SOVA Blog

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Social Anxiety: The Symptoms and Potential Causes

February 2, 2024 in Be Positive, LINKS

There are lots of different kinds of anxiety. The general definition of anxiety is an unrealistic, irrational fear or worry of disabling intensity. While fear is the natural response to a serious threat to someone’s well-being, anxiety is a response to a potential threat in the future. People with anxiety can experience it in different situations and in different ways. It’s important to keep in mind that everyone experiences anxiety. When the anxiety gets to a point that it is disabling, it can then be classified as a disorder. For this post we are going to focus on a common type of anxiety: social anxiety disorder.

As we always do before discussing a disorder, it’s important to note that only a professional can diagnose individuals with mental health disorders. We want to warn against the dangers of self-diagnosis, especially relating to mental illness. If you or someone you know is experiencing some of these symptoms, it’s okay to investigate further by educating yourself on the disorder, but important to get a professional opinion before drawing any conclusions.

What is Social Anxiety Disorder?

Social anxiety is defined by the American Psychological Association as a fear of social situations where embarrassment may occur or where you may be criticized by others. Some common signs of social anxiety include:

  • Worrying excessively for days, weeks, months, etc. before an event
  • Avoiding social situations and public spaces
  • Being very critical of yourself after a social event or social interactions
  • Having an intense fear of being embarrassed
  • Shaking, sweating, and having an increased heart rate when in social situations
  • Frequent stomach aches or headaches which may cause more school absences
  • Trouble maintaining friendships

Social anxiety causes individuals to be unable to attend social situations because of the fear or anxiety. If they do attend, the fear or anxiety is difficult to tolerate. Social anxiety is more prevalent among females than males, and usually develops between the ages of 10-20 (Comer, 2014). Researchers and theorists have proposed lots of causes for social anxiety disorder. They believe that people with social anxiety disorder maintain social beliefs and expectations that work against them. These social beliefs include:

  • A negative self image (i.e. believing you are unattractive, or unfunny, not desirable.)
  • Unrealistically high standards for your behavior in social situations
  • The belief that you are “socially awkward”
  • The belief that you will not meet your standards for social interaction and as a result something bad will happen
  • Believing you have no control over feelings of anxiety that come out in social situations.

While social anxiety can cause great distress, therapy can do amazing work to help individuals manage and cope with social anxiety.

What are some of the ways you manage anxiety in social settings?

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Music and Social Media

January 29, 2024 in LINKS

What are your favorite genres? Do you enjoy the stuff currently on the radio? Do you like pop, rock, rap, or any of the specific subgenres within them? Maybe you like a combination, or even all of them.

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Music is an extension of ourselves and a way to not only express, but figure out our identity. Music is especially meaningful for adolescents during a time when they’re experiencing a crucial time figuring out who they are. Studies have shown that adolescents listen to more music than any other age group and use it to help shape together their identity, since there’s often a culture and sense of style associated with different genres.

Studies have also shown that adolescents use music as a way to connect with others and make friends with those who have similar tastes, since they are likely to have other tastes in common too outside of music. Social media is one way of connecting people over their taste in music.

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Using social media to find out what your peers are listening to isn’t new: Last.fm was specifically created so that people could share what they were listening to by connecting it to their iTunes and other music sites. Of course, aspiring musicians can also use sites like Soundcloud and YouTube to post their original works, sharing it with others not just on these sites, but on other platforms too.

Nowadays, social media sites give users the option to post what music they’re listening to when they make a status (like Facebook), and some give them the choice to play a snippet of a song over their story (like Instagram). Even Spotify counts as social media: Spotify gives you the option to add friends by using your email or Facebook, and they can see what you’re listening to as you’re listening to them.

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Spotify also has a “private” listening option, so that you could listen to whatever else you want without others seeing. Both the public and private feeds on Spotify create a discussion about how people, and adolescents specifically, can manipulate what and how they listen to their music based off what others will think of them. Some might have a genre that they’re embarrassed of, or something that might not be that popular with their friends, so they might go into private mode so no one knows that they listened to it. They may only keep the regular setting on if they are listening to groups that their friends also like and contributes to the image they have created for themselves.

Picking and choosing what people see versus showing all of your music history can be similar to picking and choosing what sorts of brands adolescents want others to see them wearing and what type of photos they post on Instagram. It can be even more anxiety inducing too since adolescents listen to more music than any other age group, so it’s natural to forget that the friend feed is there as you’re listening to music, and a song might slip in that might be “judged” by someone. Some may not care, and some may not mind monitoring it. Some may even turn off this feature completely and listen to their music without others knowing when they’re doing so.

If anything, if you want to expand your taste in music outside of Spotify’s Discover Weekly, the friend feed is a great option to find some new songs.

If you use Spotify, do you have the friends on your feed? Do you look at what others are listening to, or do you think others are looking at yours? Why do you think some people judge each other’s music tastes so harshly?

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Peer Support: What is it, and Why Does it Matter?

January 26, 2024 in Educate Yourself, LINKS

If you are facing a challenging situation, who do you turn to? Your first instinct may be to reach out to someone with similar experience. This kind of help is called peer support. Peer support is available for people of all ages with varying needs. Youth Peer Support Workers are adolescents with a self-identified history of mental illness who use their experiences to help others. They go through specialized training that teaches them how to use their experiences to help their peers

What exactly does a Youth Peer Support Worker (YPS) do? 

  • Provides one-on-one support to help youth navigate services, supports, and ask for the help they need.
  • Hosts peer support groups and coordinates community events for young people.
  • Shares personal stories to promote recovery.
  • Connects youth to community based service and may serve as a bridge between the youth and their practitioners.
  • Fights against mental health stigma.
  • Tasks may vary from program to program!

How does Youth Peer Support help?

Peer Support is newly studied in comparison to other mental health treatments, but there is evidence that proves that it does help. There is no doubt that an adult has the experience to provide helpful advice to teens. Overall it is much easier for most teens to trust someone their age. You may feel like an adult would not understand what it is like to be a young person experiencing hardship. The teenage experience changes from one generation to the next; a peer would understand this better. Research proves that the support of a Youth Support Worker: increases social support and functioning, increases confidence, decreases depression, psychotic symptoms, and substance use, increases hope and participation in self-care, and reduces hospital visits. 

Did you know that SOVA uses the idea of peer support?

About a third of our articles are written by young people themselves and our own research has shown young people who write for SOVA seem to feel higher self-esteem and more competent and confident in themselves. This means that using your own experiences to help others may help you as well as them! If you are interested in blogging for SOVA, click on the link above.

Do you want to receive peer support services?

Start by asking your doctor, therapist, or social worker for more information. If you’re in Pittsburgh, check out UpStreet, an organization that provides free counseling to Pittsburgh adolescents and young adults between the ages of 12-24. Additionally UpStreet provides Youth Peer Support Services, which you can apply for here on their site. Young people ages 17-22 can sign up to be a Peer Support Mentor using that same link! 

Have you received Peer Support services in the past? Would you be interested in providing Peer Support services to other youth in your community?

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Do I blame myself?

January 22, 2024 in Educate Yourself

A common mindset among those who are diagnosed with mental illnesses is wondering if it’s something that they brought onto themselves. There may be guilt associated with it, like the person thinking they did something wrong or ashamed that they didn’t handle past situations well enough.

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One study looked at this in more detail, focusing specifically on adolescents and their beliefs about mental health after being diagnosed with depression. Navigating how you’re feeling and your mental health as an adolescent can be really difficult: this is a stage where you start wondering if what you’re feeling and doing is similar to what your peers are also going through. At this age, you want to fit in and if you don’t, you might think there’s something wrong with you and then you’ll be rejected as a result. This could be why experiencing mental illness symptoms can be scary, especially when you feel like you’re the only one going through them.

Researchers found three common trends when asking adolescents aged 11-17 about their diagnosis and what they think about mental health. These were confusion about why they were depressed, feeling that they were depressed as a result of rejection, victimization, and stress, and that they blamed something inside of themselves for feeling this way.

Many of these adolescents seemed to experience and feel a lot of guilt when managing their feelings about depression. This guilt had come from things like feeling like letting people down and not being good enough, which contributed to their depressive symptoms, or things like feeling guilty that they were being dramatic about something their “teenage phase.”

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Despite these feelings, however, it seemed that a lot of these adolescents wanted to understand other sources for why they were depressed – the study suggests that the self-blame and criticism adolescents place on themselves needs to be addressed, since it could be a barrier for them to seek treatment or further help.

Although it can feel like the feelings associated with depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses, are the result of something you’ve done wrong or that they’re something that no one else is experiencing, results like the ones in the study can remind you that you’re not alone. These are common beliefs when it comes to experiencing symptoms and being diagnosed, but even though these feelings are frequent, they aren’t necessarily true. It’s a difficult process to realize, but mental illness isn’t one’s fault and something they brought onto themselves, and trying to overcome that can make seeking treatment, finding help, and talking to others a little bit easier.

How did you feel when you first started experiencing symptoms? Did you feel like you needed to blame something or find a reason why you were feeling this way? Share your experiences below!

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Challenging Negative Thoughts

January 19, 2024 in Be Positive, Educate Yourself

Stop being so negative! Are these words familiar to you? Everyone has negative thoughts from time to time. Negative thinking is helpful when it protects us from dangerous situations or motivates us to complete tasks. However, when our negative thoughts become constant and unrealistic, they become what is known as a cognitive distortion. Cognitive distortions are sometimes called ‘thought errors’ and can quickly become a habit. Once you can identify automatic negative thoughts you can start to challenge them! 

What are some common thinking errors?

All-or-Nothing Thinking: Sometimes referred to as black-and-white thinking, these thoughts conclude that a situation is either good or bad, with nothing in between. Imagine you are a star student expecting to receive a good grade on a paper you worked hard on. You receive your grade and see that your teacher gave you a C on the paper. A black-and-white thought might be “I did not receive an A on this paper, I’m such a failure.” Challenge this thought: Ask yourself is it that bad, or am I seeing things in black and white? How else can I think about this situation? What would my friend say about this situation?

Overgeneralizing: Overgeneralizing is very similar to exaggerating, it is assuming that something is true in all cases because it was true in one case. For example, imagine yourself presenting in front of your class. After the presentation, you are feeling a little uncomfortable, and you label yourself as being ‘awkward.’ An overgeneralization would be “I was so awkward during my presentation. I am always so awkward.”  Challenge this thought: Ask yourself if you are overgeneralizing the situation. List both the facts of the situation as well as your interpretation to see the full picture. 

Mind Reading: Have you ever passed someone at school or in a store and thought they were giving you a strange look? Maybe you assumed that they were judging you, or that they disliked you for a reason unknown to you.  When you tell someone a joke, and they laugh, you may conclude that they found your joke funny. These are all examples of mind-reading. Mind-reading can be harmful when it always assumes the worst. Challenge this thought: Don’t assume you know what others are thinking. Instead ask yourself: how do I know what this person is thinking? Does assuming I know what they are thinking mean that I am right?

Catastrophizing: Sometimes called magnifying, this thinking error turns little problems into big problems. An example of catastrophizing: “My friend has not answered my text yet, I must have said something to upset them and now they no longer want to be my friend.” Challenge this thought: Try to state only the facts of what you are facing. Instead of the thought shared above, you could tell yourself “My friend has not answered my text message, but that does not mean they are upset with me. If they are upset with me, I can do my best to talk to them about the issue and repair the friendship.” 

As you learn to challenge automatic thoughts, be patient with yourself. It is okay to say at one point in time mind-reading was a coping skill you used while interacting with an unpredictable person in your life. Or maybe you began catastrophizing after going through a traumatic event as a way to protect yourself from further harm. Remember that automatic negative thoughts don’t change overnight. It takes time and practice to create new thought patterns!

Do you find yourself falling into the trap of these thinking errors? How do you challenge your negative thoughts?

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Sleeping better

January 16, 2024 in LINKS

Sleeping patterns and the amount of sleep adolescents get can get jumbled because of mental illness: we’ve also previously talked about “depression naps” and the effects that they can have. Overall, it’s difficult for adolescents to get the recommended amount of sleep they should be getting, and with higher rates of mental illness within this age group today, it can be even more difficult because of the ways that it can affect your sleep, such as depression napping and insomnia.

There are tons of resources available online and through app stores that offer ways to contribute to measuring and stabilizing your sleeping patterns, but we’ve pulled a few that you can check out below!

Flux You can install Flux on your computer so that your screen automatically adjusts with the sun. Screens emit brighter, blue lighting that can hurt the eyes, especially at night. Flux dims your computer to a softer, orange color at sunset, and you can adjust how strong the color and softness are.

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Sleep with Me This podcast is dedicated to help you fall asleep by telling bedtime stories. The host, Drew Ackerman, takes a comedic approach in his story choice and storytelling, but still does so in a way that helps the listener not feel like they have to pay attention and eventually drifting off to sleep. There are over 700 episodes too, so you don’t have to worry about running out of content.

There are also other podcasts available meant to help the listener sleep. You can check out some other lists for more info and ideas.

Pzizz Science-based and celebrity-backed (J.K. Rowling has tweeted about using it before), Pzizz uses soft music, voices, and sound effects to help you fall and stay asleep. It’s not just limited for sleeping at night, and includes options if you want to take a nap and to help you stay focused.

Do you use anything on your phone or computer to help you fall and stay asleep at appropriate times? If you nap (whether voluntarily or involuntarily), what have you tried to make sure you don’t interrupt your sleep at night?

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Tips for Improving Your Journaling Practice in the New Year

January 12, 2024 in Be Positive, Educate Yourself, LINKS

In a previous blog, we talked about setting New Year’s Resolutions. A common goal for the New Year is to start journaling, but why?

Studied by the University of Rochester Medical Center, journaling can help you manage stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression, and can even help strengthen your immune system. Writing down your thoughts may help you understand why you feel the way you feel, and can even help you problem-solve independently! Still, we may find it difficult to journal for different reasons; maybe you can not find a journal, or perhaps it is hard for you to sit with your thoughts. Journaling does not have to be hard, here are some tips to help you improve your journaling practice.

  1. Pick the journal that is right for you. There are many journals on the market for the different styles of journaling people enjoy. You could use a regular notebook, or you could grab a journal from any store that sells stationery items. Some journals come with a different question on each page to inspire you, and some come blank. If you struggle with writing about a specific thing or thought, maybe try a gratitude journal. This style of journaling can be as easy as writing three things you are grateful for every evening before bed.
  2. Build a routine. Creating a routine will help you remember to journal each day, but will also allow you to see the positive effects journaling may have on your life. Journaling before bed may help you fall asleep easier, or journaling in the morning may help you start off the day feeling positive.
  3. Find ways to work through negative emotions that come up during journaling. While journaling is helpful in many ways, it can also have a negative effect if it keeps you stuck inside of your head for too long, or becomes a method of placing blame without finding solutions. When you are journaling your thoughts, look at them objectively. See if you can identify any cognitive distortions; judgments or thoughts that are not based on the facts of a situation.
  4. Try to end each entry on a positive note. We can only control our own emotions and behaviors, which is sometimes hard to accept. After writing about something you are struggling with, try asking yourself some reflection questions. What have you learned from this experience? Can you think of any way to cope with the situation if it comes up again? Are you able to see the problem from the perspective of others involved? Make sure to remind yourself that taking time to journal and reflect on your thoughts and emotions is an act of self-care: you should be proud of yourself!

Journaling can also serve as a communication tool between you and whoever you wish to share an entry or two with. If you struggle to share your feelings with your friends and family, maybe you could share with them an entry or two that you would like them to read. If you are currently in therapy sharing your journal with your therapist can help you both to identify patterns in your thoughts and behaviors.

What kinds of journaling experiences have you had? What challenges have you encountered, and how did you approach them? Share your experiences, stories, and strategies in the comments.

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Staying Warm

January 8, 2024 in Be Positive

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Even though it’s the fresh start to the year, January can feel exactly the opposite. There are no festive holidays – where it’s too late for stores to continue their Christmas and winter holiday promotions but far too early for the pinks and reds of Valentine’s Day – and it’s deep in the middle of winter. The weather can feel unpredictable lately, but generally, January is a time where winds are biting, it starts getting dark as early as 4:30 in the afternoon, and it’s just cold.

You may have heard of SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder. While this can happen during any time of the year, it’s commonly associated and tends to be more likely during the winter. The “winter blues” can make everything feel so much worse, and between the more negative feelings and the less-than-ideal weather, it can be difficult to want to leave your bed during the season.

Very few people list winter as their favorite season, and have consistently had this opinion for decades. If you are someone who doesn’t particularly care for this time of year, whether it be because of the effect on their mental health, the reduced desire to go outside because of the cold, a combination of the two, or any other reason, you can be well assured that you are not alone. That doesn’t mean that you have to resign yourself to hibernate until the weather starts to turn around. Here are a few ways to fight the winter blues. 

Light Boxes These lamps are specifically designed to mimic outdoor light, so if you’re inside all day, or even in the afternoons when it gets dark earlier, small bursts of exposure to these lamps can help your inner clock and give some sort of Vitamin D boost to your body. There are tons you can find online, though the prices can vary.

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Exercise It can be hard wanting to move around, much less exercise, when leaving a warm blanket nest does not seem tempting in the slightest. Working out can be more than running outdoors – which can be both difficult and painful during this time of year. It can also be more than going to a gym, which requires going outside in order to get there. There are ways to move around inside though: YouTube provides tons of workouts that you can follow along with, especially yoga, and there are guides that provide short workouts that don’t require equipment. If you can’t do more than a few minutes, that’s okay, because even getting up and moving around just a little can help boost your mood and body temperature.

Bundle Up If anything, the cold weather gives us a reason to wear as many fashionable clothes as possible, because when it’s in the 20s outside, there’s no such thing as too many layers. This could mean doing a little bit of retail therapy, especially online, and taking advantage of “end-of-season” sales as stores try to focus more on their spring and summer clothes. It could also mean going through your closet and coordinating outfits and accessories and seeing what kinds of combinations you can come up with.

Do you think that wintertime has an extreme effect on your mood and mental health? What tips do you have to help boost your mood and productivity?

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Are New Year’s Resolutions Helpful?

January 5, 2024 in Be Positive

The start of a New Year means something different for everyone. January 1st may feel like another day to you, or it may feel like a fresh start. Some people take time around the start of a new year to set goals, called New Year’s Resolutions. A New Year’s Resolution can be about anything; some people set fitness goals, while others may spend less time on social media or add a new activity to their daily routine. The possibilities are endless! Can making a New Year’s Resolution have a negative impact on your mental health?

The answer is yes and no. John Norcross, a professor at The University of Scranton has studied the topic of New Year’s Resolutions for a long time. His data suggests that 40 to 45% of adults set goals for the new year. He also found that 40 to 46% of those people will continue to work towards their goal for at least six months. Not meeting the goals you have set for yourself can leave you feeling disappointed or frustrated with yourself, it could even affect your overall self-esteem. There are, however, steps you can take to create goals for the new year that are possible to meet.

  1. Make realistic goals. If your goal is to start reading more, start at 12 books for the year (one for each month!) instead of jumping right into the popular ’50 Books Challenge.’ Start small, and if you meet your goal early, you can always give yourself a new goal to meet.
  2. Break your goal down into smaller goals! Perhaps you want to learn how to cook in the new year. Start with committing to cooking one or two meals a week, or following recipes that do not take long to prep.
  3. Track your progress and reward your success! This year, I would like to walk more. On my desk, I have a calendar where I mark each day that I walk for at least thirty minutes. This not only tracks my progress, but it also makes me feel good to see my calendar slowly filling up with more marked days! This is a great way to keep yourself motivated.
  4. Know that you will slip up at times. You may want to walk for thirty minutes a day, but that does not mean that you will never need to skip a day.

No matter what, be patient and kind towards yourself. New Year’s Resolutions should be goals that make you feel better about yourself, not worse! Positive self talk will be the deciding factor in whether or not setting goals for the New Year becomes a positive, or negative thing in your life.

Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions? What helps you stay motivated?

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Navigating Social Media in the New Year

January 2, 2024 in Be Positive, Educate Yourself, Social Media Guide

There are always common types of resolutions that are made as the new year begins. One such resolution is to use social media less (ironically, you may have seen someone say this on social media). Going through social media cleanses and detoxes can give people the time to explore other sorts of activities, and taking a step back from social media can have a positive impact on mental health. Because it’s the new year, now is a great opportunity to take a step back and reevaluate your social media habits, possibly even trying to change them throughout the year.

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If using less social media is something that you’re also trying to do in 2024, you can figure out what’s best for you to monitor and control the time you use on your phone and computer. You can set limits on Screen Time, create blacklists for certain websites if you want to cut them out completely, or even delete apps off your phone altogether.

You can still factor in social media into your new year’s resolutions, even if you can’t, or don’t want to, reduce the amount of time you spend online. There are ways to take advantage of social media use instead of feeling like you’re not accomplishing much by scrolling through feeds and wondering if that one post you made got enough likes.

One way you can engage in social media in a more positive way is through activism. Social media has become a large and accessible platform for many to get their voices out and speak up about matters that are important to them.

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While it’s easy to engage in arguments with people you disagree with online or simply contribute to a cause by using a hashtag, the Internet also has a ton of resources where you can actively engage in causes and contribute to those that you care about in a more effective manner. You can create a list of movements you’re more passionate about, and once you’ve decided which ones you want to focus on, you can look online to see if there are any activities near you that you can participate in. Social media is great for finding these sorts of events: websites like Facebook will show you events happening near you specifically, for example.

If you can’t attend meetings or protests, you can also use social media to share articles and stories that matter to you. You can either use social media to find articles that others have posted and share those through reblogs or retweets, or post the links you find on your own accounts.

Social media can be difficult to completely cut out, but you can still take control in how you want to use it, especially now when it’s the perfect time for a fresh start.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Do you plan on changing your social media habits in 2024? What other ways do you think you can use social media in a beneficial way?

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