Physical wellbeing arises from a range of healthy habits, including physical activity, adequate sleep, proper nutrition, and appropriate medical care. These healthy behaviors can help you feel good and perform in all areas of your life with greater confidence and ease.
Learn about Valentine dining options for nutritious meals, the College’s fitness center, “sleep hygiene,” and more.
Social well-being is the ability to develop meaningful connections, explore your identities, and find community. Amherst offers plentiful opportunities to meet amazing people, deepen your interests, and grow socially, emotionally, and intellectually. At the same time, relationships — and living in a small community — can be challenging as well as rewarding. Amherst has a number of resources to help you connect with others, navigate difficulties, and have fun! We value your unique contribution to our community.
Sexuality is a wide-ranging category that includes our bodies, our hormones, our feelings, relationships, identities, our intellect, our social connections, and our faith and values. It includes sexual pleasure, the boundaries we set for ourselves, and the experiences that we seek out. It is also about how we stay healthy, and how we express romantic love and sexual attraction. It is about if and when we chose to engage in sexual behavior. It is about all of these things and more.
Spiritual wellbeing can be supported through faith communities, religious traditions, spiritual practices, and personal beliefs and values. Religious and Spiritual Life at Amherst strives to meet each person where they are — whether continuing within a religious tradition, seeking among them, or exploring outside of them.
Every student has to make decisions about their substance use, and we want to help you make choices that enhance your health and wellbeing. If your use has become chronic or excessive, it may affect your academics, relationships, athletic performance, and/or mental and physical health. We can help you gain knowledge and develop skills to make good decisions about your use and to minimize risks to your wellbeing.
Emotional well-being and resilience enable you to understand and manage your full range of emotions. Learning from your experiences, you gain insight into your individual needs for self-care and stress reduction, and discover what works for you. Mental health is a state of well-being in which you can learn, create, participate, and thrive. Day to day, you can cope with stress, realize your abilities, and contribute to your community. Visit the Counseling Center website to meet the counselors and learn about our options for individual and group therapy, as well as our many resources.
To access a counselor at any time, call the Center for Counseling & Mental Health at 413-542-2354. We provide mental health counseling 24 hours a day, seven days a week.