Daily wellness behaviors in college students across a school year

Abstract

Objective: To establish the prevalence of mood and wellness behaviors in college students across a school year. Methods: 1,554 college students (69.4% female; average age 18.8 years) were followed with daily surveys on wellness behaviors for the school year. 1,207 participants completed at least 50% of daily surveys on mood, exercise, sleep, nutrition, mindfulness practice and singing/playing musical instrument. Results: Over 88.7% of college students reported at least one wellness behavior each day with 17.7% reporting 4 or more. Each of the wellness behaviors, however, displayed distinct prevalence patterns, varied significantly across the school year, and often across a given school week. Almost every individual wellness behavior was associated with a positive mood, and the cumulative number of daily wellness behaviors was a strongly associated with mood state. Conclusions: Daily wellness behaviors are collectively common, vary significantly within individuals, and are strongly associated with positive mood, both individual and cumulatively.

Keywords:

• College students
• exercise
• mood
• university students
• wellness

Acknowledgment

We would also like to thank the study participants for their longstanding generosity.

Presentation information

This study was presented as an abstract at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s 66th Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, October 14–19, 2019.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United State of America and received approval from the University of Vermont .

Additional information

Funding

The work presented here was supported by a research grant from the Conrad Hilton Foundation.