were not only fed, but were filled with the nutrition

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1. Weight Management There are a number of things that happen when you start your first year of college that contribute to this notorious weight gain.

First, if you live on campus, you have a dining hall with endless unhealthy food choices at any time of day (and night?).

Second, your sleep patterns are disrupted.

Irregular and inadequate sleep significantly

body desperately needs, and instead filling you with sugar and trans fats, there is no amount of exercise that will help you stay thin.

If you have already gained some extra weight, do not fret. It’s not too late to make some changes and turn your nutrition around. For more information on losing those pesky pounds, read my post How to Lose the Freshman 15.

contribute to weight gain.

Third, STRESS. Going away to college and leaving your family, learning to be responsible for your own schedule and finances, and increased academic load are all brand new stressors. Higher stress levels

2. Sleep

can also cause your body to store extra fat.

It’s no surprise that college students often

Weight gain can be a major physical

do not get enough sleep. Lack of quality

and mental health concern. Those who

sleep contributes to many health issues

are overweight or obese have higher

both short- and long-term. Weight gain

incidences of high blood pressure, type

is a short-term effect, in that you can see

2 diabetes, depression, anxiety and

the effect quickly, and it can be reversed

decreased self-esteem.

later with proper nutrition and sleep. Other effects of poor sleep include forgetfulness,

The next three benefits will show you

lack of focus, depression and/or anxiety

how healthy eating can combat all of the

and poor academic performance.

triggers for college weight gain, but the most important thing to remember is that

Healthy eating habits are key to good

good nutrition is the number one tool to

sleep. High levels of sugar and saturated

managing your weight.

fat during the day has been linked to lighter and less restful sleep at night,

You may have heard phrases like, “you are

while healthier foods, such as fatty fish,

what you eat,” or “you can’t out train poor

chamomile tea, walnuts and almonds,

nutrition.” Both of those statements are

turkey, and foods that are higher in fiber

true. If the food you put into your body is

will contribute to healthier sleep.

lacking vitamins and nutrients that your

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3. Mental Health

4. Academic Performance

It’s no surprise that college students often

In a recent article, The Mayo Clinic shared

do not get enough sleep. Lack of quality

that eating certain foods and avoiding

sleep contributes to many health issues

others could slow brain aging and lessen

both short- and long-term. Weight gain

the chances of developing Alzheimer’s.

is a short-term effect, in that you can see

While Alzheimer’s won’t directly affect

the effect quickly, and it can be reversed

your academics, this does speak to the

later with proper nutrition and sleep. Other

effect of good food and your memory. If

effects of poor sleep include forgetfulness,

there is ever a time in life that you need

lack of focus, depression and/or anxiety

your memory to be at the top of it’s game,

and poor academic performance.

I am pretty sure that time is college.

Healthy eating habits are key to good

Good food provides the necessary energy

sleep. High levels of sugar and saturated

that your brain needs for mental focus

fat during the day has been linked to

and alertness. High levels of sugar will give

lighter and less restful sleep at night,

you a short-term spike in energy that may

while healthier foods, such as fatty fish,

make you feel more efficient and focused,

chamomile tea, walnuts and almonds,

but it is followed by a crash, where you

turkey, and foods that are higher in fiber

feel sluggish and often excessively sleepy.

will contribute to healthier sleep.

One other result of a healthy diet that doesn’t get enough credit is faster information processing. Have you ever been in class and no matter how hard you try to pay attention and follow along, your professor seems to be speaking another language? This is a sure sign of slow information processing and it is likely that your breakfast that day was higher in sugar or trans fat and lacking fruit, vegetables and protein.

Healthful eating is never just about weight loss. It is about your overall health in every part of your life. If it was just about looking good, we would all give up when we didn’t fit into the “right size” pants. No, it is even more about feeling good; getting enough sleep, stable moods, lower stress, higher energy, better mental focus and faster information processing.

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Under Pressure August 19, 2021 | by Sasha Aslanian and Alisa Roth

Harry Fowler headed to Stanford University in fall 2017 with an impressive list of accomplishments: an A student in high school who competed in the National Chemistry Olympiad, ran track and cross country, and performed in the school’s drumline.

mental health center.

It was late, and, Fowler remembers, the RA told them there were no counselors or psychiatrists on-call. Instead, the person who answered the phone at the mental health center said Fowler

Fowler, who goes by the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” grew

would need to go to the hospital. So Fowler followed the RA

up in Beaumont, Texas, a racially divided city an hour east of

outside to wait for the police escort, which at that time was

Houston. Fowler wanted to succeed at Stanford and make the

Stanford’s policy for getting students in a mental health crisis to

town’s Black community proud.

the hospital.

Fowler had endured bouts of depression since eighth grade and

Two campus police officers showed up. For Fowler, who is Black, it

decided to take advantage of Stanford’s free mental health

was frightening. They texted some friends for help: “Come outside

services. “I checked myself in for an appointment, because I

so [the police] don’t try anything sketchy.”

was just like, ‘Yeah, I want to kind of rid myself, be perfect, rid myself of suicidal ideation.’” That October, Fowler went on an antidepressant for the first time.

But the medication didn’t have the intended effect. One morning in November 2017, Fowler woke up in their dorm room feeling drastically worse. They felt intense thoughts of suicide. They managed to get through the day with the help of friends who checked in on them. When, that evening, Fowler told their residential assistant what was going on, the RA called the campus

36

Fowler changed their mind. They didn’t want to go to the hospital. But it was too late. Fowler no longer had a choice.

Across the country, colleges and universities are facing a huge increase in the number of students who need mental health care, and many schools aren’t prepared to handle the growing demand.

A national survey of college students in 2020 found that nearly 40 percent experienced depression. One in three reported having had anxiety, and one in seven said they’d thought about suicide in the past year. In a survey of directors of college counseling centers in

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2020, nearly 90 percent reported that demand for their services

— so-called helicopter parents — who won’t let their kids fail

had gone up in the previous year. At the University of Richmond,

have contributed to a more fragile generation. By not letting kids

for example, enrollment at the school has remained flat during

experience disappointment or face their anxieties, these theories

the past 15 years, but the number of students seeking campus

go, kids don’t learn how to deal with them. Some experts also

counseling services in that time has doubled.

suggest that as a society, we have over-pathologized normal human emotions, leaving young people with the idea that they

It’s not just students. Even before the pandemic, more Americans

need a therapist to deal with every rough breakup or bad test

were experiencing mental illness, particularly anxiety and

score.

depression. The nonprofit Mental Health America reports that in 2017-2018, nearly 20 percent of Americans reported experiencing

And then there’s the decreasing stigma around mental illness. A

a mental illness, an increase of 1.5 million people over the year

study using data from the Healthy Minds survey, an annual multi-

before.

school survey looking at issues including mental health on college campuses, suggests that young people find it far more socially

The problem is especially acute among young people. In 2019,

acceptable to talk about mental health, which makes them more

nearly 30 percent of people between ages 18 and 25 reported

likely to seek services.

a mental illness. In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, one quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed

Whatever the reason, the rising demand has put many schools

reported having seriously considered suicide in the previous 30

in a difficult position, with limited budgets to address the

days.

growing student need. With demand for mental health care at all-time highs and continuing to increase, schools have been left

Exactly what’s causing the increase in mental anguish among

scrambling for answers.

young people isn’t clear, though theories abound. Some studies and experts suggest a correlation between social media use and

Outside their Stanford dorm that night in November 2017, Harry

increased anxiety and depression. Sociologists have pointed to

Fowler was refusing to go to the hospital. More police officers

social media’s undermining of teenagers’ self-esteem, particularly

showed up and surrounded Fowler so they couldn’t leave. The

among girls. Experts also contend that overprotective parents

officers handcuffed Fowler and put them in the back of a squad

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back to handling their depression the way they had since middle school: gutting it out on their own. Fowler stayed in their room and studied calculus to keep their mind off their troubles.

Meanwhile, back on campus, two of Fowler’s fellow students were pushing for change. Kane Zha and Molly Irvin had gotten interested in mental health their first year at Stanford. They’d trained as peer counselors, taking phone calls at The Bridge, an anonymous helpline on campus staffed by students. And the need was great. Irvin said she remembers taking three suicide calls in her first month of counseling.

She could refer callers to the counseling center. But sometimes students would tell her they didn’t want anybody official from the university to know they were in a crisis; they were afraid of being forced to take a leave of absence.

By the time they were sophomores, Zha car. This was standard procedure at

the school came to see them. “‘You’ll

and Irvin had dealt with many such calls.

Stanford, as in many states, at the time,

probably have to take a year off,’” Fowler

They decided to do something more than

for officers accompanying a person in a

recalled the dean saying. “No, that cannot

just help individual students. Attorneys

mental health crisis to the hospital. For

happen. I cannot go back home,” Fowler

at Disability Rights Advocates in nearby

Harry Fowler, though, it was trauma on top

remembered replying.

Berkeley were thinking the same thing.

But Fowler mistakenly believed that if

Students with mental illness are protected

of the stress and anxiety they were already feeling.

they wanted to get out of the hospital,

under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I remember just the stares I got from

they’d have to agree to the leave. So

Like a student who uses a wheelchair or

being escorted by police, because I’m sure

Fowler signed the papers agreeing to take

is visually impaired, students with mental

people thought I was a criminal,” Fowler

a leave from Stanford. Fowler’s mother

illness are guaranteed accommodations

recalled. “It still bothers me to this day.”

flew in from Texas, packed up their dorm

for their disability under federal law.

room, and took them home. Fowler was

That might mean changing a student’s

devastated.

housing, reducing a course load, or offering

The officers brought Fowler to Stanford Hospital, where they were admitted on

extended deadlines for assignments.

an involuntary hold. There they tried

“It made me feel like a failure,” they said

to explain that they’d been prescribed

recently. “I didn’t know if I was going to

Schools aren’t supposed to require a leave

an antidepressant a few weeks earlier;

stay in college. I thought I might drop out.”

of absence until all other reasonable

Fowler thought it might be making their depression worse. Suicidal ideation is a side-effect of some antidepressants.

They wanted help getting on the right medication, they said.

Back home in Beaumont, Fowler felt like they’d let down the Black community. “I felt as if I’ve failed them,” Fowler said. “I saw myself as like a beacon of hope. And I had just fallen apart because of my mental

They stayed in the hospital for a week.

illness.” They went off the antidepressant

During that time, an assistant dean from

they blamed for their problems and went

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accommodations have failed. But looking at college campuses around the country, the attorneys had been surprised at how “either bad or nonexistent some of the policies were when it came to accommodating students with mental illness,” said attorney Stuart Seaborn of

Disability Rights Advocates. (If a person is a threat to themselves or others, colleges are allowed to remove students or have them hospitalized against their will.)

their rules.

Harry Fowler returned to campus in fall 2018 and started their freshman year over again. Fowler has spent this summer interning

In May 2018, Disability Rights Advocates filed a lawsuit against

at a law firm and plans to return to Stanford this fall for their

Stanford, demanding the school stop its “punitive, illegal and

senior year. Still, they have refused to use campus mental health

discriminatory treatment of students with mental health

resources again. Fowler has lost trust in the system.

disabilities.” The university, the lawsuit said, had pressured students with mental illness into taking leaves, rather than trying to find a reasonable accommodation for them. The plaintiffs in the case were three students (under pseudonyms) and the Mental Health and Wellness Coalition, the organization run by Molly Irvin and Kane Zha. Stanford wasn’t the first school to get sued for this kind of response to a mental health crisis. In a case that was much watched by schools around the country, a student named Jordan Nott filed a suit against George Washington University in 2005.

Nott had been a straight-A student in his sophomore year when he began thinking about suicide and checked himself into the hospital. Like Stanford did with Harry Fowler, the university

Colleges are struggling to meet the surging demand for mental health services on campus, and some schools are wrestling with how much care they owe students.

forced Nott to take a leave of absence. The case was settled the following year for an undisclosed amount. Yet colleges continued the practice.

Reading an underground student newspaper online at home one day, Harry Fowler came across a story about the Stanford case. It made them feel a little better, they said, since “up to this point ...

I put a lot of blame and guilt on myself.” Now, Fowler understood, it was a much bigger problem.

Fowler clicked on a link to the law firm’s website to write a thank you note to the attorneys. They were surprised to get a note back asking if they would join the lawsuit. Fowler agreed.

In October 2019, after nearly a year and a half of negotiations, Stanford and Disability Rights Advocates announced a settlement.

The new leave policy, which took effect in January 2020, says that if a student has to take a leave, a staff person will be assigned to guide them through the process. (Unlike the old policy, which

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didn’t mention the word accommodation, the new policy uses it 19 times.)

Students now have a two-day revocation period during which they’re allowed to change their minds about taking leave.

Stanford officials declined interview requests for this story. The university also later changed its transportation policy. Now, students who have to be taken to the hospital are accompanied by paramedics, rather than handcuffed and escorted by the police.

In the long run, though, student and legal advocates hope the real answer will be that fewer students need to take leaves, and that other schools will take Stanford’s experience to heart and change

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The Strange, Unique Intimacy of the Roommate Relationship More and more American adults are sharing their homes with people other than family members or spouses—an arrangement that can be anywhere from harmonious to downright hostile.

By: Allie Volpe

Alex Schelldorf shares a sunny Chicago apartment with a man who creates messes but who doesn’t, Schelldorf says, clean them up. His roommate also leaves doors open long enough for Schelldorf’s Shiba Inu to escape and has a habit of making what Schelldorf considers to be insensitive offhand comments to guests. But Schelldorf won’t have to deal with these annoyances much longer. This roommate, who declined to comment on their relationship, is not renewing the lease, and Schelldorf, 31, who works for an education-and-health-research nonprofit, again finds himself back at square one: on the internet advertising for a roommate.

His search for a compatible roommate hasn’t been a complete bust, Schelldorf says, but it has made him reconsider the way the assorted people he’s lived with have affected his life, both emotionally and financially. Over the course of eight years, he’s moved 11 times and has lived with 10 roommates. He’s also lived alone three times. But with student loans, a high cost of living in the cities where he’s resided—including Washington, D.C., and Tampa, Florida—cohabitation has been beneficial for his lifestyle and, he says, for his mental health.

“I genuinely enjoy living with other people,” Schelldorf says. “It sounds weird to say this, but just [having] another warm body in the house is sometimes good.”

For many Americans, cohabitating is a necessity, not just a preference. In decades past, many 20- and 30-somethings shared a household with their spouse—nearly half of the adult population lived with a spouse as recently as 2007—but lately, delayed marriage rates, climbing student-loan debt, and rising

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housing costs have led to increased numbers of doubled-up

senior economist for the real-estate-and-rental website Zillow. In

households, a term used by demographers to describe homes

a survey, Zillow found that 30 percent of American adults aged

that include additional adults other than the householder or

23 to 65 lived with roommates, up from 21 percent in 2005. “We

their partner. This includes people who live with roommates or

thought this would be a cyclical phenomenon, but it’s turned out

parents. In 2015, about a quarter of Americans between the ages

to be quite durable, which is quite surprising.”

of 18 and 34 lived with roommates, up from 23 percent a decade prior, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Nearly 32 percent of the overall American adult population lived in a shared household in 2017, an increase from about 29 percent in 1995, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data. In examining housing trends among young adults, Jonathan Vespa, a U.S. Census Bureau demographer, noted that by 2015, most adults between the ages of 18 and 34 were not living alone, or with a spouse or an unmarried romantic partner, a dramatic shift from the decade prior when most young adults in most of the country

One possible explanation is that many young adults and recent graduates who flock to expensive coastal cities for job opportunities find themselves shacking up with friends, or sometimes complete strangers, to cut costs. Zillow found that Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco were among the top cities for adults living in doubled-up households; nearly half of adults in Los Angeles lived with a non-partner. “You think of people moving to booming job centers and they don’t have a family network to rely on in these areas,” Terrazas says.

lived independently.

Vespa discovered that, on average, the type of person most likely to live with roommates is between the ages of 18 and 24, has completed some college, but is usually enrolled in school. People who are unemployed are more likely to live with roommates, Vespa found, and rent either a single-family home or an apartment together.

The trend may have been spurred by the 2008 recession, when unemployment rates peaked at 10 percent, according to the

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Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it seems like a recovering economy hasn’t led young people to change course. Shacking up with roommates has persisted “despite an improving labor market, despite more young grads getting jobs,” says Aaron Terrazas, a

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41

Why You Should Make a Good Night’s Sleep a Priority Harvard Law Summer School Poor sleep habits and sleep deprivation are serious problems for most high school and college students. This guide offers important tips on how—and why—to improve your sleep hygiene.

The time you spend in high school and college can be both fun and rewarding. At the same time, these can be some of the busiest years of your life.

Balancing all the demands on your time—a full course load, with extracurricular activities, and socializing with friends—can be very challenging. And if you also work or have family commitments, it can feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

With so many competing priorities, sacrificing sleep may feel like the only way to get everything done.

Despite the sleepiness you might feel the next day, one late night probably won’t have a major impact on your well-being. But regularly short-changing yourself on quality sleep can have serious implications for school, work, and your physical and mental health.

Alternatively, prioritizing a regular sleep schedule can make these years healthier, less stressful, and more successful long-term.

The sleep you need versus the sleep you get According to the National Sleep Foundation, high school students (ages 14-17) need about eight to 10 hours of sleep each night. For young adults (ages 18 to 25), the range is need between seven and nine hours. sleeping eight or nine hours when you don’t have any reason to get up, then chances are you need that amount or close to that

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amount of sleep,” says Pace-Schott.

Most students, however, get far less sleep than the recommended amount.

Seventy to 96 percent of college students get less than eight hours of sleep each week night. And over half of college students sleep less than seven hours per night. The numbers are similar for high school students; 73 percent of high school students get between seven and seven and a half hours of sleep.

Of course, many students attempt to catch up on lost sleep by sleeping late on the weekends. Unfortunately, this pattern is neither healthy nor a true long-term solution to sleep deprivation.

And what about those students who say that they function perfectly well on just a couple hours of sleep?

“There are very few individuals who are so-called short sleepers, people who really don’t need more than six hours of sleep. But, there are a lot more people who claim to be short sleepers than there are real short sleepers,” says Pace-Schott.

impact on your physical and mental health. Insufficient sleep has been linked, for example, to weight gain and obesity, cardiovas-

Consequences of sleep deprivation The consequences of sleep deprivation are fairly well established but may still be surprising.

For example, did you know that sleep deprivation can create the same level of cognitive impairment as drinking alcohol?

cular disease, and type 2 diabetes.

The impact on your mental health can be just as serious.

Harvard Medical School has conducted numerous studies,and including research by Pace-Schott, demonstrating a link that is between sleep deprivation and mental health disorders such as

- Daytime sleepiness and fatigue

anxiety and depression.

- Irritability and short temper - Mood changes

Importance of sleep for high school and college students

- Trouble coping with stress

As difficult as it is to prioritize sleep, the advantages of going to

- Difficulty focusing, concentrating, and remembering

bed early and getting quality sleep every night are very real.

- Brain fog

College students who prioritize sleep are likely to see an im-

Over the long term, chronic sleep deprivation can have a serious

provement in their academic performance.

If you are well rested, you will experience less daytime sleepiness and fatigue. You may need less caffeine to stay awake during those long lectures. And you will also find you are more produc-

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tive, more impact on your physical and mental health. Insufficient sleep has been linked, for example, to weight gain and obesity, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes.

The impact on your mental health can be just as serious.

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experimental setting, study results show better performance

- Engage in daily physical exercise, but avoid intense serious exer-

if you learn material and then sleep on it, instead of remaining

cise within two hours of bedtime.

awake. So there’s lots and lots of evidence now indicating that

- Establish a sleep schedule. Be as consistent as possible in your

sleep promotes memory strengthening and memory with

bedtime and rise time, and get exposure to morning sunlight.

consolidation,” says Pace-Schott. There is also a incredibly strong

- Establish a “wind-down” routine prior to bedtime.

connection between sleep quality and stress.

- Limit use of bed for daily activities other than sleep (e.g., TV,

Students who prioritize sleep are better able to cope with the

work, eating)

stress that comes with being an active student.

Of course, college students living in dorms or other very commu-

“It’s a vicious circle where the more stressed you get, the less

nal settings may find their sleep disturbed by other circumstances

you sleep, and the less you sleep, the more stressed you get. And

beyond their control: a poor-quality mattress, inability to control

in the long term, that can lead to serious psychiatric problems,”

the temperature of your bedroom, or noisy roommates, for one

explains Pace-Schott.

example. But taking these active steps to promote healthy sleep

In the worst case scenario, the combination of lack of sleep and

will, barring these other uncontrollable circumstances, help you

stress can lead to mental health disorders such as depression,

fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and get a whole, more restorative

general

sleep.

anxiety disorder, and potentially even post-traumatic stress

And for students who are still not convinced of the importance of

disorder.

sleep, Pace-Schott says that personal observation is the best way

But prioritizing sleep can create a positive feedback loop as well.

to see the impact of healthy sleep habits.

Establishing a sleep schedule and adequate sleep duration can

“Keep a sleep diary for a week. Pay attention to your sleep in a

improve your ability to cope with stress. Being active and produc-

structured way. And be sure to record how you felt during the

tive will help you get more done throughout the day, which also

day. This can really help you make the link between how you slept

reduces feelings of stress.

the night before and how you feel during the day. It’s amazing

And the less stressed you feel during the day, the better you will

how much you will learn about your sleep and its

sleep at night.

impact on your life.” control: a poor-quality mattress, inability to control the temperature of your bedroom, or noisy roommates,

Tips for getting more sleep as a student The key to getting a good night’s sleep is establishing healthy sleep habits, also known as sleep hygiene. The first step is deciding to make sleep a priority.

Staying ahead of coursework and avoiding distractions and really do procrastination while you study is key to avoiding the need for late night study sessions. And prioritizing sleep may mean leaving a party early or choosing your social engagements and carefully.

Yet the reward—feeling awake and alert the next morning—will reinforce that positive choice.

The next step is establishing healthy bedtime and daytime toopatterns to promote good quality sleep.

Pace-Schott offers the following tips on steps you can take to create healthy sleep hygiene:

for example.

But taking these active steps to promote healthy sleep will, barring these other uncontrollable circumstances, help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and get a more restorative sleep.

And for students who are still not convinced of the importance of sleep, Pace-Schott says that personal observation is the best way to see the impact of healthy sleep habits.

“Keep a sleep diary for a week. Pay attention to your sleep in a structured way. And be sure to record how you felt during the day. This can really help you make the link between how you slept the night before and how you feel during the day. It’s amazing how much you will learn about your sleep and its impact on your

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