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Gratitude can increase positive wellbeing, which means it can help people feel happier. Gratitude is about feeling thankful. But it's also about having a deep appreciation for someone or something that produces a long-lasting effect. The activity below can help you to focus on things that have been good in the last week. This will help build your positive wellbeing. These can be small things to significant events.

Gratitude journaling

You could do this once a week, or even every day, depending on what works best for you.

• Use a space where you can write your thoughts down, whether this is a notepad on your phone.
• Take time to think of something over the last week you are grateful for. If you can, aim to note down three things. These can include people, or objects, or events that went well. You may want to write why they went well or talk about people or things that mean a lot to you and you are grateful for.
• You could share something from your gratitude diary with someone that you trust.
• Keep this list safe and read through it when you are low or finding it hard to be grateful for things in your life.

Mindfulness is about being present in the moment, and not holding any judgment of yourself or your thoughts. We can spend almost half of our time thinking about something other than what we’re doing. Often this thought-drifting can make us feel unhappy.

With some practice, this activity can help you to take a step back from your thoughts. It helps to not get lost in overthinking. You can do it anywhere whilst doing almost anything.

Five senses activity

This activity is easy to remember as it uses the five senses. You could do it at home, or when you're walking between lectures. You could also do it if you're struggling to focus throughout a seminar, or whenever you find that you're overthinking. You can practise the five senses, at the start of a lecture to help focus.

Take time to go over these five steps and take a one to two minute pause between each bullet point:

• Five things you can see, such as the desks or chairs
• Four things you can hear, such as the hum of the air con
• Three things you can touch, such as the smooth desk surface
• Two things you can smell or like the smell of, such as your perfume or a roast dinner
• One slow breath, slow and conscious

Mindfulness can take a lot of practice. But once you get to grips with how it can help you to become more present, it can be another great tool to add to your wellbeing toolbox.

We can often get trapped in negative cycles of stress and negative thought patterns. It can be vital to highlight positive aspects of our day-to-day lives. Highlighting what you do well and what helps you to stay well can impact your mental wellbeing. This will in turn improve your university experience.

This task helps to highlight these areas. It can identify what aspects of your lives help to build a shield against stress and ruminations of negative thoughts.

My shield

Create your own shield using four squares, reflect on the different sections.

1. What I do well at university?
2. What makes me happy?
3. What makes me feel safe?
4. What I like most about my support system? For example family, friends or a partner.

Sleep difficulties are commonplace, especially at university. Taking notice of your sleeping routine or bad habits you may have fallen into overtime is a useful practice. All people should do this if they are struggling to sleep.

Poor sleep can have a large impact on our wellbeing, as it can impact concentration, mood, motivation and memory. There are small changes you can make to your sleep routine that may help you to sleep better.

Tips and advice

If you're struggling with sleep you should make a few subtle changes, rather than trying to do everything all at once. Have a read through the ideas and choose what will work best for you.

• Routine: a bedtime routine is key. As children we often had brilliant routines, but as we develop into adulthood, we are more stressed and have less routine at night. Try to set time aside to wind down and be in bed by a time that is achievable to you. This goes with the morning as well. Set a time to be up and get up when that alarm goes off.
• Blue light: avoid using tablets, phones, laptops or TVs at least half an hour before bed. The blue light in screens can suppress the body's release of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep.
• Night-time thinking: people can tend to struggle to sleep if they over-think at night or think of all the ‘things to do’ the next day. It can be useful to write down your thoughts before bed. If they are worries you can’t control, physically throw them away. If they are thoughts about things that you need to do – you have your ‘to do’ list for tomorrow, so leave that responsibility for the next day.
• Tossing and turning: when people struggle to sleep, they can often toss and turn for long periods of time. The brain is then making a connection between your bed and staying awake. If you have not fallen asleep within 20 minutes, it is advisable to get up and do something relaxing for 10 minutes before trying again. Keep doing this until you fall sleep, to help make an association between your bed and sleep.
• Alcohol: people may believe that when they have drunk alcohol, they sleep better. But it has been shown that alcohol prevents the REM cycle, so the quality of sleep is not good. Cutting down on alcohol can improve sleep.
• Bedroom: our environment can have a large impact on sleep. It may be worth looking at your bedroom and your bed to see if there is anything that can change. What are your pillows like? Is it dark enough? Are you warm enough?

Remember that any change takes time, practice and patience, but give any one of the above tips ago.

The Sleep Charity website offer further resources and information. If you are struggling to cope please contact the Student Support Team.

Stress is a normal part of life, especially at university. You may experience challenges around to work-life balance and academic pressures. You could also face financial stress or other external factors.

Stress can sometimes become overwhelming due to not having healthy coping mechanisms. This can lead to either poor mental wellbeing or the development of unhealthy coping mechanisms. This task will look at some healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms. .This will help you see what strategies you may be putting in place that are working, and what you might need to change.

Tips and advice

• Everyone copes with stress in different ways and stress is a normal part of life. There are many kinds of healthy and unhealthy ways of dealing with pressure and stress. It's important to have an awareness of what helps and doesn’t help you in the long term.
• There are healthy ways that help to reduce stress and relieve symptoms, as well as help to build resilience for the future. Unhealthy ways of dealing with stress can mask the symptoms in the short term. They may also introduce new stressors and increase the effects of stress in the future.
• Think about healthy and unhealthy ways of coping that you do and write them down.
• Have you listed many unhealthy coping mechanisms? Ask yourself if there is anything you would like to change or do differently. If you think that you have unhealthy coping mechanisms that are causing harm, please contact our Student Support Team. This could include substance misuse or heavy drinking. Our team will be happy to help support you.
• After you have created your lists, reflect on what you do to stay well. This about how this could improve your mental wellbeing.
• Ask yourself this question; how do you manage your own stress and how can you incorporate health stress management into your life?