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Guest contribution from Andrea Garro, DPT, FDN-P, CHC ~ BB Advisor and founder of Reset with Andrea

There's a particular kind of ache that comes with sending a kid off to college. It's not the same as the first day of kindergarten. There's no drop-off line, no goodbye at the door. Just a dorm room, a new roommate, and a whole lot of trust that they'll figure it out.

Our advisor Andrea Garro knows this one firsthand. She recently sent her own twins off to college as student athletes, and she's candid about what that transition actually feels like: caught somewhere between "you've got this" and wanting to check in every fifteen minutes. Her approach wasn't to worry from a distance. It was to build her kids a foundation before they left, so the basics were already in place when late nights, dining hall food, and a new level of independence hit all at once.

What follows draws on her approach, organized through our four pillars. If your student's needs go deeper than general wellness habits, that's exactly the kind of personalized support a practitioner like Andrea can offer.

Eat Well ~ Dorm Food and the Late-Night Reality

College nutrition rarely looks like the meals your student grew up with. Dining halls, late-night pizza, and the occasional skipped meal during finals week are the norm, not the exception.

• Send them off with a few real-food staples that survive a dorm room: nut butter, oats, dried fruit, a good electrolyte-free hydration bottle
• Talk through the dining hall plate before they leave: protein and vegetables first, the rest is flexible
• Normalize that "perfect" isn't the goal. Consistency over a semester matters more than any single week

Live Well ~ New Germs, New Environment

A dorm is a shared, high-contact environment, and most students get hit with something in the first month or two. That's predictable, not a failure of preparation.

• Talk through basic hygiene habits before move-in: hand-washing, not sharing water bottles, wiping down shared surfaces
• Encourage them to get outside and get natural light regularly. Andrea points out that a semester spent mostly indoors, in dorms and libraries, means far less sun exposure than most students realize
• If something feels off and doesn't resolve on its own, that's the moment to loop in a practitioner rather than waiting it out
• A HEPA air purifier is worth packing. Dorms are shared, often older buildings with limited airflow, and it's one of the easiest environmental upgrades a student can control themselves. Our BB Pick is the Air Doctor 3500, a nurse-vetted choice on our storefront
• Swap out plastic where it's practical. A dorm room is small, so a few easy trades (glass straws or stainless steel straws, a stainless steel water bottle, reusable food containers) go a long way without adding complexity to their day
• Staying hydrated matters more in a dorm than most students realize, especially with erratic schedules and dining hall food. Water first, and for anything beyond that, our Fullscript dispensary (linked below) offers members a discount on vetted hydration and wellness products

Move Well ~ Movement Without a Schedule

No more built-in PE class or team practice for every student, and movement can quietly disappear from the day entirely, especially for non-athletes.

• Encourage walking to class instead of the shuttle when it's reasonable
• If your student was an athlete, talk about what recovery and movement look like without a coach setting the schedule
• A single weekly habit, like a rec center visit or an intramural team, does more than an ambitious plan that never happens

Care Well ~ Stress, Independence, and Staying Connected From Afar

This is the pillar Andrea felt most acutely as a mom. Late-night studying, new social pressure, and total independence all at once is a lot for a nervous system that's still developing.

• Set a simple, low-pressure check-in rhythm before they leave, so staying connected doesn't feel like checking up on them
• Talk openly about stress and sleep before the semester starts, not just academics
• Let them know that reaching out to a practitioner, whether for stress, sleep, energy, or anything else, is a normal and supported option, not a last resort

A Special Note on Sleep ~ The First Thing to Go

Sleep is usually the first casualty of freshman year. No curfew, a roommate on a different schedule, late-night studying, and a social life that runs well past midnight all compete with the one thing that actually keeps everything else functioning.

• Talk about sleep before they leave, not as a rule, but as the thing that makes everything else (energy, mood, immune resilience, focus) actually work
• Encourage a rough wake-time anchor, even on weekends. Consistency matters more than total hours
• A few low-effort tools travel well: an eye mask, blackout curtain clips for a dorm window, a wind-down playlist instead of scrolling
• Andrea points out this is often the first thing to slip and the last thing students think to fix. If exhaustion, brain fog, or crashing energy shows up and doesn't resolve with better sleep habits, that's worth a practitioner conversation rather than pushing through it
• For parents who want to go deeper on why sleep matters this much, The Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington is a great primer to read together before move-in

A Note From Andrea

Andrea put it simply: you can't control everything once they're gone, and trying to is its own kind of exhausting. What actually helps is giving them tools and a foundation before they leave, so you can both breathe a little easier once they do.

If your student has specific concerns, whether it's sleep, stress, skin, gut health, or recovering from something like a course of antibiotics, Andrea offers personalized functional medicine support and can be reached through Reset with Andrea.

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you before your own student left for college? Drop it in the comments ~ we'd love to build out a fuller resource with your input.

~ Coach Dian & Nurse Becca 💚

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