SOVA Blog

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How Social Media Can Provide Resources for Mental Health Information

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.

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Right After a Diagnosis

“You take Tylenol when your head hurts. You take those pills to stop your tummy from hurting when you eat ice cream. How is it different to take medication to make you feel better when you’re down?” My boyfriend said this to me today after I told him about the conversation that I had with a school psychiatrist.

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Sorry that I Say Sorry Too Much

Something that has come from my anxiety and affected my life greatly is my tendency to apologize too much, even in situations that do not warrant an apology. I did not realize that I was excessively doing this until my family and a significant other pointed it out to me. The significant other said that it seemed as if I was weak and self-conscious if I kept apologizing for everything. This was a huge wake-up call to me. It made me take a step back and look at the root of the issue.

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Slow down and smell the roses

Three years ago I would have laughed at the idea that aromatherapy could help me. I thought it was a scam, a waste of money, and that it would only work if you believed it would (the placebo effect). And maybe it is, but I am now grateful for aromatherapy. I still know little about it scientifically, but what is important to me is that after a long day, when I get home, sometimes it is difficult to relax. It can be difficult to leave the stress of school and/or work especially in today’s world where work is so intermixed in some people’s homes. With working full or even part time remotely, it can be challenging to know when to quit or learn how to separate work and life.

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Practicing Radical Self-Care

Self-care has become a term that always pops up when talking about mental health and wellness. The most common image is that of meditating, taking a bath, or doing a face mask. And while this is great, self-care is so much more than that. While these moments of nurture are helpful, self-care is a radical act for many as they learn to put their needs, emotions, and well-being first.

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Grappling With Anxiety – What I Have Learned

Anxiety often feels like a battle between your mind and your heart. Your mind is telling you to “stop worrying, stop worrying, stop worrying,” while your heart continues to beat faster and faster, as if it welcomes the worry. I used to try and always deny the anxiety I would feel, whether it was during a performance, or before presenting to a class, or the anxiety I get when socializing. But I came to realize that denying your anxiety only makes it worse, causing it to fester and swell into what feels like a little green anxiety monster living inside of you. It’s not something you can continually repress or shoo away.

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Ups and Downs

22 more weeks and I’ll graduate with another degree. It seems so close and so far away at the same time. I wish I could be more excited for what’s to come, but right now I just feel anxious. A list of things that make me anxious are paying for my student loans, finding a job, making enough money, managing my family relationships, feeling incompetent, not feeling good enough to do anything right, and so on.

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Starting Your Day on the Sunny Side

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affects a lot of people, usually in the winter. There are a handful of tips and tricks to help manage this form of depression. An example is to increase Vitamin D intake. The best and cheapest form of Vitamin D is sunlight.

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Coping with Burnout

Stories describing the amount of pressure young people face beginning at a young age have been around for a while. As the pressures get stronger and increase in number, however, it affects younger generations more and more. This week, we want to feature a couple of accounts of young people describing the pressures they face and the issues that burnout has been having on them.