More often than not, people have a negative view of video games and its relationship with mental health. Video games are often associated with addiction and seen as a poor coping mechanism. Those who play violent video games tend to be more likely to show depressive symptoms too.
You’re also not very likely to associate the games themselves as a way to learn about mental health. However, there have been more games released lately that want to tackle stigma and normalize discussions about mental health. These could be characters who are coping with their mental health issues, or the game itself uses mental health as a narrative tool. This article highlights a few games that have a focus on mental health, including Sea of Solitude and Stardew Valley. We hope that this article can give you some inspiration for some games if you’re curious about video games, already play them, or just want to see what other outlets are out there for both coping and learning.
Do you play video games? Are there any you found that talk about mental health and illness in any way?
While the lasting power of things on the Internet is permanent, the significance and popularity of some things are fickle. Even if Facebook is still up and running, notes and middle school photos buried somewhere deep down your feed, you probably don’t use it anymore – what was once one of the most popular website for teens is now only used by 51% of them, with only 10% saying they use it the most often. MySpace is pretty much nonexistent (as well as all the music on the website – one of the main features of the social network, and Tumblr has had a significant decline in users in recent years.
Social media sites aren’t the only things that are fickle on the Internet: the content posted on them are as well. There can be a million posts about the Ice Bucket Challenge one week, and not a single mention of it the next. The topics people talk about online are also changing, whether it be a movement, celebrity, or popular television show.
With that being said, how did teens use social media twelve years ago? 2007 was a different time: Snapchat and Instagram didn’t exist, and Facebook was primarily used by college students and high schoolers, not a single advertisement in sight. Vlogging wasn’t really a thing, and Youtube was there to provide meme-y videos and illegal uploads of TV shows split into three parts.
2007 was really the first time that teens were not just taking in media on social media, but were actually participating and creating their own content for it. These included blog posts and uploading creations like artwork and music. Adolescents who used social media were more likely to be girls in their late teens, compared to now where just about every teenager is on social media. Another major difference was that researchers had found that teenagers who were using social media and going online spent just as much time away from the screens too.
The first iPhone also came out in 2007 – while this wasn’t the first smartphone, it started the idea that anyone can use the device in the palm of their hand to access anything they wanted, anywhere, with or without WiFi. Those that didn’t have iPhones may have had iPod touches, which still made the Internet that much easier to access.
There’s little information and even less studies done that talk about the effect of social media on adolescent mental health. This may be because social media was not as widespread, accessible anywhere, and exhaustive at the time, but it may also be because the dialogue surrounding mental health was different, especially when it came to young people.
There were distinct gender differences in how teenagers in the early 2000s talked about the issues they were going through (girls were more likely to tell their friends and boys their parents), but overall, neither were likely to seek treatment because of high stigma. Additionally, nearly half of 8th graders surveyed talked about mental illness as “something being wrong in the mind” and often had a negative view or interpretation of what it meant to be as a person with a mental illness. All of these could have affected how much teenagers disclosed online to the few platforms they had access to depending on what sites they used and how much they could control their privacy settings.
A lot can change in a year for social media, and a lot has changed in 14. Nowadays, people talk about anything and everything online, can connect accounts across social media platform, and have most likely talked to everyone they know in real life over some sort of social media. This can have its positives and negatives when it comes to talking about mental health – it can normalize it or you might be afraid of being judged by even just one person – but at the very least, the discussion around it and social media as a whole has changed.
What stood out to you? Do you notice any similarities about how technology was used in 2007 and today? How do you think social media may change in the next 1, 5, or even 15 years?
Mental health issues among teens are a growing issue in the US. The demands for mental health services and treatment clearly exceed our nation’s supply, and the effects of this imbalance are making their mark.
The suicide rate among young people ages 10 to 19 increased by 56% from 2007 to 2016. According to the CDC, suicide and suicide attempts cost the nation $70 billion in lifetime costs for medical care and lost work hours alone. Serious mental illness in the US cost $193.2 billion in losses of personal earnings in 2002, translating to a massive loss of human productivity. Prescription opioid misuse, another epidemic associated with mental health conditions, costed $78.5 billion in 2013, including costs from health care, the criminal justice system, and lost productivity. How do we address these issues that weigh so heavily on our nation’s economy? We target a common source of these mental health issues – children.
Many mental health issues begin in childhood. With the short supply of child and adolescent psychiatrists, it is easy for children to slip through the cracks of treatment and have their mental health deteriorate further in adulthood; only 40% of adolescents received treatment for major depression in 2017. It is also not uncommon for children to wait days in an ER for an opening of a hospital bed in a psychiatric unit. In Fairfax County, VA, parents often drive hours to take a bed that has opened late at night. Washington, D.C. is the only place in the US with sufficient child and adolescent psychiatrists for its population, while the rest of the country is severely lacking. This shortage isn’t without reason – psychiatry is one of the lowest-paying specialties, and new psychiatry hospital wings and treatment advances can easily fall off the priority list when compared with cutting-edge medical technologies in more competitive and glorified fields such as surgery.
As the staggering costs of mental health attract more attention to this serious public health issue, other outlets are being explored to expand mental health resources to reach the youth that need them:
The pediatrician work force is being called to action to manage basic mental health issues. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued guidelines for adolescent depression in primary care, targeting youth ages 10 to 21. Educating primary care doctors in mental health is a top priority.
Nonprofit organizations also offer mental health programming when government funding falls short. Strength in Our Voices trains high school students and teachers in suicide prevention in schools in Washington, D.C. The Beautiful Minds Initiative in Florida is a collaboration among health care providers, community mental health professionals, social services, and public school systems to bring mental health care to at-risk children in Collier County. Adapting for Life, Surviving the Teens is an outreach program from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio that educates young people in junior high and high schools on drivers of suicidal behavior and ways to cope with them.
Have you ever sought help for mental health? If so, what resources did you use to get the help you need? Do you have mental health awareness programs at your school? If so, what are they like? What resources or programs did you wish were out there? Share your thoughts and experiences below!
This SOVA blog post was based off an article from Jayne O’Donnell in USA Today, “Help Hard to Find for Teens Struggling with Mental Health, Thoughts of Suicide.” To access the original post, check it out here.
You’ve probably heard of flower language before, where each plant and flower represents something. Some are pretty popular, like roses meaning love, some are obvious, like forget-me-nots, and others can be negative, like marigolds meaning grief.
Most of the time, these symbols give meaning in things like stories and tattoos, giving the image of the flowers a meaning behind it and giving it importance. While it doesn’t meet the artsy approach that flower language typically has, scientists and psychologists have created a bit of flower language of their own, comparing three types of flowers to each other and associating them with a type of behavior and reactions to situations.
This is known as the “orchid hypothesis,” and is used with children in particular. The hypothesis categorizes people into three categories based on how sensitive they are:
If someone is an orchid, they’re highly sensitive and have to be in the right environment, otherwise they’ll “wither.” Those who receive proper care and attention “thrive.”
Those who are dandelions are considered to be “tough” and can adapt to any situation, no matter where they are
Tulips fall somewhere in the middle, not “delicate” like orchids, but aren’t as “strong” as dandelions
Assigning someone to one of the flowers is not a diagnosis, but it is simply a way to describe and put someone in a category based on how they react to their environment based on their genetic makeup. There have been studies conducted to see where this link is established, such as one focusing on the CHRM2 gene specifically. CHRM2 is involved with brain functions like memory and learning, and is already associated with alcohol dependency, something that is put in the same group as childhood conduct disorders.
Another study looked to see if there was a relationship between sensitivity and other genes like DAT1, DRD2, and DRD4 (which control dopamine, or how we process reward and emotions and physical movements), MAOA (known as the “Warrior Gene” because of its link to aggression, and helps regulate serotonin and dopamine) , and 5-HTTLPR (this controls serotonin and has associations with mental illnesses like anxiety and depression).
Being an orchid, tulip, or dandelion isn’t all just about the biology and if there is a genetic reason for these behaviors. Scientists and psychologists also use these classifications to predict if the child’s environment and upbringing can protect them from the barriers they may face if they were an orchid. For example, if an orchid child grew up in a home with a supportive family, they are less likely to show the more extreme signs of sensitivity. An orchid child growing up in a more negative environment, however, would be more vulnerable to having negative reactions when bad things happen. A dandelion child in a similar negative environment would be genetically “stronger” enough to handle bad situations, and therefore wouldn’t have those negative reactions, or their negative reactions wouldn’t be as extreme.
If there’s anything to take away from this hypothesis, however, is that being an orchid isn’t a bad thing, and does not mean that orchids have poor reactions to negative changes around them. The hypothesis assumes that these flower titles aren’t something that we can control and are based in our biology, but shows that our environment plays a huge difference in whether those qualities show or not.
Do you think you’re an orchid, dandelion, or tulip? Do you think that the flower you are can predict things like anxiety and depression?
For Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month, we wanted to highlight the South Asian Sexual and Mental Health Alliance (SASMHA) today. The organization was developed to specifically provide resources and fight the cultural stigma that South Asian youths (who also referred to themselves as “desis”) face when it comes to various topics, including mental health.
The website has several features for young South Asians to explore, such as a podcast and workshops that they (or anyone!) may want to implement in their community spaces. Another feature includes several candid stories from South Asian youths about their mental health, from topics such as coping with COVID, eating disorders, and recovering from trauma. They also have compiled an extensive list of South Asian-specific mental health resources at both a national and local level.
The Internet is both a blessing and a curse. It gives us access to any information from any part of the world, allows us to talk and develop relationships with people we may have otherwise never encountered offline, and is always, always available.
This constant access and ability to talk to anyone has its perks, but it also has the very high chances of us encountering people and information that will affect us negatively. Being able to go online whenever we want also means that we may encounter this when our emotions are already high, we’re already feeling vulnerable, or are experiencing the intense negative effects of mental illness, so when we run into people and things that we don’t like, our chances of acting out and engaging in negative interactions can increase. Most of our interactions on social media are text-based, so we don’t realize just how much our words can affect others when we lash out at them, because texting and typing is so much more difficult to interpret than face-to-face interaction. It can feel harsher, colder, and so much more meaner than we already feel, and we can’t delete or take back the things we send once they’re online.
As we all know now, it’s impossible to avoid going online, especially this year. While difficult, it was still easier to go off the grid and take breaks before classes and work were all online. It was easier to put our phones on “do not disturb” when we just didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone, but this year, our only way of talking to people is over the phone and online. And in a year of bad and stressful news that constantly has us doomscrolling and refreshing, our likelihood of snapping is even higher.
So how do we avoid leaving a nasty comment on someone’s post, DM’ing someone to criticize them, or saying something that could be hurtful in the middle of an online class or meeting? There are many ways to take a step back and collect ourselves; closing your eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths, even turning off your video and muting yourself for a few seconds can give the opportunity to briefly calm down. If you’re already in a negative state and want to go on social media, ask yourself what you want to do online and what sites will help you best avoid content that you don’t want to see. These are just a couple of examples, but it’s important to keep in mind that when we’re already on edge, one single thing or comment can have us acting in a way that we might immediately regret.
Have you ever lashed out online? Have you ever been tempted to? What advice do you have for keeping your emotions in check when you encounter things you don’t like on social media?
This video was based on a TED talk by Dr. Brené Brown. She is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent more than a decade studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame.
Have you been on either side of the hole? Have you ever climbed down with a friend?
We all want to have the best experience that we can on social media. Even if it seems that there’s a lot going at once online, from the 24/7 news cycle to the millions of accounts that we can encounter, we still have the ability to control our experience. We can choose who we want to follow, what topics and tags to track, and can go private so we can limit who we want to engage with.
Blocking doesn’t just give you the ability to completely hide someone’s account and their content from yours, but it prevents that person from ever having access to viewing and interacting with your account too. Everyone has their different reasons for wanting to block someone, but essentially, it’s a last-resort, final move to let someone else know that they do not have the right to be a presence in your online life (and by extension, your real life) and they are having a negative impact on you.
Most of the time, blocking is warranted and done for safety, security, and for a healthier state of mind. These include accounts that belong to an ex (especially ones who are toxic), companies or people who promote content that can trigger you (like dieting or #fitspo accounts), or accounts that spread messages about hate (especially ones that attack your identity). Blocking people who you know who have negatively impacted you, like through bullying, toxic friendships, and constant harassment and contact, can also help improve your well-being.
Blocking can be tricky though, especially when it comes to people you know. If the person finds out they’ve been blocked, for example, they may get upset, especially if they don’t think they should have been blocked. Some may see it as a sign of being passive-aggressive if there wasn’t a conversation about how both of you have been feeling, and it can escalate into conversations or arguments that can affect everyone negatively. Although more direct, blocking can be interpreted the same way people interpret being subtweeted: for example, people getting blocked can make them feel anxious or guilty.
Relationships in general can be hard to navigate, but social media and the power to indirectly tell someone who don’t want them around adds another element. There are many reasons to warrant blocking, but if the people you’re blocking are those you know and you feel comfortable talking to them about any issues that you are having, it’s worth trying to find a way talking through it first before hitting the “block” button.
Have you ever blocked any accounts? Did they ever belong to anyone you know? What do you think warrants a block?
It feels that there are a ton of products available recently to help your mental health, particularly with calming anxiety. Some use essential oils, or you may have heard of light lamps, and of course, the classic stress relief ball.
Weighted blankets have started to become more popular recently. These products are a level up if you’re the type of person who finds comfort in burying yourself under the covers as a coping mechanism to calm down: they’re heavier versions of regular blankets ranging from 4 to 30 pounds specifically designed to help those with disorders just as anxiety, autism, and insomnia, with physicians recommending getting one that’s 10% of your body weight. The weight is evenly distributed and is meant to help “ground” the user – not in a way that traps them – but provides some sort of stability as they relax or sleep.
The benefits of weighted blankets are mostly from people sharing anecdotes, or their personal stories about it, but some researchers have found that using a weighted blanket shows an increase in activity in people’s parasympathetic system (or the part of the nervous system that your body uses to rest and stay calm). Others have found that 78% of participants in their study preferred a weighted blankets as a calming mechanism and 63% reported lower anxiety. Users who have shared their experiences with weighted blankets include not just those experiencing anxiety, but PTSDas well, stating that it serves as a distraction for their brain.
What’s important to keep in mind is that there hasn’t been as much research on the product and you should not use this if you have conditionssuch as sleep apnea or other sleep disorders, respiratory and/or circulation problems, or have a chronic health condition. Because of the weight and the material, weighted blankets can have a tendency to get too hot too, which may not be the best option during the summertime. It’s also not a cure-all: weighted blankets shouldn’t be used everyday nor as a substitute for therapy or medication.
If you have trouble sleeping at night due to anxiety or because of depression, need help coping help with anxiety or panic attacks, or just need something to help keep you calm when things get too overwhelming however, using a weighted blanket may be an option to consider.
Have you ever used a weighted blanket? How do you think they would be different than regular blankets? What other mechanisms have you used to relax and keep calm when you’re feeling overwhelmed?
Staying hydrated is not just important for your physical health, but can have substantial benefits for your mental health and your mood too. This is especially important now during the late spring and summer, where the heat and humidity can make it even easier to get dehydrated. The sluggishness of the upcoming summertime along with the lack of motivation that can come with mental illness symptoms can make it difficult to get enough water throughout the day, making the dehydration effects even worse.
If you’re someone who enjoys organizing and keeping track of your goals and habits, you may find yourself benefiting from apps that help you monitor your water-drinking habits too. There are a variety out there, such is the case of the endless app market. Some include cute animations and graphics to make the app more enjoyable, while some are more straightforward so you can log the amount you have drank and close it right away. Most apps are customizable in some sort of way too. Whatever you choose, we hope that it might help you build and sustain a new habit.
What are your water drinking habits like? What are other ways do you think you can get more water in? How do you feel when you’re dehydrated? Do you use apps to monitor any of your habits?
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