SOVA

Supporting Our Valued Adolescents: A place to learn, share your strength, be positive, and grow.

SOVA Blog

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Educate Yourself

About My Mental Health

Ever since I was a toddler my mother has described me as anxious, but ironically enough this is one of the few illness I do not have a diagnosis for. Sure I have anxiety especially social anxiety, but I do not care if I do not have an official paper saying I have it or not. Although my psychiatrist may have diagnosed me, I do not really care to look through my medical files to confirm. It is debilitating at times when I am too afraid to order my own food or am unable to talk to a new person. I’m a champion at crying in restaurants. A diagnosis likely will not change that for me, but it might for you. When I am in therapy they’re usually aware right off the bat that I’m an anxious person so I do not need a diagnosis as it does not change my own quality of life.

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Educate Yourself

New Year, Same Toxic Diet Culture

The New Year is upon us, which means that many people have started working towards achieving their new goals for 2022. New Year’s resolutions are so often focused on “wellness,” with constant messaging about weight loss programs, exercise regimens, and fad diets taking over social media. It’s easy to get wrapped up in unhealthy diet culture. With all the diet talk during this time of the year, many people struggle with body image. If you find yourself struggling with your body image a bit more than usual lately, know that you are not alone. Here are some tips that can help you navigate negative body image and survive the onslaught of diet culture that comes with the start of every new year.

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Be Positive

“Guilty Pleasures”

Sometimes we watch, read, or listen to things that we might be embarrassed to admit. These are often known as “guilty pleasures,” or the things we’re ashamed of admitting that we like. It may be because these are considered to be tacky, basic, or are things that are often made fun of by the general public.

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LINKS

An App to Consider: Liberate

Mental health affects everyone differently, but our backgrounds and identities can have us bond over similar experiences and feelings based on our cultures and how others perceive and interact with us.

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Educate Yourself

Stay Productive

People need to rest sometimes. That is a given. However, knowing how to find the proper balance between work and rest is not a given. Note that proper balancing of these two forces is different for each and every person. Nevertheless, it is up to each one of us to find the optimal mix for ourselves.

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Educate Yourself

Finding Coping Skills that Work

oping skills are an important way to manage mood, stress, and difficult emotions. People always talk about how useful coping skills are, but often fail to mention that it can be difficult to find coping skills that actually work for each individual person. Everyone has unique needs; something that helps one person feel better may not work as well for someone else. Sometimes even when we do have strategies that work well for us, particularly difficult or stressful situations can arise that render our go-to skills useless.

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LINKS

Catching Up on Sleep

Truthfully, the chances that your sleep schedule aren’t the best are quite high. Adolescents in high school and college, despite needing a sufficient amount of sleep, do not get the recommended 8ish hours of uninterrupted sleep per night. There are tons of reasons for this: technology, caffeine, and just being too busy are just a few factors, to name a few.

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Social Media Guide

“I don’t like this”

Between explore pages, recommended posts, ads, and For You feeds, it can feel like you don’t have as much control over the content you want to see on social media. Over the past couple of years, social media platforms have started to rely more heavily on algorithms, which are processes that use things they know about you (like your following list, items you’ve liked or commented on, etc) to try and guess what else you’d like to see.

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Be Positive / Educate Yourself

Adjusting to Full-Time Life

I am officially one week into working full-time after graduating college (I’m writing this blog post as of 1/8/2022), and ultimately I am feeling great and felt like I should share with others some things I learned and noticed. Graduating from college can be a really scary and sad time since you are uncertain how your after-college life will change, your friends may be moving, you’re suddenly working nonstop on a job you may ultimately love or hate, and so many new changes and experiences.