Our environments can have a powerful impact on how we view things, especially in how we view the things about ourselves. Because adolescents spent a lot of time in school, their teachers, their classmates, and the content that they learn can influence how they interpret information. This also includes mental health: conversations with peers and the ways that teachers talk about their expectations on students can have subtle, but lasting effects.
You might have heard the phrase that it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. The amount of muscles that it takes is up for debate (some places say it takes 13 to smile and 33 to frown, some say 22 to smile and 37 to frown) and it’s not really a fact – it hasn’t even been proven to be true – but the mentality remains: it’s better to smile than it is to frown, and takes less effort.
Quite often, the first piece of advice we receive when trying to change our sleeping habits and to get a better night’s sleep is to put our phone (and all other types of screens and technology) away. Experts recommend that adolescents get at least 8-10 hours of sleep a night, and to ensure staying asleep, to avoid screen time at least 30 minutes to 1 hour before you plan to call it a night.
Stigma towards mental health and mental illness has always been present, but the way that stigma is expressed and the level of stigma can depend on a variety of things. One of those ways is how stigma can differ among different races: posts here have covered how stigma acts as one of the barriers for people of color to seek treatment, including African-Americans, Asians, and Native Americans, for example.
Take a moment to think of scents that make you happy. It could be the smell of your favorite food, your significant other’s perfume, or the scent of opening up a new binder.
You may have heard about the danger of depression naps before. However, this isn’t to imply that all naps are bad for you – in fact, they’re incredibly beneficial!
Social media can produce high levels of stress and anxiety. Sharing and posting aspects of your life with others is the purpose of social media, but it can lead to negative outcomes. These negative outcomes can cause a mental health concern or it can trigger an existing disorder.
The situation may be all too familiar: you have an important event coming up, or worse, happening the very next day. It’s a job interview, a big test, the playoffs for the sport you play, a move to a new apartment, the start of a significant school year. No matter what it is, you can’t seem to sleep, like, at all. Your body is waking you up throughout the night, or it might not let you go to sleep at all, and you’re just lying there, trying to keep your eyes closed in your dark room despite being fully conscious.
We wanted to use today’s post to highlight personal essays from Latino youth and how their culture and personal experiences have played a part in their mental health and coping mechanisms. Studies and news reports are showing that Latino adolescents and young adults struggled with their mental health throughout the pandemic, and this comes on top of existing reports of increases in depressive symptoms.
There are several reasons why people may be hesitant when it comes to opening up about mental health, and especially mental illness. Stigma still plays a large part, while others may feel that what they’re experiencing “isn’t that bad” and that others have it worse, so it’s not worth bringing up.
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