More than 63 percent of college students reported experiencing overwhelming anxiety within the last year, according to the American College Health Association’s 2018 National College Health Assessment. And almost 42 percent of surveyed students said they felt so depressed that it was difficult to function.

“Anxiety and depression are the most common presenting problems in our office as well,” said Jeffrey Ng, Psy.D., director of counseling and psychological services (CPS) at Fordham. “Student utilization of on-campus mental health services has been trending upwards for the past 10 years nationally, including at Fordham.”

But there are many different ways to combat anxiety and depression, both on one’s own and with help from loved ones and professionals. Ng offered some suggestions for students struggling with their mental and emotional health and those who care about them:

Practice self-compassion. “Students often have perfectionistic and unrealistic demands and standards for themselves—standards that they likely wouldn’t apply to others,” Ng said. “We encourage our students to try to be as kind to themselves as they would to someone you love or care about.”

Exercise. “Engage in physical activity or exercise,” Ng said. “Physical activity and exercise are incredibly effective for reducing mild to moderate anxiety and depression.”

Practice digital and social media literacy. “Social media constantly exposes and bombards us with airbrushed or curated versions of people’s lives. When we compare ourselves to what we see on social media, we may get the sense that ‘we’re not good enough or doing enough.’ This can contribute to lower self-esteem, which can increase our vulnerability to mental health problems,” he said. “We encourage our students to try to be more intentional, thoughtful, and discerning about how they perceive and relate to social media.”

Don’t forget the essentials. “Attend to basic needs like sleeping, eating, and playing,” Ng said. “Having social relationships and social interactions—those are basic needs as well.”

Remember that there are multiple routes to healing. “It’s important for students to remember that there are many, many different pathways or routes for healing and feeling better. Acceptance from our parents (as in Govindan’s case) is just one of those paths,” Ng said. “Unconditional acceptance is obviously very important for our mental and emotional health, but for some students, they may unfortunately never experience that level of acceptance from their parents. So it’s especially important for them to recognize that there are multiple pathways and possibilities for healing.”

Normalize vulnerability. “One of the most important things we can do to support our students is to normalize vulnerability, imperfection, and struggle as part of the human experience,” Ng said.

Seeking help. One local resource is Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services Center, with offices on the Rose Hill, Lincoln Center, and Westchester campuses. To make an appointment, students can call or simply stop by. During non-business hours, students can reach out to public safety or residential life staff for emergencies.

Off-campus, 24/7 resources include the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255) and, for those who would rather type than talk, the Crisis Text Line.

“It’s important for our students to recognize that help-seeking is a sign of strength and maturity rather than weakness,” said Ng.

Three Fordham students are hoping to revolutionize and reshape those two facets of mental health treatment.

“We have all these different fitness apps out there, so we figured, why not create a similar model for mental health patients?” said Mariella Sypa, a sophomore at Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

The founders of KindMind Mental Wellness Mobile Technology see their start-up program as a mental “fitness” app.

Teaming up for innovation

The KindMind team includes five founders—two of them Fordham students and one a recent graduate, Weiyu Shen, GSAS ’16. Sypa manages operations and business strategy along with her brother, Steven Sypa, who handles legal matters.

The team also includes Elijah Bullard, who will graduate from Fordham this year with a master’s in computer science, and Elle Bernfeld, a licensed therapist who heads KindMind’s creative development. Undergraduate student Francesca Zambrano helps with front-end development.

The app is the brainchild of Mariella Sypa and Bullard, who came up with the idea in February of 2016 after having met at Fordham while studying computer science.

Shen, who graduated with a master’s in computer science, joined the duo as the chief technology officer in April of last year.

The KindMind app team won a pitch competition this past February at TrepCon, sponsored by the   Entrepreneurship Society at Fordham, Adobe, and Deloitte.

With features like mood tracking, a mood diary, and easy access to mental health providers, KindMind aims to benefit both first-time users and people already in treatment. Among the newest features the team has added are voice and face recognition functions that can help detect a person’s mood.

“We wanted to focus on mood tracking to help people become more aware of emotional patterns—and of their importance,” said Sypa.

The mood-tracking feature asks users to describe their moods, how they are feeling, and who may have affected their mood on a given day. The KindMind team hopes to optimize this function even further, with features like emojis and progress achievements.

“All of the features of KindMind work together as one unit,” said Shen, adding that he hopes their users can utilize the app to improve their mental health on a daily basis.

24-hour community support

Another essential tool that users will have is the ability to connect with a licensed mental health professional directly from their phones.

“Help is right in your pocket,” said Sypa. “You don’t even have to worry about getting to a physical location.”

Much like existing popular fitness apps, KindMind will offer a 24/7 community support forum as well as a mental health blog with contributions from professionals.

“We want to have a widespread and honest dialogue about mental health, one in which there is no judgment for anyone,” said Sypa.

Sypa said that KindMind will be a useful resource for mental health professionals just starting out.

“Mental health providers can work from home, set their own work schedules, and hopefully optimize the number of clients they can treat,” she said.

KindMind has been in the beta testing stage and Sypa said the testing will continue during Mental Health Awareness Month. Interested parties can log on to the site (iOS only) to try it. Sypa said the team expects to have an official launch this summer.

—Angie Chen, FCLC ’11