SOVA Blog

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A Good Stretch

January 31, 2020 in LINKS

Stretching your body is a good thing. It’s highly recommended, especially if you’re active. Even if you aren’t, there are still health benefits to even the slightest movements with the body, especially mentally. While stretching is often something that experts insist on doing before exercising to prevent injury, you can try adapting that for your own lifestyle, such as stretching in the morning to help wake up and improve your mood before starting the day.

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There are obviously a lot of ways to stretch and move your body, but if you want some guidance, we’ve included a couple of apps below that you can use as a reference or as a coach to instruct you:

While you can’t do so literally, you can also stretch your mind as well. Mental illness can affect memory, especially working memory, and depressive thoughts can disrupt your ability to remember information as you’re learning it. Although it’s not a cure, taking some time out of your day to stretch your mind and do a couple of rounds of brain games can help improve your overall memory, and because they involve solving a problem, may even be a good source for relaxing and stress relief.

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Just like the physical stretching, here are a few options for apps that have games that require a little bit of problem solving and thinking:

Do you incorporate either mental or physical stretching in your routine now? Have you ever tried playing brain games or anything like pilates or stretching to help relax? Let us know if you have any recommendations!

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When Should You Block Someone?

January 30, 2020 in Social Media Guide

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?

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Finding a Therapist Who Relates to You

January 24, 2020 in LINKS

The mental health profession, unfortunately, lacks diversity. The American Psychological Association found that 86% of practitioners are white, with other races making up less than 5% each. In a nation that continues to not just get more diverse, but is also becoming more open in talking about mental health, it’s important for people of color to not just find, but have access to therapists who look like them (you can read more about the topic here).

But just because there aren’t that many therapists of color doesn’t mean that none exist whatsoever. Ayana was designed for this purpose. Founded by Eric Coly, Ayana will be an app that allows minorities to get matched with therapists based on the latter’s experiences and identities. Ayana is not just limited to racially diverse therapists too, planning on covering therapists’ experiences and identities based on sexual orientation, class, gender identity, and ability. And because it can be hard to even have access to any therapist who seems like the best fit for you, Ayana gives the option for texting, calling, and video calling and addresses transportation, mobility, and scheduling challenges for those seeking help. 

Ayana is planning on going fully live sometime early this year. We wanted to give you a chance to put this on your radar if you’re a minority and feel that finding a therapist that shares your identities and relates to your culture is best for you. 

Are you a minority? Do you consider your identity when looking, or when you were looking for a therapist? How do you think having a therapist who relates to your experiences can help you?

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Helping Online Friends

January 23, 2020 in Social Media Guide

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Although social media as an effect on how we don’t communicate as frequently face-to-face and in real life, this doesn’t mean that friendships are dwindling. The Internet has made the world feel smaller, and in just seconds, you can meet peers around the world who share interests or have the same concerns that you do, and the more you talk, the more you realize that you may have more in common and that they can be a great means of support.

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Safety is a top priority, and it’s still important to remember to be cautious when talking to those that you don’t know online. Once that trust is obtained and you know that the person is who they say they are, friendships online can be really valuable. A report in 2015 showed that 57% of adolescents have made at least one friendship online, and as recently as last year, consider online forums and groups as an important part of their social lives.

Even though it’s difficult, if not impossible, to meet them face-to-face, online friendships are still relationships, possibly even more important to some people if their lives at home aren’t under the best conditions. Friendships online provide a layer of confidentiality, but they can also be harder to interpret, since most of the communication is done over text.

The communication with online friendships is a double-edged sword when it comes to talking about mental health in particular. On one hand, it can help people have a space where they can be completely open and prevent the bursts that can happen when you bottle up your emotions. On the other hand, adolescents with depression may feel that when online friends oversharing can be irritating, or even triggering.

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At the end of the day though, a lot of people have a strong desire to help others, especially those that they are close to and care about, and especially when the content being posted is concerning.

There are ways of trying to start a conversation with someone you know and are concerned about, but they may feel more appropriate to do face-to-face. It’s still possible to reach out to those you don’t see face-to-face, but are still really concerned about, even if you can’t physically be there. There are a list of suggestions about how to do this online, which includes not to worry about intervening or “invading,” addressing the person privately over a DM, and if you’re really concerned, report the post to the social media site (places like Twitter and Facebook have options where you can report content out of concern that the person is in danger).

Friendships and relationships can be found anywhere, and you should never feel guilty if the people you love and care about seem like they’re in danger and you want to reach out and see if they’re okay. That being said, you also have to do what’s safest for you too, and if you don’t want to overburden yourself or feel like you have to take on all the responsibility for them. Ultimately, communication and self-reflection are key.

Do you have friends that you’ve made online? How are they different than the ones that you know from those in real life? Have you ever reached out to them if they were struggling with something? How did you notice and what did you do?

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What is YST?

January 21, 2020 in Educate Yourself

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One of the best ways to deal with mental health issues is to talk about them. Starting a conversation can be hard, but being able to talk about your feelings can help you to understand and work through them. Additionally, once you’ve shared your feelings with someone else, you potentially have someone you can rely on for social support. Research suggests that this social support is important: a recent study found that the Youth-Nominated Support Team Intervention for Suicidal Adolescents – Version II (YST) might be associated with reduced mortality.

YST is a psychoeducational, social support intervention specifically for adolescents with suicidal ideation or attempts after psychiatric hospitalization. Adolescents are asked to nominate a couple of adults in their lives who they consider to be caring and will support them. A YST specialist then meets with the nominated adults to teach them about the adolescent’s psychopathology, treatment plans, and ways they can support the adolescent. The caring adult has their regular contact with the adolescent, with the YST specialist’s support, over the course of the next 3 months. The goal of the intervention is to provide the adolescent with social support during their recovery process.

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In a study conducted on 448 adolescents between the ages of 13-17, participants were divided into two groups: those who received treatment as usual (TAU) and those who received TAU + YST. They found that adolescents in the YST group were more likely to participate in some type of outpatient alcohol or drug treatment, attended more outpatient psychotherapy groups sessions, and medication follow-up sessions. In the 10 years after the study was conducted, one adolescent in the YST group and three in the TAU group committed suicide. This suggests that YST might be associated with positive youth trajectories and reduced mortality. It is important to note that while there is an association between YST and positive youth trajectories and reduced mortality, more research is needed to be able to make causal claims.

While this study still needs more follow-up, research indicating that interventions are having a positive effect on suicidal adolescents is extremely encouraging. Since 2000, suicide rates among have increased by 28%, which also includes higher rates in adolescents. Knowing that research is getting a couple steps closer to finding an intervention that helps suicidal adolescents go through their daily lives after hospitalization creates hope for future.

What do you think about YST? Have you ever tried something similar? Do you confide in a caring adult in your life?

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An App to Consider: Happify

January 17, 2020 in LINKS

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There are a ton of apps available that center around mental health and well-being (and we’ve definitely talked about a few of them before), but Happify takes on a collaborative approach. The app was designed by scientists, researchers, healthcare clinicians, and digital and gaming experts to make something beneficial, evidence-based, and enjoyable.

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Here’s how it works: you complete a few activities each week, and every couple of weeks, you answer a couple of questions to see how your “overall happiness,” “positive emotion,” and “life satisfaction” stand (they’re all scored out of 100). The researchers recommend that users complete eight activities a week, which include things like games to “conquer negative thoughts” and gratitude prompts. By doing these, your happiness scores should improve with time, and this is something that you can track on the app too.

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If you want to learn more about the science and efficiency of the app, there have a few papers on their site that have been published based on research at the University of Pennsylvania, Vassar College, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Happify is free and available on both the App Store and Google Play, but if you want to unlock all the features, there is a subscription that you can get based on a monthly, 6-month, and yearly basis.

Do you use any well-being apps or anything to monitor your mental health? Do you think these would be useful?

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How Social Media Can Provide Resources for Mental Health Information

January 16, 2020 in Social Media Guide

We use the Internet to learn about, essentially, everything. All it takes is opening up the browser app of your choice or opening up a new tab, googling whatever you’re interested in, and immediately getting hundreds upon thousands upon millions of results. This can be, without a doubt, overwhelming. There’s so much information to parse through and consider, and sometimes, you may find yourself going to social media sites you’re comfortable and familiar with and do the research there.

Using the Internet to learn more about mental health is no exception to this research process, especially for youths. In a generation that is almost entirely online and at an age where symptoms of depression and anxiety are likely to start to surface, it’s no surprise that 90% of teens and young adults who show more intense symptoms of depression have turned to the Internet to learn more about mental health. The tools they turn to can range from using apps focused on well-being, using chat features to connect with professionals, and listening to podcasts.

However, youths are vocal about which tools are more useful than others. Most notably, they’re not as likely to call hotlines, and the percentages of those who use the Internet to connect to a health professional are lower than alternative methods. In fact, they are likely to be on the social media platforms they’re already using for everything else when they’re online. While youths use social media to primarily vent and have someone they can trust and have access to when experiencing mental health issues, social media might be able to help them learn about mental health by having that same trustworthy person give them sites and professionals they’ve spoken to, or they may be able to find professionally run accounts who use social media as a means of educating followers about mental health. 

This isn’t to suggest that using social media is the best option to do research on mental health and that it will provide the most accurate information. It’s important to get as much professional knowledge as possible if you can (our links category has some options you can consider looking further into), and those with more severe depressive symptoms are more likely to feel left out when online, but what social media can help with is not just reading and hearing about others’ experiences, but being able to connect to and talk with them.

Has social media helped you in learning about mental health? Have you talked to anyone online about your mental health or their mental health? What resources online have you used to learn about mental health?

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Compassion Fatigue

January 14, 2020 in Educate Yourself

Sometimes, and sometimes more often than not, the world can feel like a scary place. Younger generations have a more negative outlook on the state of the world and about what they’re able to achieve.

At the same time, younger generations have also been found to be incredibly compassionate: 92% of Gen Z’s in a survey stated that helping others is important, and about 3 in 4 of them are worried about inequality.

This negative outlook on the world and the higher levels of compassion play hand in hand. The internet, social media, and general media constantly giving us real-time news 24/7 has not only made us aware of what’s going on in the world, but what we can do to help and spread awareness. And there’s a lot to spread awareness about, from violations of human rights to natural disasters to various diseases. There’s a constant stream of information being fed to us about what’s wrong, why we need to fix it, how we can fix, and millions of places to donate to. 

And while it’s good to get the word out about issues going on around the world and make it so that the average person can have some impact on changing those problems, the average person can’t solve and help with everything. It can get overwhelming to put effort into just one cause, and keeping up to date about every single issue, whether you want to or not can take it to another level. At some point, you may feel yourself getting apathetic, thinking “what’s the point if nothing’s going to change?” or feeling depressed or anxious about how terrible things are and how other people are suffering. You may start prioritizing others or feeling guilty when things are happening to you, because they’re not as bad as other people have it. The feeling is not unlike that of burnout, when so much is happening at once that your mind and body feel like they’re shutting down.

This phenomenon is called compassion fatigue. It’s wanting to help others but through that, sharing and feeling their pain and putting pressure on one’s self to make sure they’re doing the right thing. It’s often seen and has been studied among healthcare professionals and activists, but anyone can experience it given the state of the 24-hour news cycle and social media.

Because of their higher levels of compassion, the issues happening today, and the impact they’ll have on younger generations, it’s no surprise that these same activists who may be prone to compassion fatigue and burnout are gettingyounger. At an age where they’re already prone to showing mental illness symptoms and coping with stressors like school and navigating their independence, it’s possible that adolescents can feel compassion fatigue quicker and an intense level on top of everything else that they’re facing developmentally.

If you feel like you’re experiencing compassion fatigue or are just simply overwhelmed and tired of feeling like you want to do something but can’t, it’s important to remember that these burdens are not only yours to carry. It’s impossible to care about every single issue ever at once, and at a young age, you shouldn’t be expected to be the champion and the voice responsible for a cause. The world can be a scary place, but you’re still a part of it, and caring about the issues of others shouldn’t negate or lessen caring about yourself.

Are there any causes that you’re passionate about? Do you do anything as a way of getting involved? Have you ever experienced burnout or compassion fatigue, and if so, do you have any coping mechanisms you want to try or have tried?

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Using Books to Learn and Cope with Mental Illness

January 10, 2020 in LINKS

Maybe you’re a bookworm. Maybe you have “reading more” as one of your New Year resolutions. Maybe you read as a hobby and use it as a form of stress relief when you need a break from school and/or work. Whatever the reason, you may be on the lookout for something new to read.

Everyone reads for their own personal reasons – some use it as a complete distraction from the world while others use it as a way to learn more about the world. Some use it as a way to learn more about themselves, like through self-help books and other nonfiction works. Fictional novels can also serve the same purpose, where reading and finding characters that you relate to can help you understand yourself better. You may even find characters that you want to be more like.

The practice of finding, reading, and using books with content that can relate to you and help you understand yourself better, grow, and cope without having to focus just on yourself is known as bibliotherapy. If you’re not ready to specifically talk about your own experiences in issues that may be taking their toll on you, reading books about characters who look like you and/or go through similar experiences can help you use their thoughts, actions, and stories as a way to untangle your own thoughts a little more. It can even help you open up more to others because the characters may have given you a way to put words to what you’re going through.

As discussions about mental health and mental illness has increased, the amount of content about it has increased as well, including in novels about the topic. Everyone’s tastes are different, but we wanted to highlight a few lists highlighting YA books that have mental illness involved in some way, whether minimal or as part of the core plot. Although there is some overlap between the lists, all of them feature a variety of topics involved in mental health, including suicide, depression, phobias, anxiety, PTSD, and grief.

We hope that you can find one that either interests you or relates to you in some way. If you decide to read any of them, we invite you to write a review about how you felt about the book, if you related to it, and how you think the story depicted mental illness.

What’s your favorite book? Have you ever read a book that involved mental illness in some way? How do you think the author did in depicting it? What topics do you want to see covered more in books, especially those targeted for young adults?

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Youths, Adults, and Conceptions about Social Media

January 9, 2020 in Social Media Guide

Look online and you’re likely going to find guides upon tips upon warnings about how adolescents use social media and how parents should monitor and be cautious about their children’s’ activity online – with almost all of them being written by adults. The opposite is less likely to occur, where these same adolescents can openly express what they wish adults and parents knew about their social media use.

However, adolescent voices, naturally, are out there online. And they’re making their opinions known about what they wish their parents, and other adults, knew about social media. Anyone, regardless of age, is on the Internet and social media in some capacity, but it’s an accepted fact that teens, adolescents, and young adults dominate the space (Gen Z is often regarded as the first generation to grow up not knowing a world without the Internet and social media, for example). Those who didn’t grow up with the Internet understandably may have some fears about what youths, especially their children, might be exposed to. Think of the classic case where adults have the fear that kids are talking to an old creepy man posing as someone their age. Without consulting these young demographics however, the negatives can be emphasized more so than the positives, including the prevalence and emphasis of cyberbullying, sexting, exposure to inappropriate content, and narcissism.

But here’s what some adolescents wish that adults knew about how they use social media:

In one essay, a high school senior defended her generation’s use of social media, explaining that it’s a space to shape their sense of self and find communities that will accept them. For them, selfies aren’t necessarily narcissistic, but self-portraits and a way to express creativity – adults have to “reimagine” selfies as a meaningful mode of self-representation and see them beyond the stereotypes they hold.

Another interview with various middle and high school students about what they wish their parents knew had them explaining that social media is a place for them to express their more extreme emotions, like anger and passion, and having a community to listen to them during those moments is reassuring.

Other things mentioned included having fake accounts beyond just their public profiles, social media being a place to practice creativity through outlets such as creative writing. Ultimately though, it seems that youths really want adults to know that social media is a place where they can be themselves and find those who are similar to them and experience the same thing to make them feel a little less alone.

This isn’t to say that adolescents see social media as perfect though. They’re aware that it can be addicting, they and their peers spend a lot of time on it, and it can feel incredibly shallow. Ultimately, adults should be aware that social media isn’t going to go away, it’s a part of life, and there’s a balance to be found. In order to have that conversation with their kids, however, it’s mostly important, according to youths, to not be awkward about it. 

What do you wish your parents knew about how you and/or people your age use social media? Do you think your own social media habits are reflective of the stereotypes often depicted by older generations?

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