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Why Does Anxiety Disrupt Our Sleep Before a Big Event?

October 12, 2021 in Educate Yourself

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.

One of the most commonly known symptoms of anxiety is trouble sleeping. Disruptive sleeping, insomnia, and napping during the day have all been associated with anxiety and other mood disorders, but regardless of the level of anxiety one may have, it seems like nearly everyone can recount a time that they had a major transition or change approaching and getting little to no sleep the night before.

Changes in our lives and routine, even if they seem small, can throw our body off and both confuse and stress it. In general, people prefer the things they’re familiar with, and even if something new and exciting is coming up, like a flight for a vacation, the body isn’t used to this event that’s happening, even if it’s something it’s experienced before. Even if it’s a positive event, those with anxiety may also find themselves thinking of worst case scenarios or negative events that can either ruin or cancel the event before it even begins. For example, if  you have a flight coming up to a vacation that you’ve been planning forever, your brain may start worrying about missing the plane, or getting stuck in traffic. It may think of a scenario where you bought a ticket for the wrong flight, or make you worry that you’ll get into a big fight with one of the people you’re vacationing with.

There are plenty of ways to combat general trouble sleeping, but when it comes to one-off events like these, some experts say to just embrace it. It’s difficult to force sleep, and being exhausted the next day is never a fun feeling, but it’s also not the end of the world. If you know you have a big event the next day too, try to practice habits to help you sleep throughout the day. Don’t drink caffeine after noon, and do your best to avoid screens close to sleeping. If you find yourself unable to go to sleep at all at night, try moving to a different part of your home that’s dark and cool and sit there for a bit as well.

Can you remember a time where you had trouble sleeping before a big event? What was the event? What have you tried to get better sleep? Does your anxiety affect your sleep?

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Weekend Reads: Latino Youth Stories about Their Mental Health

October 8, 2021 in LINKS

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.

Although no two stories are the same, especially in a diverse culture covering all sorts of identities, it’s important to highlight how individual people, especially young people, talk about their mental health and culture. Whether you want to learn more about young Latino’s experiences with their mental health, or if you identify as Latino and want to find stories that you might be able to relate to, we hope you take the time to read or listen to these personal essays and stories:

How My Latina Identity Holds Hands with My Depression
Isabella Montano Ponce: Latino Teens and Mental Health
Alex Garcia Culture and Mental Illness
The Mental Health Crisis Among Latina Teens

Do you identify as Latino, Latina, and/or Latinx? How has your culture impacted or played a part of your mental health?

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It’s Okay to Want Attention

October 6, 2021 in Educate Yourself

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.

Similar to this, others may be afraid to open up about their mental health because they are afraid of taking up too much space in others’ lives. It’s not uncommon for those experiencing symptoms of mental illness feeling like they are a burden and that their mental illness is something that will inconvenience others around them. Some may view simply existing with mental illness as troublesome and being a negative presence around others, while others may feel that talking about their issues and what they’re going through is too selfish.

As humans however, we all crave attention and the feeling of being wanted. There’s nothing wrong – and it’s even helpful – to openly talk about what you’re going through and when your mental illness is severely impacting you. When it comes to trying to find that balance of seeking support from others and demanding too much space, keep in mind some of the following items:

If you think you’re taking up too much space, you most likely are not. Mental illness has a way of manipulating and negatively affecting your thoughts and how you see the things and people around you. While you may think that you’re being selfish and only talking about the negative things that you’re experiencing, the reality is, it’s probably not the only thing that you’re talking about with others, and definitely not the only thing others are talking about with you.

Find and trust your support system. Obviously, you don’t need to tell everyone in excruciating detail about what you’re going through, but try to find at least a couple of people who have similar mental illness experiences, are those that you can trust, and/or identify as people close to you. In moments when your mental illness seems overbearing, they can be people you can immediately contact. If you are having difficulty finding a support group, there are online spaces for those to talk about their mental illness with others in a nonjudgmental and safe space (like SOVA!).

If you don’t get a response right away, it’s most likely not because of you. Just like the human need for attention, humans also naturally center themselves and that the things that are happening around them are a result of things that they have done. If you text a friend that you’re not doing too well and they haven’t responded immediately, just remember that everyone has their own lives and are being affected and demanded by other tasks, people, and things. A response two hours later is not reflective of you; they may just be experiencing other things that are taking up their time.

Who have you talked about your mental illness with? Have you been afraid to open up about things because you think it’s selfish or burdensome?

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Being Only Human

October 4, 2021 in Be Positive

Almost anything can affect us negatively. Pretty much anything can affect us to an extreme degree, even if we don’t expect it to. It can be the major, like aspects of a relationship (friend, family, romantic, or others) that hurt you, to what feels like the minor, like unpredictable changes in routine. 

Over the years, you may have been able to pinpoint exactly what it is that triggers or upsets you, have likely developed some sort of skill to help you manage the negative emotions tied to that instance. If your sibling makes fun of you, you may have learned to laugh it off and play along instead of letting it get to you. If you take unexpected changes in your routine really poorly, you may have come up with ways to adjust and become more flexible. 

However, sometimes you may find yourself reacting the way you used to before developing these coping mechanisms, and that can lead to a whole other level of bad feelings.

Let’s take a bad grade, for example. Say you didn’t do well on a paper, and you find yourself experiencing depressive symptoms, and overall just feeling really bad about yourself. You find yourself blaming yourself for not starting earlier, or not doing one more readthrough before submitting, or get upset at yourself for messing up in a class that otherwise has gone well for you.

And when these self-blaming thoughts begin to happen, you then find yourself getting angry at yourself too. This isn’t the first bad grade that you’ve gotten, so why are you taking it so hard now? You’ve taken other bad grades really well before, and know that you’ll survive this one too, so why are you experiencing these feelings that you know are tied to your depression or anxiety? It’s easy to slip into these thoughts that you’re no longer good at your coping mechanisms or all the growth that you’ve made to combat these negative things in your life is all of a sudden going away.

In these instances, it’s important to remember that bad feelings and getting upset about things that you thought you’ve grown past are just natural feelings that occur. Growth is not a linear line, and there’s never truly an end goal where you’re cured and never going to feel those bad emotions again. Life – and the progress that you make in it – is more like a scribble than a line. Even if you feel like you’ve built a tough exterior and don’t let the negatives phase you doesn’t mean you’re completely immune to them, because ultimately, you’re a human who feels human emotions. 

What was something that bothered you a lot when you were younger that doesn’t anymore? Was there an instance where it occurred again and you ended up getting upset about it like you did when you were younger? How did you react to that?

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Digital Overload

September 30, 2021 in Uncategorized

How many devices do you have? Do you have a phone, laptop, tablet, and wearable? How about an ebook reader? How many social media accounts do you have? 

If all those questions feel overwhelming, that’s because the amount of technology and social media accounts we own are. There are so many ways to be connected now, and the ways we can connect are constantly increasingly, and currently, this is out of necessity.

With most schools starting school remotely (and most workplaces continuing to be remote), your screen time has most likely skyrocketed, like, even more than it already has since the pandemic, and even before the pandemic started. The glare of the bright screens, the pressure to socialize and pay attention to important tasks all the time, and the lack of separation between work/school and home is probably getting to you, if it hasn’t already.

You may have likely heard of the negative effects of constantly being connected on electronic devices. There are the physical effects like trouble sleeping at night, but too much screen time can affect us mentally as well, like constantly making us compare ourselves to others and increased feelings of loneliness. 

Most of these studies and results come from adolescents using their devices and social media accounts for personal use, however. While there isn’t as much information about how attending school and/or work digitally can affect us, having to spend all this time online out of necessity is also going to affect us mentally. You may feel stressed to be working all the time and then feel guilty if you have to take a break, or you may find yourself comparing how school online is affecting you to what seems to be the perfect student in your online class acting as if being online is no big deal. You may find yourself frustrated and on edge at how one of your colleagues or peers is acting on video, or you may feel self-conscious from having to see your face on screen all the time. 

And if all that information feels overwhelming, that’s because it is.

So how do you manage all this technology and need to communicate online, especially when you have no choice but to constantly be online? First off, stepping away from screens is absolutely vital. Your school may have designated break times throughout the day, and while it’s tempting to go on your phone, try not to spend your time away from your computer screen focusing on a different screen. Those who work from home shouldn’t feel guilty if they need to take a few minutes away from their job and computer either. 

At least once an hour, try to get up and walk around whatever space is available near you. We also recommend that these mini-walks throughout the school and/or work day include doing something to better yourself, such as getting a glass of water in the kitchen or splashing cool water on your face. You also might want to use the mini-break to also clean up a small space around you to give you a better peace of mind. 

Realistically, we know it’s impossible to avoid your phone and/or watching TV when you’re done with work and school too (especially if you have to do homework online too). However, you might want to try designating certain times for your screen and certain times off, using the latter to possibly explore other hobbies to try! 

As we hit yet another transition as a result of COVID, we hope that you’re able to adjust and find a way to balance not just your professional and personal screen time, but the time for yourself offline too.

Has your screen time increased recently? Is your work or school currently remote and virtual? Have you been able to give yourself time offline? What recommendations do you have to taking breaks from your phone or computer?

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A New School Year, Mental Health, and COVID

September 28, 2021 in COVID-19, Educate Yourself

For most adolescents and young adults, school has been well in session. Whether it’s a few weeks or over a month, you’re probably adjusting – or trying your best to – adjust to new schedules, assignments, expectations, and unfortunately, COVID protocols.

To say that schools and colleges haven’t been running the way they usually do for the past couple of years has been an understatement. There are constantly unknowns and changes to whether school should be in-person, virtual, or both, and what kind of mandates teachers and students should follow if they’re physically in school. 

Between this uncertainty, the pandemic’s existing effects on mental health, and an already existing concern for the rise of mental illness symptoms in adolescents, adjusting to this school year is likely going to be difficult. Psychiatrists are expecting a rise in students seeking help (and the new school year pre-COVID was already the busiest time for child psychologists), and there are concerns about how adolescents are facing worsening social anxiety symptoms due to the majority of virtual schooling prior to this school year.

This is a lot to handle in an already stressful environment. No matter where you are in your schooling career, you’re probably facing some kind of stress and transitions. You might be in high school taking on the burden of busier classes while figuring out where you want to go to college, you may be in college working towards the career you want after graduating, or you may be a graduate student balancing both your intense workload and teaching other classes. The stress of a pandemic, wondering how you’re going to be learning, and whether you’ll be able to see your friends and peers in person don’t help, and can make existing anxiety symptoms worse.

This is all to say that the stress, anxieties, and fears about your future right now are okay. These times continue to not be normal, and if you feel like your work is suffering, do your best to take the steps you need to find the support that’s best for you. Most adolescents and young adults are struggling as a result of COVID, even in comparison to other demographics, so it’s also important to know that you are not alone. As you continue through the school year and whatever inevitable changes arise, do your best to take each week at a time. 

How is your college or school currently running? Have you noticed how your peers are handling the changes? Have you talked to other classmates about how they’ve been feeling? How have you been transitioning into the new school year?

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Mindshift and CBT

September 24, 2021 in LINKS

MindShift App

Choosing a therapist can be confusing, and there are so many different types of therapy. A common practice style is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The goal of CBT is to help you identify thought patterns, examine how they affect behavior, and change the patterns that are not helping you. We’ve featured a comic that visually explains how CBT works before if you want more detail.

CBT tends to be fairly structured and is usually meant to tackle a specific problem for a limited amount of time. That being said, the therapy itself can be used to help with a variety of issues, specifically with anxiety and depression. It allows you to play an active role in your treatment and adopt new ways of thinking that you can use throughout your lifetime. CBT also tends to be worthwhile for people of all ages and can be adapted to fit different needs well.

Of course, the best way to start this type of therapy would be to see a therapist who specializes in CBT, but there are other great options for people who are looking to get some of the same benefits!

The MindShift CBT app allows you to find helpful techniques to relieve anxiety through guided practices and exercises. The app provides tips for quick, short-term relief from panic or worry, as well as mindfulness activities that range from guided meditation to journaling and goal setting. The link to download the app and learn more about the features it offers can be found here.

If you are interested in learning more about the different approaches to therapy that are particularly helpful for adolescents, you can learn more on the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry website.

Have you ever considered therapy? Are there any other types of therapy you would like to learn more about? What is your experience with CBT?

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Would You Give Your Parents Access to Your Social Media?

September 23, 2021 in Social Media Guide

Like it or not, we’re all on social media in some way. Despite the large amount of sites and platforms available, the chances that you have an account on the same platform as your parent is pretty likely. You could both be on Facebook, even if you might not have touched yours in months (or even years), or you may both have Instagram accounts. You might be following each other, or your parent may not know that your account exists at all.

Even if you don’t have accounts on the same platform, your parent is likely also using social media in some way.

It can be difficult, stressful, and even infuriating knowing that your parent is also active online. You may feel like you want to know what they’re doing on their accounts – what if they’re saying things about or posting photos of you without your permission? What if they’re saying something that you might not agree with? This can be particularly more daunting for parents: as adolescents today, you’re growing up with the Internet and navigating who you are and are probably spending a lot of your time socializing and talking with others online.

This can also be daunting for adolescents too. Because you/they might spend so much time online, you may be sensitive or self-conscious about what about you goes up, which includes what you feel might be embarrassing photos that parents post about them or stories that parents share that you don’t want getting around.

So is it fair for parents to be able to see what their child is doing and to post about their child? Is there truly a perfect social media experience that makes both adolescents and their parents happy?

Ultimately, it’s a case-by-case experience. There are some trends on parent and adolescent feelings about their social media use, however.

One survey found that there is a fear among parents about how their children use social media, though their biggest concern is that they spend too much time on their phone compared to things like decreased communication skills and being cyberbullied. When asked about what they wished their parents knew about how they used social media however, teens said they’re going to be online no matter what. They have fake accounts, multiple devices, and use social media as an outlet when they’re frustrated and upset. They do and use all of these even if parents try to take various methods to monitor them.

But even if adolescents don’t want their parents accessing their social media – and have ways to get around it – that doesn’t mean that they’re not willing to talk about social media use with their parents. Adolescents are fine with having conversations about how to use social media (but they say to try not to make it awkward). Conversations about social media access and how parents should be involved are possible, but they have to be fair, acknowledge both the good and bad about social media, and discuss why adolescents like using these sites.

Most parents also appear to be confident that they can at least guide their child to make good and safe decisions online, even if the most action they take when monitoring is simply visiting the websites their children use. 

Knowing and acknowledging that adolescents aren’t just using social media to engage in unsafe and risky behavior and parents aren’t trying to dictate what their child can do are just a few steps both groups can take to have a fair discussion about how both can use social media in a way that is enjoyable for everyone.

Have you ever had a conversation with your parents about how you use social media? Do you think that age plays a factor in what you think your parents can see or not?

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The Hunger-Depression Cycle

September 22, 2021 in Educate Yourself

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We all feel some kind of way about food. You may have heard the phrase that some live to eat, while others eat to live. While it’s a necessity, some find pleasure in eating, or at the very least, taking photos of food that looks nice to post on social media.

Regardless about how you feel about food as a whole, how much and if you even eat can have an effect on our mood. You’ve probably already noticed this when you’re “hangry,” feeling extremely cranky when you haven’t eaten.

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The way our bodies react and how much we think we need food can also be affected by depression. If you’re experiencing a depressive episode, you may find yourself unwilling or unmotivated to eat, even feeling like you’re not hungry despite not having eaten for an extended period of time. Even if there’s food in front of you, you may just simply not feel hungry, even if your body itself needs sustenance, and may only take a couple of bites at most before feeling too full. 

A loss of appetite is usually associated as being one of the symptoms of depression. There isn’t much research as to why this is the case, but items like guilt and a lack of energy may be two explanations why. Depression may make you feel unmotivated and exhausted for no reason, and this lack of energy makes the simplest tasks feel impossible. One of those simple tasks can include eating. That hangry feeling you may have experienced before, though? Even if you don’t feel hungry, your body will start catching up when it realizes that it hasn’t had any food for a while and can result in you feeling cranky and grumpy. One study noticed that people’s moods drop when they experience hypoglycemia (or low blood sugar from a lack of glucose, the body’s main energy source), and the longer they experience that by continuing to not eat, they may be at risk for developing depression-like behaviors. 

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Poor eating habits and poor moods can feed off each other and become a cycle. If you aren’t eating because of a loss of appetite, your mood will get worse, which can lead you to not wanting to eat, and so on.

Guilt can also play a factor in all of this too. If you miss a meal, you may feel bad that you couldn’t do one easy task like eating, and may ask yourself what the point is in trying to play catch up? This can contribute to that poor mood-poor eating cycle.

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All of this gets more complex when taking eating disorders into account. Eating disorders are another type of mental illness, and like most mental illnesses, they don’t exist alone. Those coping with eating disorders often have other mental illnesses, including depression. Navigating and coping with eating disorders can conflict with the effects on appetite with depression, which can contribute to more guilt and a more toxic cycle between hunger and mood.

During these sorts of situations, eating may be one of the last things you want to do. However, having food in your body – even if your brain is tricking you that you aren’t hungry when you haven’t eaten in a long time – is vital. Doing small things like keeping a granola bar or other snacks by you can help when you can’t bring yourself to get up, or if you’re able to, meal-prepping gives you the opportunity to organize and plan a routine, giving you something to not only look forward to, but makes food available to easily have on hand. At the very least, staying hydrated and keeping a water bottle with you can make the biggest difference too.

Have you ever been hangry? How is your appetite affected when you’re stressed or depressed? Do you have any advice about what to do if you don’t feel hungry but know you have to eat?

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Managing Conflicts

September 21, 2021 in Educate Yourself

As children approach their teenage years, life becomes – for better or for worse – all about friends. While this can create unforgettable bonding experiences, it can also make for unforgettable wounds.

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Because teenage conflicts are inevitable, it is best to learn from the mistakes that are made and grow from them. If not, there can be undesired consequences of festering grudges and unresolved offenses. Eventually, social stresses can turn into maladaptive coping mechanisms such as internalizing distress and aggression.

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While we cannot avoid conflict, we can control its outcome by controlling how we respond to them. There are three unhealthy roles we can take in response to conflict: we can be a “bulldozer,” a “doormat,” or a “doormat with spikes.” A bulldozer takes the aggressive route, dominating and running others over, and the doormat allows others to run over them. A doormat with spikes allows themselves to be run over but gets back at the aggressor through passive-aggressive tactics, which may involve a third party or attempt to guilt the aggressor.

One healthy way to approach conflict is to take the role of a “pillar” – standing up for yourself while respecting others. This way takes practice.

For example, say a middle school girl gets left out of a friend’s party:

  • A bulldozer response would be to come to the party anyway and try to ruin it.
  • A doormat response would be to cry alone by herself about being left out, and then try to please the friend to be included into the party the next time.
  • A doormat-with-spikes response may be to stay silent at first but then post an embarrassing picture of her friend from the party later.
  • The healthy pillar response would be to directly approach this friend and ask her, politely and respectfully, why she was not invited, and if she may have done something to offend her.

This also applies to online conflicts – the instinctual response is to take up one of the unhealthy roles. After all, it’s difficult to convey the proper tone needed to be a pillar online. If possible, it is best to take conflicts offline and have a private discussion in person.

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In an ideal world, we would all strive to be pillars. But the world is far from perfect, so we just need to choose our battles. Conflict can take an enormous amount of energy, and even being a pillar might not resolve things; it might not generate the response we want by the other person. Sometimes, we don’t have the energy to be a pillar. Sometimes, we don’t have the motivation to resolve a conflict. Sometimes, it feels good to just let some anger out and fester in our angst. But before we do, we can take five seconds to think about the consequences of what would happen. We can think of alternatives – such as walking away, punch a punching bag, or just have a good cry. We can even imagine our delightful revenge, and fantasy in a bulldozer response, without acting on it. Afterward, we can pick ourselves up and try to be a pillar again the next time a conflict comes. Sometimes, it will work, and sometimes it won’t – but those are a part of the growing pains.

Can you remember a time that you were in a conflict with a friend? How did you respond, and how did things turn out? Do you have any tips of what has worked for you, or have any especially challenging experiences for which you’d like to seek advice? Share your thoughts and experiences below!

This SOVA blog post was based off Lisa Damour’s article from The New York Times, “How to Help Tweens and Teens Manage Social Conflict.” To access the original post, check it out here.

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