I'd like to welcome everyone back to the counseling and psychological services podcast series. Today, we will be interviewing, Veronica Hayes, our dietitian on George Mason's campus, and I'll be speaking a little bit about balancing the mind and body. Veronica will be touching on balancing the plate. Veronica, I understand how some foods will help me during certain activities like running, walking, playing basketball, but if you could help me to understand how foods can help my brain when I'm studying or taking an exam. So similar to how foods will help you in your daily activities or sports activities, foods will also help to regulate your blood pressure, which helps regulate blood flow to the brain and increase blood flow to the brain means more oxygen to the brain, which improves your cognition. Cognition actually is how you balance all your different responsibilities from day to day. So responsibilities from family, to school, to other activities that you're wanting to do with friends, planning meals even, and how you balance those stressors in your life, is what cognition is. So if you can have improved cognition, imagine how much better you would be doing in each of your activities, again, whether it's studying, sitting in class, or engaging with your family. Then just having the appropriate balance of your macronutrients like your proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, as well as the portion sizes of those, will not only assist you in the complexities of balancing and retaining all the information that you're receiving in class, but it will also just simply allow you to sit in class easier, sit still, and stay awake in class. Can you talk a little bit more about how what someone eats will help them retain information. Like if someone wants to do better on an exam, is it as simple as eating a Clif Bar? Even myself, I wish it was that easy. But truthfully, it does not have to also be as arduous as meticulously planning each of your meals to make sure that you have the precise amount of micronutrients or vitamins and minerals. Just to make us a little bit of a dent in your mental fitness. So just to start, if we think about proteins and just making sure that you're getting at least some sort of protein in each of your meals and snacks. Protein helps the neurons in your brain to communicate. So kind of think of the neurons as a telephone cord in your brain, the telephone cord helps the neurons to talk to each other and helps you to retain different information that you received throughout the day. What are some examples of protein? How're communicating neurons going to help on a test. So some different examples of proteins are like, eggs, fish, chicken, legumes, nuts, tofu. Really there are many different options for protein. So if you're having difficulty coming up with different protein ideas, do a quick little research on the Internet, but also you can seek out your local dietitian, and he or she will be glad to help you balance out and figure out which proteins are best for you. But neurons are particularly helpful during exam time in studying because they are actually what holds the information in your brain. So whether it's memorizing a formula or retaining information from unimportant lecture, or even just sit telling your leg to move or your eyes to blink, those neurons hold on to that information. Those neurons are actually made up of fat too, so that's a good example of where fats will come in from those three macronutrients. So you can see how eating fats and having fats in your diet are imperative as well. Is it true that all fats are good for when it comes to a student's brain? So omega-3s are a different type of fat still within the fats category, and some examples of those would be like salmon or tuna, chia seeds or hemp seeds, if you're vegan or vegetarian. The omega-3s help to increase the blood flow to the brain. Again like I was saying earlier, more blood flow to the brain means increased oxygen, and more oxygen means a greater retention of information through increased brain function. Then another example are monounsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fats will reduce blood pressure, which is great for just general health markers, but also increasing the blood flow to the brain. Veronica, can you give me some ideas of what some specific snacks or meals I could put together are to be sure that all guidelines and parameters are followed for optimal nutrition for my brain? So we also want to keep in mind to make sure that we are getting adequate carbohydrates, because the brains prefer few sources, actually carbohydrates. So sometimes, when you walk out of a really tough exam or a really intense lecture, or even just getting up from your seat at the library and you feel that brain fog, that is when your body is depleting its glycogen stores, or its glucose stores, which are coming from those carbohydrates that you're consuming. So making sure that you have adequate carbohydrates and adequate fiber in your diet is going to increase your ability to really sit still for a long period of time, and retain any information that's being thrown out to you. I did touch on a little bit of the whole grain, so just making sure that you're turning that package over and looking for that label that says whole grain, in the first two to three ingredients to make sure that it is a whole grain product. Some great examples would be oatmeal, whole grain bread, brown rice, you can do a whole wheat bagel, you could even do like a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter and banana on it for a quick and easy breakfast or lunch. So we really want to make sure that we're not skipping on carbohydrates though. I know that can be kind of the norm and what is trendy and popular today. We want to make sure that we're getting those degrees, and making sure that we're able to sit still while we're at work as well. On top of that, we also want to make sure that we're getting plenty of fruits and vegetables. The antioxidants that are found in berries will help to protect the brain from oxidative stress. Then magnesium found in leafy greens will help to boost the blood flow to the brain which we've talked a lot about today. Just some examples of those leafy greens would be like spinach, kale, Swiss chard, collards, and cabbage. Sure. So definitely for a student or anybody else just having a busy lifestyle trying to balance your studies, your work life, your family life, and your friends as well, you're wanting some snacks and meals that are quick easy go to, that you don't have to think too hard about and you don't to store for too long. You can just put in a bagging, go whether it's in your backpack or purse or pocket. So a great example of an easy portable snack is trail mix. So throw in some almonds, cashews, maybe some raisins, pretzels, crackers and some dark chocolate, and bada boom bada bing, you've got all your macronutrients that you need. You have your proteins fats and carbs, protein from your nuts. Some good healthy fats from your nuts and then carbohydrates coming from your crackers or pretzels, and then some simple carbohydrates coming from your chocolate chips and from your raisins. Another great example of a simple snack or meal would be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. As simple as that sounds is going back to elementary school, having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you will get your carbohydrates from the bread, and make sure you're choosing whole grain bread. You'll get proteins and healthy fats from your peanut butter, and then some simple carbohydrates from the jelly which will give you a quick burst of energy if you need that. If you want to throw in maybe a banana on there, that's a great way to add in some extra fruit macronutrients and some extra fiber. How do I remember to eat? That is something that many people struggle with whether you're a student or you are in the professional world. You are going to struggle with remembering to eat. So creating a habit now and figuring out what works best for you and your lifestyle is going to be best. So when the best ways to do that is just set an alarm. Set an alarm on your phone that reoccurs every 3-4 hours, that way, you take a study break which is also just simply good for your brain to take a good rest. But also, it reminds you to go ahead and grab that snack. Grab that sandwich, grab that trail mix and take it outside, get some fresh air and make sure that you are getting those nutrients so that you can optimize your study schedule. Another great thing is to schedule in your meal planning time and grocery shopping time. So just like you schedule time to go to class, to go to the gym, to study, you want to schedule time for the grocery store. Because if you schedule time for the grocery store, you'll get those needed ingredients to put together those quick and easy meals. I'm Veronica Hayes, the campus dietician at George Mason University. So now, we're going to transition to thinking more about balancing the mind in addition to balancing the plate, I'm Dr. Derek Vigon, a staff psychologist here at George Mason University. I just wanted to touch on some of the national trends in the college student experience which is coming from our CCMH and ACHA health data. Specifically the fact that 87 percent of students felt overwhelmed by all that they had to do. In addition to 53 percent felt things were hopeless. About 63 percent felt overwhelming anxiety and about 41 percent felt so depressed. It was difficult to function. Well, Derek, this seem like some pretty significant data. So when we think about these, this is a significant amount of our population here on campus. Then nationally, as we know in trends and college counseling centers, service utilization has increased by 50 percent in over 10 years, and the lifetime prevalence of suicidality and self-harm continues to rise and even for the six consecutive year. So this in of itself is enough reason for universities, counseling centers, different support staff to be paying attention to the mental health symptoms that some of our students are facing. So a lot of my students tell me about how stress they are, so how would you think about stress? Stress can be broadly defined and we want to know where are some of the personal signs that folks are feeling when they are stressed out. So we want to think about the fact that there are several aspects of our mental health. These are mental, emotional behavioral and physical also wanted to think about spiritual and cultural aspects of our being, and then also navigating difficult emotions, right? So being a little bit more mindful of what difficult situations are that may be trigger you or how you've coped with some of these emotionally charged situations. When you notice yourself feeling overwhelmed, what are some things that you might be able to do? So really, it starts with awareness. Is there an optimal way to feel things? Do you think I should feel something in a particular way? There's no single right or wrong way to experience emotion. Really, the first step is realizing that we are having an emotion. Where do we feel this emotion in our bodies? Is it a tightness? Is it a looseness? Is it a burning sensation? So just paying attention to where some of our emotions in our bodies come up. I know for me, when I feel anxiety, my stomach tends to cramp up and I start deep breathing to really try to increase my oxygen to my muscles and to decrease my heart rate. So I think particularly, when being on a competitive high achieving institution like Mason, we occasionally run into burnout. So what does burn out typically look like? Burnout might look like fatigue or frustration or apathy resulting from prolonged stress or overwork from intense activity. Some of these signs can look like increased irritability, lack of energy, dreading going to work, lack of satisfaction or changes in eating or sleeping. So I think sometimes even with burnout but with other issues, we would like to think about the cognitive triangle. How some thoughts that influence feelings and those feelings influence behavior and behavior may then strengthen that initial thought even if that thought was painful, right? So by learning how thoughts and actions influence our feelings, we can really learn to get more control over our feelings of anxiety or depressed mood or any sort of other uncomfortable experience that we're having. When we can learn to get more control over our feelings then maybe we can make the feelings feel less intense. So we can make the time that we're depressed feel shorter or the discomfort of the anxiety feel less intense. We can learn ways to prevent this, and ultimately try to feel more in control. Some other things that we want to be mindful of are different cognitive distortions that research has noted. Additionally, thinking about like all or nothing thinking or jumping to conclusions or emotional reasoning. The idea that if then statements yielding specific outcomes, and just trying to pay more attention to the feeling that's coming up and less about the outcome, right? I know particularly with high anxiety, we can might jump into catastrophizing about an outcome or overgeneralizing about an outcome or even personalizing the fact that this is all my fault when in actuality, there's probably a lot of other environmental or situational circumstances that are contributing to what's going on. So in terms of cognitive distortions, we really want you employ the three C's. The three C's are catch, check, and change. In doing that, we want to catch the thought and try to understand what that thought might be. Check the validity behind that thought and see if there is a way to potentially acknowledge that thought and then potentially refute that thought and we want to change that thought and come up with a more balanced alternative perspective around what that thought might be. Additionally, we want to think about self-care. After looking at all of our thoughts and processing them and coming up with alternative thoughts that may be better support our true identity and being. What about how we take care of ourselves? Thinking about self-care, some ways that we may be engaged in self care whether that's hanging out with friends or doing some exercise or going out to eat or connecting with family, thinking about ways that we can sense enjoyment and feel alive and feel replenished and trying to check back into what our values are. What are our goals? What are we doing here at Mason that's going to get us closer to our goals after we graduate? So that was just a brief overview of some of the tools that maybe we would give you if you came in to see us here at Counseling and Psychological Services at George Mason. We're here on the third floor in Student Union Building 1, and we'd love to see you. Okay. Have a great afternoon.