Stationery Meets Wellbeing: A Mental Health Journal for Students

The Positive Student Planner is specifically designed to support students’ wellbeing, both practically and emotionally. The diary contains daily journaling pages; meal, time, and budget-planning tools; colouring spaces; and self-acceptance and breathing exercises. It also helps users develop coping mechanisms and positive habits. School and university-goers who purchase the planner can choose to receive emails with tips from UK youth-focused mental health charity Student Life.

The stationery company also ensured that the green cloth-bound journal features inclusive, non-gendered design and language. This marks a welcome shift from the female-oriented design of conventional planners, and encourages young men to get comfortable with monitoring and expressing their emotions.

The Positive Planner x Samaritans partnership was formed in response to students asking for an alternative to online wellbeing support – a sentiment Stylus has been following as post-lockdown consumers crave in-person experiences.

One in four US Gen Zers lean on creative activities like drawing and journaling to improve their emotional wellness (Instagram, 2021). Stationery brands are stepping up to provide the mental health education that students may not be getting formally in classrooms. Creative tools like Theo Nicole Lorenz’s Trans Self-Care Workbook (a colouring book and journal for trans and non-binary individuals) and Meest Me (a guided self-discovery workbook) indicate a shift in this segment.