Mental Health Tips Shown At Basketball Games

Imagine you sit down to watch your friend play hoops during the school’s rivalry game, you look up at the jumbotron and expect to see a video of dancing fans or the mascot, but instead you see… mental health tips?

That’s exactly what one University in New York is doing.

Spectrum Health & Human Services is partnering with the University at Buffalo’s Division of Athletics to show mental health tips via a video during their basketball games. This multi-year partnership includes a “Mental Health Tip of the Week,” which will be shown during one men’s basketball game and one women’s basketball game each week.

One of the videos that premiered earlier in the month talked about how 44% of college freshmen experience symptoms of depression and that it is important to be aware of depression signs such as feeling overwhelmed, changing sleep patterns and being disinterested in social activities.

With the prevalence of mental health issues and stigma in sports, even just having discussion around depression or anxiety can help students to be more aware of how they’re feeling. A high prevalance of mental health issues in students often leads to poor grades, poor self esteem and eventually dropping out of sports.

In March, Spectrum Health is planning on bringing awareness of substance use disorder to more people by passing out pamphlets that discuss training on how to administer Narcan, a part of a partnership with the Medication Assisted Treatment Team.