Bleeding at the roots: Post-secondary student mental health and nature affiliation

Over the past decade the mental health status of post-secondary students in North America has been receiving increasing attention. Several studies suggest that the prevalence and severity of mental health issues among college and university students are increasing-leading some to label the situation a mental health crisis. In response, many post-secondary institutions have developed formal strategies aimed at addressing the issue in a systemic manner. While those who develop these strategies recognize that many environmental factors shape student mental health, they pay little attention to the role that 'nature' might play in the system-despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating an intimate connection between mental health and nature affiliation. In this article we argue that colleges and universities should take nature's potential mental health benefits seriously by finding ways to foster student-nature relationships both on their campuses, and in their surrounding communities, as part of their formal responses to the mental health crisis. We present and evaluate three ways that this might be accomplished: (1) raising awareness of local natural environments, (2) creating natural settings indoors, and (3) using nature-based therapies.