Sometimes, we need a physical, tangible option to help us accomplish our goals and put the things that we want to work on into words instead of having them just floating around our heads. One way to visually organize our minds is through checklists. You may associate checklists with to-do lists and things that you want to accomplish, but they can also be used as a tool to see your progress about something or help you understand how you’re feeling.
We’ve collected a few mental health checklists that you can explore and maybe even print out and use. These are not meant to be screening checklists, which professionals often use when diagnosing mental illnesses, but are instead used by you to check in on yourself. The ones we’ve listed below are all designed by mental health experts and organizations and serve different purposes, and you can see which one of them suits you the best. You may want a checklist of items for you to measure how you’re feeling on a certain day if you feel like your symptoms are more prevalent than usual, or you may want to have a list of wellness ideas and tips so you can feel your best.
Obviously, these aren’t the only mental health checklists available online, but we hope that they’re useful or give you some inspiration to find others online – or even create your own!
It could be a notification about anything: a text from your best friend, an email, or a DM on Instagram. No matter what it is, getting that alert via vibration and/or ding! can send a wave of brief panic through your body, even if it’s a trivial random news notification about five new recipes to try this week.
If you ever feel those anxious symptoms when you get a notification, you’re not alone. Although people are already constantly checking their phones and usually waiting for some sort of notification, actually receiving one can send the mind spiraling. There are tons of reasons that notifications can trigger these anxious feelings. For example, you might think that an incoming text means that you did something wrong and the person texting you is calling you out on something. An email could potentially be from a professor telling you you flunked an assignment or a rejection letter from somewhere that you had applied to. You might even get anxious over the fact that a notification could be your crush liking your recent Instagram post and what that implies.
Then there’s the other side to receiving notifications. Now that someone’s reached out to you, your mind may start worrying about how to respond. If it’s not someone you don’t talk to frequently, it can be even more stressful thinking about how you respond in order to maintain whatever relationship you want to have with them. What about timing? Now that you have received the notification, would it make sense to respond right away? What if that person responded to you hours after you reached out? What does that mean about your relationship?
These moments of panic that come with receiving notifications can be triggers ofsocial anxiety and can cause catastrophic thinking. We worry about what someone potentially has to say to us, we worry about how to respond, we fear ruining a relationship, and so on, just because of a simple bubble that appears on our lock screen.
One easy solution to avoid these feelings can be to completely disable notifications. This is definitely a possibility – it’s been tried and studied before in a “Do Not Disturb” challenge where 30 people turned off alerts for a full 24 hours. While those who participated felt less distracted and checked their phones less often, they still felt some sort of anxiety about not just missing out on communicating with others, but also felt anxiety that they were missing important or urgent information.
Not unlike temporarily deactivating apps as a way of doing a mini social media cleanse, you can turn off notifications for certain apps. If you’re in a group chat that overwhelms you, you can put them on do not disturb and check it periodically. This doesn’t mean that you’re not receiving notifications, but what it does is gives you the power to look at, respond to, and process notifications at your own pace versus feeling rushed to do so all within that millisecond that you receive a push notification.
Notifications can be fun to receive, but they can not only cause stress, but keep you glued to your phone with the hopes that you’ll receive one. Disabling them, or even some, can help ease your mind and give you more control over your phone and social media usage.
Do you have notifications disabled for any of the major social media accounts that you use? How often do you check your phone? Do you feel anxious when you receive a notification, and if so, what do you get anxious about?
Now is a sensitive time more than ever. Current events such as COVID, Black Lives Matter, and discussions over trans rights are revealing the issues with the systems that have been in place in our society for not just the past few years, but for decades and centuries, and how these issues have been affecting certain groups more than others. The Internet and social media giving platforms to experts and those who have been affected have made it easier for them to educate and tell others why things are so difficult and how drastic the effects are for minority groups. You most likely have seen these kinds of posts on Instagram and twitter presented in colorful graphics with easy and simple to read text and pictures.
Despite how well-presented these posts are though, taking in all this information can be a lot to handle. As a result, emotions can get very intense and high too. These emotions could depend on who you are: if you are someone from a marginalized group, you may find yourself triggered and getting understandably angry at the posts telling you things that you already know and live through. For those who are educating themselves and learning about these issues, you may find yourself feeling guilty for not knowing about it before, and unsure about how to acknowledge the privilege you have and your own problematic behaviors in the past. All of this doesn’t even consider the retaliating posts by trolls or those who either ignore or promote harmful behaviors at the expense of others. Seeing these can heighten emotions even further, most likely leading to anger and wanting to fight back.
Like we discussed with doomscrolling, it’s so easy to stay on your device when things are bad, and when they affect you directly, you may feel like you have to stay on because it concerns you. However, engaging with negative emotions isn’t just bad for your mental health at that moment, but can even affect how you feel and interact with others offline as these feelings linger. So how do you know when to put the device away, or at least change what app you’re on when these feelings occur?
We’ve given several tips already about asking yourself questions about your social media habits and how they make you feel, but during those moments when you can start feeling those intense emotions surface, asking these questions may not be the most accessible thing to do. If you’re itching to fight back to someone’s post or comment or feel yourself physically reacting with something like a clenched fist or chest, the quickest thing you can try doing is just closing the app. By either hitting control-W it on your computer or swiping it away on your phone, immediately withdrawing yourself from the situation can give you some sort of space to breathe. If you’re in a place that’s safe to do so, even just physically letting go of your phone or throwing it (gently) somewhere soft like your bed can get that immediate aggression out. Having accounts or apps that are positive and that make you feel good on hand can also help, and you can switch over to them as well. For example, Instagram allows you to bookmark posts to save in an archive that you can then organize – you could save things you enjoy looking at there and see those instead.
Although things are constantly stressful now, it’s still possible to have some sort of control over just how stressful these things can make you. The way we engage and look at things online is just one step in doing that.
What kind of content have you been seeing online recently? Do you follow positive accounts on your social media platforms? What advice do you have for when you feel yourself getting upset or angry with things online?
As temperatures begin to rise and summer has officially begun, the temptation and need to go outside can feel even higher than usual. You’ve probably seen tons of advice (including on here) about how spending just a few minutes outdoors, especially during quarantine, can have a huge impact on mental health, but right now, the sunlight and summer as a whole can cause some mixed emotions.
Sunlight itself can play a powerful role on our moods. Studies have continuously shown that natural light can help increaseserotonin, which is a chemical in our brains that put us in a good mood. It’s why people are more likely to experience seasonal affective disorder in the winter, when skies are more grey and there’s less sunlight, and why light therapy is often recommended as a result. And as we’ve spent the past few months indoors in the same place, the reduced amount of sunlight we may have otherwise have gotten from waiting at bus stops, being out in parks, and even running errands may have contributed to symptoms similar to SAD.
That’s why it’s incredibly tempting to want to spend more time outdoors now that the sun is flourishing and the days are longer. However, even as places are opening up to take advantage of that, the pandemic is still around and it’s still important to stay inside and socially distance as much as possible. But spending even more time indoors, especially as it continues to be bright and as even more sunlight flourishes throughout the summer, can worsen our mood. Missing out on otherwise normal summer activities can spark feelings of loneliness and nostalgia. For some, the sunlight might not be good for us, but make us sad instead for the things that we long for and miss.
The tips that we and other places have shared about finding ways to spend time outside during quarantine still apply, however. In fact, you can spend even more time outside because of the summertime too! It’s still possible to sit outside if you have a deck or backyard and do some work there, and if you live in an area that has trails or is walkable, putting some headphones in and walking around while listening to a funny podcast or your favorite songs beneath the summer sun can make a huge difference. Summer might be different this year, but that means that this can be an opportunity to find new ways to make it positively memorable by trying outdoor activities that you may not have considered before.
How do you feel about the summer? Are you still looking forward to the warmer weather and longer days? What are plans that you’re looking forward to?
There’s no start date when it comes to mental illness. While depression is often considered to start in adulthood, the truth of the matter is that it can occur at any age. Half of people who experience mental health conditions do so before they’re 14, with 75% doing so before they’re 24.
When you’re a child however, you most likely have no idea that the things you’re experiencing are symptoms of mental illness. Because of things like stigma and a lack of understanding that children can have mental illnesses, these symptoms can be dismissed as a child having a bad attitude, poor parenting, or simply just the child being emotional. It’s not until you’re older that you may have looked back and realized that some of the things you experienced and did as a child were either symptoms or the first few signs of mental illness. These can feel like “aha!” moments in putting the puzzle pieces together in your mental health journey.
The Child Mind Institute is focused on spreading awareness on children’s mental health and providing the tools to help people realize that mental illness can happen to anyone, regardless of age. As a part of their outreach, they have a feature where notable figures and celebrities who have mental illnesses leave short videos to their younger selves (appropriately named #myyoungerself). These include Kristen Bell, who has anxiety and depression, Michael Phelps, who has ADHD, and Emma Stone, who has anxiety and a panic disorder.
They all discuss the mental illness diagnoses they have and when they first noticed that they experienced their symptoms. The messages are often pieces of advice, reassuring their younger selves that it gets better and that what they’re going through is justified. While it’s a message to themselves, it’s also a great way for viewers to recognize that they aren’t alone in their struggles and that even the most successful people struggle too.
What would you tell your younger self about your mental health? Do you think that you had any moments as a child, where looking back, you realize that they may have been the first symptoms of you experiencing depression, anxiety, or something else?
It’s really easy to unintentionally hurt people’s feelings online. We may not even know we’re doing it, and it’s impossible to predict how people who follow us may respond, but everything online is going to cause some sort of reaction, no matter how big or small.
Because of this, we may find ourselves worrying how people, whether specific people or people as a whole, are going to react to the kind of content we post. While thinking about how audiences will respond to social media posts is incredibly common, those with anxiety may experience this worry on another level. This is due to the tendency for those with anxiety to“mind read,”or basing their actions and emotions in response to how they think people are going to react to something they do that hasn’t even happened yet.
Mind-reading can thus lead to more intensive, particularly negative feelings as we go online and look at our profiles and see how we post, or what we plan to post. One of these feelings is guilt, where we may feel bad if we post something that might be taken as controversial, feel that it could be triggering to someone, or make them experience some level of FOMO if you post about hanging out with someone else, even if you don’t know them that well.
If you do find yourself feeling guilty about potentially or after posting something, take the time to ask yourself if there’s anyone specific that you’re worried about upsetting and what your relationship is like with them. Do you talk to them often? Is this someone you care about? What is the item that you’re considering posting that is causing these guilty feelings? If it’s something you care a lot about, but think that it might upset people, you can consider adding trigger or content warnings. Even if the item has already been posted, there’s also nothing wrong with editing it, adding a follow-up post, or even going back to delete it if the guilt feels particularly heavy.
Social media is always hit-or-miss in regards to how people react, including yourself to your own content. It’s important that your profile represents you, but remember that others can see it too, and if that’s going to affect how you post and feel, it’s important to keep these questions in mind.
Have you ever posted something that made you feel guilty after you posted it? What was it about? Do you think certain kinds of posts can cause more negative reactions than others?
Podcasts are everywhere these days, and that’s a good thing! Especially now, when stay-at-home orders are still in place and social distancing is still encouraged, even in places that are opening up, podcasts can provide some sort of substitute for the busy background noise and conversations that you may be used to in your schools, a coffee shop, or large public places like malls. They can be educational and informative, explore topics you never even thought of before, and most of the time, have at least the smallest amount of much-needed humor.
Since today is Juneteenth, we wanted to highlight a few podcasts that focus on Black mental health. Some are hosted by Black therapists with professional experience, while others are hosted by those spreading awareness and sharing their own or other’s experiences.
For those who aren’t Black, we want to invite you to use today to listen to an episode from NPR’s 1A podcast that discusses the collective trauma Black Americans may experience due to past and current events. It doesn’t just give an explanation as to how mental health affects Black Americans differently, but also provides some suggestions about helping with coping.
Do you listen to podcasts? Have you ever listened to an episode or even a whole podcast dedicated to mental health? What benefits do you see in podcasts?
Let’s admit it. It’s so easy to get sucked into our devices and the social media apps inside of them. Even if you feel like you’re not directly interacting with anyone and just refreshing, there’s something about these apps that can make three hours feel like three minutes, despite doing nothing.
This addicting feeling of constantly refreshing and going to the same pages again and again can already affect us negatively, but if there’s a dominant news story or event that’s on everyone’s timelines, feeds, and pages, it’s not just easier to cycle through these apps, but the effects of it on us mentally can be even more severe. If we’re constantly seeing (and seeking) updates to negative news stories and people’s reactions and inputs on them in particular, we can get physically exhausted and our already heightened emotions of anxiety can get even higher.
Yet we can’t stop scrolling. Why is that the case?
Recently, given COVID-19 and its effects on, well, everything, dictionaries have officially coined the term doomscrolling (or doomsurfing, whichever you prefer). It describes our need to continue to scroll and look up information about bad events, even if they make us feel bad in turn. We do so not only because we want to keep up to date on any new information coming out, but because our brains are more inclined to focus on and are more likely to get sucked into bad news instead of good news. Additionally, in a different take on FOMO, we stay on our devices and doomscroll because we’re afraid of missing what could be some sort of pivotal update.
As the name suggests, however, doomscrolling isn’t great for our mental health. Because we already know about the bad event, we may already be feeling nervous, anxious, and even depressed. Continuing to engage with this bad news can send us downspiraling, especially for those who are prone to showing symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. We may be more inclined to believe conspiracy theories, or engage with incorrect and potentially dangerous information because we’re getting exposed to it and want something potentially positive to cling onto.
But social media is already hard to escape, especially during social distancing, so how can you stop doomscrolling? Besides setting specific times to visit your preferred social media platforms, ask yourself about the people and the news organizations you follow and how much you trust them.
Doomscrolling is incredibly easy to fall into, but with some work, it isn’t hard to escape out of it either.
Have you ever doomscrolled? Why do you think it’s so easy to get stuck doomscrolling? How do you tell yourself to get off of social media when there’s bad or depressing news happening?
This week, we wanted to highlight Make It Ok, a website designed to battling the stigma around discussions about mental health and mental illness.
The website offers “dos and don’ts” about how to respond to those opening up about their mental health, videos about harmful language that people should avoid, and a page dedicated to stories where people open up about their experiences with stigma. Make It Ok also has two podcasts – “The Hilarious World of Depression,” where people with depression use humor to talk about their experiences, and the “Tremendous Upside,” where athletes open up about their mental health.
This is just a bit of what the website has to offer, so if you want to explore more, you can do so here.
What has your experience been like with stigma and mental health? How have conversations you had gone with others when you talk about mental health?
If you have been online over the past week, you have likely seen Carrdlinks going around containing masterlists, resources, petitions, donation sites, and information about the Black Lives Matter movement. If you’ve clicked on any of them, you’ll notice how all the information is contained and presented in a way that’s easily accessible and not overwhelming.
The primary one that has been going around, even being referenced by celebrities, is the Black Lives Matters Carrd. We wanted to highlight one the resources that it references, hosted on a separate Carrd: Black Mental Health Matters. Although we included links to other mental health resources last week, this Carrd not only has even more, but contains them in a convenient, easy-to-read place.
How are you doing this week? What other resources have you seen not just about black mental health, but about the Black Lives Matter movement that have helped you?
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