Winter Wellness Toolkit


This page will guide you through a number physical and digital resources that may support your mental, physical, and social health during the coming winter months. These months have considerably less sunlight and green time, but there is nature to be found and enjoyed in the winter.

Digital Resources - more coming!

Nature Rx App

The Nature Rx App is a wayfinding tool located in the Michigan App to direct you to spots of nature. These spots are both inside and outside, well-known and hidden, and provide you opportunities for adventure and wellness. Nature Rx will help you to find quiet places of relaxation at U-M & Ann Arbor, spend time outdoors in nature, find green time and not screen time, and of course, think green and go blue!

The Well-being Toolkit

This toolkit is designed for campus leaders, including instructors, staff, and student leaders, who are working in spaces where they are supporting student well-being. Tools can also be used by individuals in their own time and space.

Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum YouTube Activities

Did you know that MBGNA has a YouTube channel FULL of nature activities that you can complete both indoors and outdoors? These videos are only 10 or so minutes and provide you with creative ways to play and experience nature.

MHealthy Physical Activity Video Library

Whether you are staff, faculty, or a student, we all spend too much time sitting and in front of a screen. This video library of stretching exercises provided by MHealthy are a good practice to integrate into your work schedule. Standing periodically throughout your day can have a myriad of physical and mental health benefits.

National Park Service Healthy Parks Healthy People

Healthy Parks Healthy People is a global movement that harnesses the power of parks and public lands as a health resource. Healthy Parks Healthy People works to advance the fact that all parks —urban and wildland are cornerstones of people’s physical, mental, and spiritual health, social wellbeing; and sustainability of the planet.

Fall into Nature

When you are walking outdoors in nature do you ever have a feeling of awe? This guide challenges you to pick up whatever camera you have with you, even if it is just your eyes & brain, and try to capture that feeling in an image. This teaches you to enjoy nature even when the weather is "bad".

Depression Center Toolkit

This toolkit is a resource for people who are experiencing difficulties with mood, stress or anxiety, and can be especially helpful for those who have been recently diagnosed with and/or are receiving treatment for depression or other mental health conditions. They also offer resources for family members and caregivers who are looking to better understand depressive illness and related disorders.

The toolkit was created by experts from the Eisenberg Family Depression Center, with the help of individuals with lived experience of mood and anxiety disorders and a group of external professionals.

MHealthy Physical Activity Informational PDFs

MHealthy developed a number of informational flyers that detail the benefits physical activity and movement. We suggest printing these out and putting them in your office.  Consider adding stretches into your workday!

Carna Mental Wellness, Informational Resources

Carna is a non-profit student organization at U-M dedicated to creating accessible and digestible mental health and wellness resources. Our website has information, compilations of outside resources, and tips and tricks for maintaining good mental health as a student. Our "by-students, for-students" approach allows us to be intimately aware of the issues we write about, such as stress, confidence, and anxiety. Dive into our short information packets and pamphlets to learn more!

Physical Resources forthcoming