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Mental Health Experts on Social Media

April 2, 2020 in Social Media Guide

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When people talk about social media and its effect on people, it’s almost always negative. Many have mentioned and researched about the effect of social media on mental health: feeling unproductive, worrying about what we said or did online, and experiencing FOMO are just a few of the things that affect us from using social media.

Social media knows this though. Even though those feelings can still be present, many are also using the platforms to spread awareness about their own experiences, and social media sites themselves are promoting content to spread awareness about mental health.

These can be sporadic though. No one has an obligation to constantly and only post about mental health awareness – whether it be specifically about their own or as a whole – and social media platforms may only promote mental well-being when it may feel necessary (think of this month as Mental Health Awareness Month wraps up).

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Most organizations today have social media handles so they can help promote their causes to as many people as possible: those focusing on mental health are no exception. However, experts and doctors are also creating their own social media accounts so they can give direct advice and help about mental health, stigma, and overall spreading awareness and educating about mental health.

One such example is Dr. Jessica Clemons, who has an Instagram account giving tips about tackling stigma and taking care of one’s self, especially in the black community (she even has Beyonce’s approval!). Similar accounts from psychiatrists and doctors educating about mental health include Dr. Vania Manipod and Dr. Lisa Long.

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While it could be easy to assume that medical and professional information can be dry, all of these accounts know how to use social media, engaging it in a way that feels like any other fashion, food, or friend’s account. They can seamlessly fit in into your feed, but can have the opposite, more fulfilling effect than the FOMO, self-consciousness, and unproductivity you might feel from other posts.

Do you follow any doctors or medical professionals on social media? Why do you think following professionals can be helpful, especially those focusing on mental health?

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Expressing and Feeling Grief

April 1, 2020 in COVID-19, Educate Yourself

You may have seen an article from the Harvard Business Review floating around your social media sites recently. If not, this article puts a name to one of the many emotions you’re likely feeling right now as everything has turned upside down: grief.

Grief is a heavy emotion with heavy associations. Grief is for those less frequent, really sad situations, like death. Because of this, it can feel odd, even inappropriate, to think that you’re grieving at first as we continue to self-isolate and cope with COVID-19. As the article states though, people are collectively grieving in some sort of way, and there’s no single type of grief. We’re all affected in some way and have experienced some degree of loss.

There’s, of course, the loss of normalcy and routine. Even if your routine involved going to shifts for a job you don’t care for or getting up way too early in the morning to go to classes, the extreme shift from commuting and moving around to being confined to your home can have you mourning those few moments of fresh air as you walk to a bus stop or commiserating with peers and/or coworkers. You might be grieving significant events that were scheduled, like graduation, prom, or weddings of people who you’re close to, making you miss out on major traditions and milestones. 

The article even brings up anticipatory grief, or the grief we can feel when we get bad news and aren’t sure how things are going to play out or how we’re going to react when that situation finally happens. Some may be feeling this and the uncertainty when all of this is going to be over, or feeling unsafe because they aren’t sure if or when they’ll be directly affected.

So how do we process that grief? Well, there are the commonly known five stages of grief. The last one, acceptance, is the one where we admit this loss has occurred, and instead of just ignoring it or letting it affect us, we remind ourselves that we cannot change anything and life moves on. This isn’t to say that we can’t feel upset or angry, but finding a balance between thinking of the worst things happening and the good things that are still happening can help make this time a little easier. The article gives other suggestions too, like focusing on the things you can control, finding compassion for others as they process their own grief, and focusing on the present moment and the things immediately around you.

It’s easy to feel confused and overwhelmed by the constant changes and uncertainties of just about everything right now. However, naming it (like grief), can be the first step in processing, adjusting, and coping as it continues.

How have you been coping with our current situation as it continues? Have you made any adjustments? What resources are you seeing on your social media platforms from others?

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Transitioning to Therapy Virtually

March 31, 2020 in Educate Yourself

Telehealth isn’t new. With technology advancing and becoming more accessible, telehealth has evolved with it. Having an alternative access to a doctor, therapist, public health professional, or any other kind of medical expert makes a huge difference. This is true for those living in rural areas, those who do not have access to transportation, and those who may be physically impaired.

Telehealth has now had to rapidly become that much more accessible and adapt to higher demand due to most of us being restricted to our homes and having limited healthcare access except for emergencies. This access to care is still important however, whether it be for routine checkups or ailments that may not require going to the ER, but are still necessary to check with your provider. Although it’s not the same as physically being there and getting testing done, something is better than nothing.

It’s also incredibly important to still have access to mental health care. This is needed more now than ever too: there’s another public health crisis paralleling COVID as fears about the pandemic and concerns with self-isolating (on top of other factors) on our psyche continue to grow. Even the transition to where we are today was sudden and quick, which can throw off our minds as we lose our routines and sense of stability.

Therapy is possibly one of the “easier” methods of telehealth since sessions mostly involve talking already. It can still be awkward at first having a video chat with your therapist: you aren’t in the familiar space you usually see them in, but studies have shown that therapy done virtually is just as effective as doing it face-to-face. There are also other benefits, including more flexibility about when you can meet, cost-efficiency (i.e. if you had to pay for parking or public transit to physically get to your therapist), and having the ability to still speak with your therapist if you’re physically sick.

Some may be concerned with meeting online and their privacy being invaded, however. This isn’t uncommon. A major barrier for therapy being done virtually in the past, and even now as it’s becoming the current norm, is that some video software is vulnerable to being stolen. Software like Zoom meets privacy standards, so it’s important to speak with your therapist to see how they want to speak with you. That being said, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have loosened privacy laws so it’s easier to access important mental health resources for the time being.

At the same time though, it can be difficult to meet with your therapist virtually if you’re living at home and/or in an unsafe space and have concerns about who can hear you and what you’re talking about. Both your mental and physical safety should be prioritized, and if these are concerns, it’s important to raise them to your therapist as you transition to a virtual space and routine. 

If you are currently in therapy, have you moved to virtual sessions with your therapist? How have they been going? 

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An App to Consider: Headspace

March 27, 2020 in LINKS

Featured Image Credit: Headspace

Headspace is one of the most popular and well-known apps in the search for mindfulness apps and apps that provide support for mental health (we’ve even covered it before too!). The animations and voices are soft, relaxing, and have varied lengths and topics so you can choose what’s best for you out of convenience and need.

We wanted to bring Headspace back because the need and the downloads on wellbeing and mindfulness apps are rapidly increasing during this time. While not a substitute for therapy (many therapists are also moving their sessions online as telehealth options), these apps can help provide some much needed support and routine and can be used as a way to ground yourself and ease those anxieties and catastrophic thoughts that are almost impossible to avoid.

Headspace, while one of the most popular apps, requires a paid subscription after a 7-day free trial, and can be a reason why some, especially for those where money is tighter, may be hesitant to download it. As demand and need for accessible mental health resources continues to rapidly rise, Headspace has created a page specifically for the current situation and social climate.

Right away, users can access two different 10-minute stress relief sessions and a brief 3-minute session if you’re overwhelmed. There are also specifically designed sessions for those working from home. Headspace is also now free for those on the frontlines and working in healthcare as well as teachers and educators as schools have closed down for the foreseeable future.

Creating a Headspace account now allows access to something called “Weathering the Storm,” which has tons of free content to help meditate, get better sleep, and get some movement. Finding opportunities where you can to get some breathing room and a place to briefly escape the anxious events and thoughts externally and internally is more important now than ever, and Headspace is one way of doing that.

Are you using any apps as you socially distance? Have you considered downloading a mindfulness app if you’ve never used one before because of the current situation? How are you coping during social distancing?

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Using Social Media to Mimic Face-To-Face Communication

March 26, 2020 in Social Media Guide

Everyone’s self-isolation and social distancing situations are different right now. You may be trying to navigate being around your roommates all the time, no matter how big or small your rented space is. You might be living at home with your family, possibly for the first time in months, even years. Your roommate might be a romantic partner, or you may be living completely by yourself.

Regardless of your living situations, you might be missing people in your life that you’re used to seeing frequently, but have abruptly stopped. They can be coworkers or classmates, but they might be people you use as a support system, whose presence can calm you and who are people you rely on and seek advice from. 

Social media, of course, makes communicating with people significantly easier, which is especially helpful for those who have support systems who are already distant. However, for those who have support systems or people close to them who they see frequently in-person, the change to only communicating with them virtually can be stressful, even if they were talking to them both in-person and virtually before.

The need for face-to-face communication is more important now than ever, particularly for those who are away from their support system, living alone, or living with others who can heighten anxiety and depressive symptoms. Texting can help, but having that visual reassurance can be even more powerful.

There has been a lot of research and discourse surrounding the effects of texting versus face-to-face communication, with evidence showing that despite the normalcy of texting and online communication, face-to-face interactions are more beneficial for your mental health.

With all this being said, face-to-face communication doesn’t have to be done physically. If you work or are in college, you may have already experienced Zoom meetings, and if you have a Mac product, you have more than likely used FaceTime before. There’s Skype, video messaging on Facebook, and Google Hangouts. Whatever it may be, video chatting can help recreate that face-to-face communicate many, if not all of us, are missing in some way, and may even need. Being able to see people that mean a lot to us and hearing their voice still gives us their presence in some way that texting can miss. 

While it may not have the same effect of physically having people around you (for example, you may be an affectionate person or may thrive off of tons of people surrounding you), physically seeing or hearing loved ones can have significant effects on you mentally. You can also try to recreate activities that you do with loved ones or your support system: you can all order delivery from a similar restaurant (support local places too!) and eat together, watch the same TV show at the same time, or even just sit in silence on video together as you work on homework or scroll on your phones. 

Whatever it is, hopefully you can find a way to keep your close ones around if they’re not there physically. Support and unity through all of this can have a major effect on how we feel, especially as we try to find normalcy and try to maintain as much of our old routines as possible.

Have you been able to maintain contact with loved ones who you aren’t quarantined with? Have you tried video chatting? If so, do you think it makes a difference?

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Finding an Escape

March 20, 2020 in LINKS

When things in real life feel overwhelming, one of the first things that we likely want to do is find an escape. It could be as idealistic as taking a vacation or as simple as going for a walk. However, activities to help us get out of our heads can be easier said than done, especially if depressive episodes or anxiety attacks make even the seemingly easiest of tasks feel impossible.

When it feels like all you can do is go on your phone and mindlessly scroll as a coping mechanism, you can still get an escape so you don’t slip into going onto websites and social media platforms that can continue to overwhelm and stress you out. If you’ve ever played a game Animal Crossing or The Sims, you may already know how games where you build communities and improve an avatar’s life can help you get out of your own head for a little bit and focus on a virtual character’s.

Apps like Oasis and Adorable Home help provide a similar kind of escape and refuge. While Oasis is based in nature and Adorable Home is more domestic, they both share an idealistic, calming escape where you can spend a good amount of time growing a space and making it beautiful with little to no stress attached. 

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Oasis helps you build, unsurprisingly, an oasis where you can collect animals (and accessories for the animals!) and complete small, stress-free activities to help your oasis thrive. These activities are as easy as repeating three-note songs and continuously tapping the screen to gain hearts. It’s purposefully designed as an anxiety relief activity; for example, there’s constant light, soft music playing in the background. Adorable Home, on the other hand, helps you build a home with your partner, and in order to do so, has you collecting cats and completing quick activities with them to gain points. 

Both are free and are Android and Apple friendly, though both come with ads that may briefly take you out of that relaxing state.

Do you play any similar games? What other kinds of games do you play to help you cope with stress or take you out of real life for a little bit? How do they make you feel?

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Monitoring Your Mental Health when Consuming Negative News

March 19, 2020 in Social Media Guide

Because of constant news coverage and social media, it’s hard to miss pretty much anything that’s happening in the world. This is accessible the second you turn on the TV and go to a news station or when you log on and see a retweet with an article link. Some of these can be silly and fun, while some can be more serious. And lately, it feels like the news has veered to more serious, more negative territory.

Focusing on and putting more weight on negative events and situations is a very human thing to do, known as a negativity bias. So it’s no surprise that every type of media – traditional, news, and social – is more likely to cover these type of events. Sometimes, it’s needed, but other times, negative events can be exaggerated or highlighted because news outlets and social media accounts know that people are more likely to pay attention to negativity, so focusing on them attracts more viewers and reactions.

All this negativity has its side effects too. Studies have found that overconsumption of the news has had effects on mental health, including fatigue, loss of sleep, and anxiety. It can intensify worries in everyday life, and can increase feelings of hopelessness, no matter if the news directly affects us or not.

And lately, between all the ways that we can access news and what’s happening in the news, it feels like negativity is around us more than ever, which in turn, can intensify symptoms of depression and anxiety. While we won’t get into too much detail about it, the coronavirus pandemic is the biggest example of something negative, and terrifying, and everywhere. Although it’s a physical illness, there’s growing concern over the mental effects simply reading about the illness can cause. Encountering retweets, push notifications, and even memes about the situation feel almost inevitable, overwhelming, and terrifying. Those who already exhibit anxious symptoms may feel triggered to even higher levels too.

So is there a balance between staying informed and managing your mental health? Fortunately, official organizations like The Center for Disease Control and The World Health Organization are also keeping mental health in consideration along with monitoring symptoms of the actual virus and have offered tips on how to check in with yourself. These include taking breaks from media coverage, finding and talking to a support system, and doing body checks to see how you’re feeling. NAMI also has some suggestions regarding access to mental health services when self-isolation is recommended during this time, such as therapy and getting medication.

Things can feel scary right now, and the amount of news we are exposed to, whether we like it or not, most likely doesn’t help. Continue to check in with yourself and others, and remember that your mental health is just as important as your physical health.

How much do you see news information on your social media feeds? How does it make you feel? What steps do you do to avoid feeling overwhelmed or stressed about the news?

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Conducting a Body Scan

March 18, 2020 in Educate Yourself

If you attend therapy or have delved into any sort of mindfulness practice, you may have heard of something called a body scan. If not, it’s exactly what it sounds like (though probably a little less medically intensive).

Think of it like taking a mental x-ray of your body when you feel like something feels off and you want to find the source of something that may be affecting you mentally. While mental health, of course, is concentrated in the mind, it can physically affect other parts of your body as well. Body scans give you the opportunity to pinpoint and focus on the pains in your chest, your shaking hands, or the headaches that might result when facing depression and anxiety.

While the timing of it can vary and seem long and daunting (some guided body scans can last anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes), there are ways to complete a quick body scan for just a few minutes. These can be particularly useful when you’re experiencing more heightened symptoms and emotions and need to ground yourself.

So how is it done? First, find a place where you can focus on yourself for a brief period of time. It can be sitting on your couch, in a chair, lying on a yoga mat, or even standing up if you’re able. Focus on the parts of your body that are in contact with something (like your back to the mat, or your feet to the floor). Use this time to center yourself and put your attention on the body scan.

Most, if not all, body scans have you take a tour of the body. Going from top down, focus on as many individual parts of your body as possible – your forehead, neck, hands, stomach, and so on. How do they feel? Is there tension? Pay attention to how they feel; can you feel the air on the back of your hands? Or the way your shirt is resting on your arm? After you focus on one part of the body, let that fade as you move onto the next part.

Of course, this is just a brief primer into how body scans are done. The links above go into more detail if you want to learn more or want to try doing body scans. Overall, they’re a great way to check in on yourself, especially in times when you feel extra moments of stress, anxiety, and/or worry.

Have you ever conducted a body scan? Is there anything you do to ground yourself, or try to ground yourself, during moments of heightened emotion and/or stress? Share your experiences in the comments!

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Weekend Reads: What is Hysteria?

March 6, 2020 in LINKS

March is Women’s History Month, with Sunday specifically being International Women’s Day. This is to pay tribute to and learn more about women and the history of women’s rights, as well as honor the movements that women are participating in today to make the world a better place in the future. Regardless of race, sexuality, class, and socioeconomic status, women have made great strides and efforts to do more with the opportunities they’ve had available to them.

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Women’s history has been, and continues to be, faced with many obstacles and battles. This includes mental health and how women’s emotions were perceived and dismissed by others around them. The most common instance of this is through the “hysteria” diagnosis during the Victorian era (although it dates back to ancient Egyptian and Greek times too – the word comes from the Greek word hystera meaning womb). Those who were biologically female were almost always the ones being diagnosed with the disease. The medical field was dominated by men, and if they were unsure what was wrong with a female patient or found them to be “mysterious,” they were diagnosed with hysteria. If a woman seemed to experience symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses today, science back then claimed that it was because of something wrong in their womb.

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Though the hysteria diagnosis was removed from the DSM in 1980, it’s still worth learning more about its history and the stigma against women’s mental health. Although mental illness is often more associated with women and they are more likely to develop depression and PTSD (especially in adolescents), there is still a long way to go in the discussion of women and how to approach and treat their mental health.

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The stories below approach women and hysteria in different ways. The first gives an overview about the direct effects of the hysteria diagnosis on women in the Victorian Era, especially once they were given treatment through psychiatry (which often included institutionalization). The second explains how hysteria was an upper class white woman’s disease, and while they received treatment, women of color who had similar “symptoms” were often used as tools of experimentation. The final article talks about women’s mental health today and the issues with them – while fewer people today call women hysterical when they show emotion – mental illness in women was, and still is romanticized, dating the reasons for this back to when “hysteria” was at its peak.

How Victorian Women Were Oppressed Through the Use of Psychiatry (The Atlantic)
The Racialized History of “Hysteria” (Jstor Daily)
What Our Obsession with Tragic, Beautiful, Mentally Ill Women Says About Us (Vice)

How do you think girls and their mental health is handled today? Why do you think people were so dismissive about their mental health in the past? How has your mental health been perceived based off of your gender?

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Getting Better Sleep without FOMO

March 5, 2020 in Social Media Guide

Quite often, the first piece of advice we receive when trying to change our sleeping habits and to get a better night’s sleep is to put our phone (and all other types of screens and technology) away. Experts recommend that adolescents get at least 8-10 hours of sleep a night, and to ensure staying asleep, to avoid screen time at least 30 minutes to 1 hour before you plan to call it a night.

There are plenty of reasons to explain why you should avoid your phone, computer, tablets, and TVs before bed: the bright light keeps you alert and makes you less tired (but more tired in the morning), REM sleep (where memories are processed and has ties to problem-solving skills) is decreased, and of course, using screens delays sleep as a whole because you’re engaging with content in some way.

But like all habits, distancing yourself from your phone before bed is easier said than done. For a generation of youths that communicate online as much as, if not more, communicating face-to-face, putting phones away, along with the conversations, social media platforms, and friends that come with it, can be nerve wracking. 

We’ve talked about FOMO and social media breaks before. Because technology and social media is so crucial to how many youths communicate today, it’s easy to feel like anything could happen and that you can miss something important without your phone for just a few seconds, an hour before sleeping, and even longer than that. Not having your phone charging next to you means that you might miss a conversation in a group chat, an email, or even a notification about something you don’t care about at all. The excitement of social media, regardless of what the content is, and just the fact that there is always content to see, makes us want to stay on and makes us afraid that we’ll miss something important, even if it’s most likely not.

If you’re trying to get a better night’s sleep but are having a hard time parting from your phone to do so, just know that all that content will also be there in the morning. Most of the time, there isn’t anything groundbreaking that requires us to stay up expecting an alert at 1AM. Putting your phone away right before bed can also be the first step to take if you want to distance yourself from how much you use and rely on social media as a whole.

If anything, keeping your phone away may make it easier to get out of bed! If you use your phone for your alarm and have it far away from you, you have to get out of it to turn it off, instead of pressing snooze a bunch of times and/or staying in bed scrolling aimlessly on your phone, just like you did the night before, giving you a less groggy and grumpy start to the day.

Do you have trouble sleeping at night? Where do you keep your phone when you’re getting ready for bed? Have you ever considered keeping your phone away before bed? If you have, or do keep it away, has it made any difference in your sleep?

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