Cameron Adams
Editor In Chief
While college is the perfect place to learn how to prioritize your career, responsibilities, and time management, it can also lead to deprioritizing your mental health. College can be very stressful if you do not allow enough time to unwind and focus on yourself. Juggling academic responsibilities can be extremely stressful.
As the Editor-In-Chief of the newspaper, balancing my responsibilities as a student and a student leader is mentally challenging at times. It’s very easy to lose yourself when you have an assignment due at 11:59 p.m. and an article that needs to be submitted that same night.
This is where prioritizing yourself comes into play. Prioritizing yourself includes allowing your mind and body to rest and focusing on your mental health.
One of the ways I keep my mental health sharp is meditation. Meditation allows a sense of physical and mental relief. Controlling my breathing while manipulating my way of thinking allows me to prioritize both aspects of my health. Positive affirmations are key during meditation.
Another way that I prioritize my mental health includes taking periodic breaks from school work or anything that you would consider mentally taxing. This prevents your mind from becoming too overwhelmed to complete the task you have planned.
Although I have developed strategies to avoid mental stress, it took me some time to find the methods that work for me. This is due to the lack of emphasis and negative connotations on mental health within my community.
Mental health has always been overlooked in the African-American community for generations, especially when it comes to black men. I can recall multiple instances where other black men that I know looked down on the idea of sharing and expressing their emotions to anyone. This is a common occurrence within the community.
Black men were and continue to be taught that we must always stay strong and have our guard up because we were born with targets on our backs. Showing emotions is considered to be similar to showing weakness. This created a negative perception on sharing emotions, causing men in my community to connect it with vulnerability and weakness when this is in fact the opposite. Expressing your emotions is arguably the best way to release any built-up stress from any situation.
People who do not express themselves tend to bottle up their emotions, which could lead to unpredictable and destructive behaviors. This, in fact, could lead to mental and physical weakness. Moving forward, I plan to utilize my platform to emphasize the importance of mental health and taking care of yourself first. You cannot be a successful college student without a proper balance between your school responsibilities and your health.
If you ever feel as if you are overwhelmed with school or anything else in your life, do not hesitate to talk to someone about it. Mental self-care is as important as physical self-care. Jackson State University also offers help through the Latasha Norman Center for Counseling Services, a short-term student support service. The Center is located in the JSU Student Center
on the 2 nd floor. You can also contact them at 601-979-0374.
