Self-Paced Tools & Resources to Foster Your Wellbeing
Apps*
Emotional Well-Being
Calm: App to support sleep, meditation, focus, mindfulness, and gentle stretching.
Happier - Helps you stay more present and positive throughout the day. Use it like your personal mindfulness coach--use it to lift your mood, take a quick meditation pause, or capture and savor the small happy moments that you find in your day. Free on Android and iTunes.
Happify - How you feel matters. Whether you are feeling sad, anxious, and stressed, or you are dealing with constant negative thoughts, Happify brings you effective tools and programs to take control of your emotional well-being. Free on Android and iTunes.
Virtual Hope Box: Contains simple tools to help with coping, relaxation, distraction, and positive thinking. Users can include family photos, videos and recorded messages from loved ones, inspirational quotes, and music they find soothing and positive life experiences. Free on Android and iTunes.
Sleep
BetterSleep: Using music, soundscapes, or stories, this app helps users fall asleep and track sleep cycles for a more restful sleep to promote overall wellness.
White Noise Lite: If you want to fall into a deep, blissful sleep while listening to the sounds of ocean waves and soothing sounds, White Noise Lite may be the best sleep app for you. The app comes loaded with several looped sounds, such as a burning campfire, a swaying boat, and thunder. You can also set a gentle alarm (guitar strum, chime, violin, and more) to wake you up. Free for Android and iTunes.
Organization
TimeTune: You can use TimeTune as your daily task reminder, daily activity manager, habit creation tool, student calendar, timetable manager, schedule organizer, routine optimizer, time manager or daily planner. Free on Android.
Creative Arts
Art Coloring Book: Color your way through the palettes of famous paintings.
Meditate with Markers Craft (PDF)
Take a Break! Do a Puzzle with Jigsaw Explorer
Treat yourself to a virtual getaway from life's stressors! Visit over 30 museums, zoos, and theme parks from the comfort of your home. See Good Housekeeping's List of Virtual Tours
Podcasts
First this, then that: First This is a short mindfulness and meditation podcast by Kathryn Nicolai, creator of Nothing Much Happens. Take ten minutes to settle your mind, observe your breath, and be gently led through meditation practice.
How to Build a Happy Life (The Atlantic): The building blocks for realigning expectations and reality in happiness
Courses
Emotional Resilience Toolbox: Self-paced video course on increasing your psychological flexibility offered by MSU Health4U.
The Science of Well-Being: a 10-week course from Yale University designed to increase your happiness and build more productive habits.
Outdoor Adventures
Campus movement loop map provides various distances to walk, run or roll on campus.
Michigan Trails Map: Michigan offers more than 13,400 miles of state-designated trails for movement.
Nurture Your Roots: Beal Garden welcomes you to enjoy various rooting stations which are designed intentionally to help you cultivate a better day for yourself and flourish in your everyday life.
Take a Hike on campus or around the greater Lansing area at these parks and trails.
Self-Assessments
Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO is a brief, anonymous and confidential, interactive online program that provides students with immediate individualized feedback regarding their alcohol use that helps to identify any risk of harm associated with use. This tool was developed by San Diego State University and is currently used by nearly 400 colleges and universities across 42 states, as well as in Canada and Australia. This tool is free to MSU students with no limit on how many times the assessment can be taken, allowing for tracking alcohol use over a period of time.
Marijuana eCheckUpToGo is an anonymous and confidential marijuana-specific interactive, online program that provides immediate, personalized feedback designed to assess marijuana use among college students. The assessment takes about 10 minutes to complete, is self-guided, and requires no face-to-face contact time with a counselor or administrator.
At-Home Fitness Assessment will help determine your current level of fitness using a series of resting and exercising assessments. The assessment will help establish baseline measurements which can then be used to set goals, monitor performance, and assess progress. Follow along with the guidance video and record your measures on the data sheet.
VIA Character Strengths Survey: Character strengths are the positive parts of your personality that make you feel authentic and engaged. Research shows that knowing and using your character strengths can help you increase happiness and well-being, find meaning and purpose, boost relationships, manage stress and accomplish goals.
Summer Support Groups
CAPS Support Groups: Variety of counseling, support, and educational groups each semester. Participants benefit from the mutual support and learning that occurs from interaction with others who have similar concerns.
Center for Survivors Groups: Variety of groups as a way to hold space for survivors, gather in community, and explore healing.
MSU Collegiate Recovery Community (CRC) All Recovery Meeting: The Light Ahead - Weekly facilitated peer support meeting for students challenged by substance use or affected by addiction, as well as those who support recovery. CRC All Recovery Meetings use a circle-sharing format and embrace all pathways of recovery. Meetings are every Thursday at 7 p.m. with two ways to join:
- Meet in the CRC Student Lounge (Rm 27, Student Services Building basement)
- For Zoom details, contact Dawn Kepler, CRC coordinator, at dkepler@msu.edu.
MSU Grief and Loss Support Sessions: Weekly facilitated support group for MSU community members experiencing the death of a significant person in their life.
MSU Safe Place: Support groups for survivors of relationship violence. Anyone who has experienced abuse in a current or past intimate relationship is welcome or has been exposed to relationship violence between adults or caregivers as a child.
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS): Stay Well Program: Join MDHHS for weekly virtual support groups including workshops related to grief and loss and creative coping.
Videos
Movement
SPARTANfit Exercise Video Library: With this video library, a SPARTANfit expert walks you through cardio and strength-training exercises step by step.
Fitness Blender: 600+ free workout videos, offering a variety of formats.
Yoga with Adrienna: Welcome all levels, all bodies, all genders, all souls! Browse the library of free yoga videos to find a practice that suits your mood or start a journey toward healing.
Mindfulness & Meditation
Headspace is a guided meditation for everybody. Learn how to meditate, wherever you are, whenever you like
Additional Resources
T-Break: Take a Cannabis Tolerance Break - This guide has daily practices. Each week has a different theme: Week 1: physical; Week 2: emotional; Week 3: spiritual/existential
*Although you may find them helpful, these apps are not endorsed by Michigan State University.