Thinking About Mental Wellbeing During Mental Health Awareness Month

Mental health and academic performance are closely associated. Students going through depression, anxiety, stress, or other mental illnesses experience difficulty in concentrating or motivating themselves in academic work. The COVID-19 pandemic added significantly to the usual stress of academic life with its travel restrictions and uncertainties with the return to school. 

My name is Nargis Sultana. I am a Ph.D. student in Public Health at UH Mānoa. As a part of my Cultural Mapping and Humility class, I created a Libguide (Mental Health & Wellbeing) to help the UHWO community with resources to address and improve their wellbeing. I also have a master’s degree in Library and Information Science. The primary role of a library is to help users with their information needs. Because of my academic training and professional experience in the library, I wanted to envision the library as a hub for the community’s wellbeing resources.

The Libguide showcases resources from the James Abigail and Campbell Library. The guide has a list of selected resources like print and e-books, databases with articles related to mental health, and videos. To conduct research related to mental health, the databases I have suggested can be a great help. The Libguide also has a list of keywords that can be used to search the databases for articles related to physical and mental wellbeing. The guide also provides links to various websites to find data for both local to international levels.

Mental illnesses are known as invisible disabilities. Chronic mental illness impacts physical health. Learning and satisfactory achievements in academic programs require both physical and mental health. This guide could be a one-stop place to find relevant mental and physical wellbeing resources. 

Note: this blog post was written by Nargis Sultana and posted to the UHWO Library website by Librarian Carina Chernisky, who coordinated with Nargis on her course project.

[About the header image: Photo by Kelly Sikkema has an open license and was retrieved from Unsplash.]