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On the first day of her class, Annika Martin asks the assembled researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland to roll out their yoga mats and stand with their feet spread wide apart. They place their hands on their hips before swinging their torsos down towards the mat and back up again. The pose, called ‘wild goose drinking water’ is from Lu Jong, a foundational practice in Tantrayana Buddhism.

Martin, a health psychologist, can sense that some students are sceptical. They are academics at heart, many of whom have never tried yoga, and registered for Martin’s course to learn how to deal with the stress associated with academic research. Over the course of a semester, she teaches her students about stress and its impact on the body before giving them the tools to help cope with it — from yoga, meditation and progressive muscle relaxation to journalling.

It is one of many initiatives designed to combat the mental-health crisis that is gripping science and academia more broadly. The problems are particularly acute for students and early-career researchers, who are often paid meagre wages, have to uproot their lives every few years and have few long-term job prospects. But senior researchers face immense pressure as well. Many academics also experience harassment, discrimination, bullying and even sexual assault. The end result is that students and academics are much more likely to experience depression and anxiety than is the general population.

The University of Zurich now offers academics several popular courses on mental health. Beyond Martin’s class, called ‘Mindfulness and Meditation’, one helps students learn how to build resilience and another provides senior researchers with the tools they need to supervise PhD candidates.

The courses are in high demand. “We have way more registrations than we have actual course spots,” says Eric Alms, a programme manager who is responsible for many of the mental-health courses at the University of Zurich. “I’m happy that my courses are so successful. On the other hand, it’s a sign of troubling times when these are the most popular courses.”

Several studies over the past few years have collectively surveyed tens of thousands of researchers and have documented the scope and consequences of science’s mental-health crisis.

Read more at Nature.com.

Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Gretchen Evans served in the United States Army for 27 years until a rocket blast in Afghanistan brought her career to an abrupt end in 2006. At just 46 years old, Evans was left with near-total hearing loss, a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After more than a year of rehabilitation, she struggled to find a new identity.

“It was a devastating shock to me,” Evans said. “I lost my career, my passion and purpose. In the beginning, it was a very rough transition, not just from the military to civilian world, but overcoming these injuries. I struggled with employment. I struggled connecting with other people. I fell into a very lonely depressive state.”

Relief finally came in the form of a service dog named Aura, a black Labrador retriever with “lovable brown eyes” with whom Evans was paired in 2015. Evans retired her four-legged friend to a more domestic life in her home five years later, at which time she was paired with her second dog, a golden retriever and black lab mix she likes to call “Rambunctious Rusty.”

The benefits of service dogs for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are well documented in personal stories like Evans’ but there is a lack of empirical research on the use of the animals as a medical intervention. 

Researchers at the University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine have taken a step toward better understanding the relationship between veterans and service dogs, which they believe could lead to life-changing improvements in health care for veterans.

In a new study published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, researchers found that veterans who worked with service dogs experienced significantly lower self-reported and clinician-rated PTSD symptom severity, lower anxiety and depression, a significantly higher quality of life and fewer feelings of isolation. Veterans working with service dogs also had 66% lower odds of receiving a PTSD diagnosis from a mental health professional after three months with a dog. 

While the results of the study support veterans partnering with service dogs to reduce PTSD symptoms, the researchers say more work must be done to better understand exactly how working with a service dog impacts other treatments for PTSD.

Read more at News.Arizona.edu.

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Step Nation Inc. has been selected as the Partner of the Month for July in celebration of National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.

Step Nation Inc. empowers communities through creative expression, addressing stress, and trauma. Their vision is a haven for families breaking free from systemic challenges and establish a foundation of well-being.

Some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• Music as Medicine
• Therapeutic Arts
• Heritage Research
• Health and Wellness
• Cultural Events

Learn more about Step Nation Inc. and its mission to alleviate the impact of generational trauma by harnessing the power of art and culture.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

For 24 years, Diana Huerta has been the only member of her family living in the United States. The rest, still in Mexico, are in touch often, but talking to them on the phone doesn’t cure the anxiety and depression she feels from being isolated in a primarily English-speaking area.

Huerta tried to get on the waitlist for the only bilingual therapy clinic in Orange County, El Futuro, but there was always too much demand. Then the Carrboro location shut its doors in 2015 and she lost hope, turning to virtual sessions with a therapist in Colombia just so she could speak with someone who understands her. 

“We realized that there is a lot of need, especially in the Hispanic community, about mental health, in the absence of clinics and therapists,” Huerta says in Spanish. “Especially with the language.”

For people like Huerta, meeting with Spanish-speaking program staff would keep her from having to pay steep private therapy costs or look outside the U.S. for mental health support.

In addition to breaching language divides, one of the program’s biggest successes has been in adapting the curriculum. After months of the CHWs watching videos, reading manuals, doing extra training, and working through roleplays, Castro says she is amazed at how well the curriculum works, even in just a short time.

 Read more at IndyWeek.com.

When addressing mental health amongst AAPI communities, nuanced care goes beyond overcoming linguistic barriers, moving towards understanding cultural norms that can powerfully affect attitudes towards mental health. 

According to The Asian American Federation’s “Seeking Help, Finding Hope: mental health challenges and solutions for Asian Americans in New York City” study, a majority of Asian American New Yorkers struggle with anxiety and feelings of isolation, yet remain reluctant to seek treatment. 

One of the driving forces behind this mental health decline stems from the stress of high living costs, as one third of AAPI New Yorkers are low-income, an often underrepresented figure given widespread assumptions of AAPI New Yorkers as high achievers. Stereotypes such as the model minority myth have added to these pressures, further stressing and isolating struggling individuals. 

Through their ability to nimbly address the nuanced elements of support, community-based organizations are equipped to bridge gaps in AAPI mental healthcare. AAF’s mental health roundtable aims to encourage policymakers to increase support in community-based organizations through robust funding and investments in a linguistically and culturally competent mental healthcare workforce. Additionally, through the organization’s AAF Mental Health Directory, AAPI community members can find clinical and non-clinical mental health providers tailored to their needs. The first database of its kind, the directory aims to bridge gaps in access by connecting patients to a wealth of underutilized resources. 

Read more at NYNMedia.com.

Rosanna Jackson, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, counts herself as one of the resilient ones. Her childhood in the 1970s and 80s was tough. Home didn’t always feel like a safe place to be.

There’s a stigma that leads to people “not talking about their feelings and not wanting everyone to know that they’re hurt or in pain,” she said of many in her community who have dealt with similar childhood trauma.

But that silence can be lethal, Jackson said. Now an adult who has dedicated her life to helping her tribal members be more resilient, Jackson is leading the effort to create the nation’s first suicide helpline staffed by and designed for Native youth.

“I’m hoping that my youth will come out of their shell and help each other,” Jackson said. “It’s OK to not be OK. It’s OK to talk about what’s on your mind.”

Native youth have one of the highest rates of suicide of any demographic in the country, according to federal data. While American Indian and Alaskan Native teenagers reported feelings of sadness and hopelessness that tracked with national averages, they were more likely than their peers of other races to seriously consider suicide, to make a plan to die by suicide and to attempt suicide. That’s according to the latest youth risk behavior survey for high schoolers by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Counselors on the Native & Strong line follow the same protocol, but they also list culturally specific practices, like smudging (the burning of sacred herbs), talking to an elder or eating a traditional food.

There was some encouraging news buried in the most recent CDC data on suicide released last year. The rate of suicide for young people fell 8% in 2022 and for Native people it fell 6%. Yet experts say a one-year drop is hardly a trend.

Read more at OPB.org.