Environmental Wellness is occupying and contributing to welcoming, safe, and stimulating environments that support your overall well-being.
The environment in which you live can have a significant impact on your overall well-being. Environmental wellness involves the interaction between our surroundings, community, and self. Being environmentally well means residing in emotionally and physically healthy spaces, nurturing a relationship with the nature surrounding us, feeling welcome and included, and having a space in which you can thrive personally and academically.
Why is Environmental Wellness Important?
Occupying and contributing to a healthy environment impacts our well-being and the well-being of our community. A clean workspace free of distractions can contribute to overall productivity. An inclusive and encouraging environment allows us to discover our true and authentic selves. Contributing to a clean and healthy planet provides us with natural resources.
Self Check-In
- Do you regularly spend time outdoors?
- Do you reduce, reuse, and recycle?
- Do you feel content and/or comfortable in your environments (class, home, work, etc.)?
- Do you participate in events that help your community (food drives, fundraisers, etc.)?
For any of the above questions that you answered no to, try to make that an area of focus to improve your Environmental Wellness. If you have answered no to multiple, you may want to have this dimension as a top priority in order to benefit your overall wellbeing.
Where to start?
- Take our self check-in to assess your environmental wellness! A great place to begin is first to understand where you are in terms of your environmental wellness.
- When working, create a space that is free of distractions, enabling you to focus and be productive.
- If possible, separate your workspace from your relaxing space. Working in the same space you relax can make it difficult to unwind and mentally leave work mode.
- Spend time in nature. Spending time in nature has been shown to ease anxiety and depression, reduce stress and anger, improve memory and focus, and reduce feelings of isolation.
- During the winter months, consider bringing the outdoors inside. Grow an herb garden, place plants throughout your home, get a sun lamp to reduce Seasonal Affective Disorder, and bring in the scents of nature through candles and aromatherapy.
- Create a positive impact in your community! Change starts with people like you deciding to make a difference. Get involved in local causes you care about.
Resources to Support Your Journey
- Navigating campus with a physical disability can be challenging. The Accessibility Services Center can notify students of any potential physical barriers (construction projects, elevator outages, etc.) and coordinate transportation for students in need of support traversing campus.
- Both your personal environment and the outdoor environment can be positively impacted by engaging with Campus Recreation and Wellness.
- Go on an Outdoor Adventure Center trip or attend a workshop to engage with and learn more about connecting to the environment.
- The UNO Care Team is a small group of staff and faculty who work to address concerns related to health and safety within our campus community. Care Team is here to support all Mavericks who are struggling with academics, life circumstances, or any other situation. We can help by listening, providing resources, talking through options, and getting students connected with others who can help. We also provide support to faculty and staff who are concerned about a student. Anyone can submit a referral to the UNO Care Team using the Care Team Reporting Form.
- UNO strives to create a community where open, honest communication is the expectation, not the exception. UNO relies on you to speak up if you believe you have observed unethical, illegal, concerning, or suspicious behavior. Many of the university’s reporting options can be found on the MavsReport website.
- DASH supports sustainability through:
- HRL is a great place for students to learn about everyday ways they can contribute to sustainability and our planet.
- HRL provides multi-stream recycling and has partnered with SustainUNO to provide composting and education around how the practice benefits waste recovery.
- Students can get involved in housing’s community garden to grow produce that supports the Maverick Food Pantry.
- University Village hosts a pocket prairie, which is a small, man-made area of land that’s planted with native plants and grasses, in collaboration with Academic Affairs.
- SLI provides a comfortable, inclusive, and welcoming environment for students to work, study, and just relax on campus. Visit the SLI website!
- Everyone deserves to live in a comfortable and supportive environment. Student Legal Services provides free legal services to students, such as support with any landlord-tenant issues.