Supporting Our Valued Adolescents: A place to learn, share your strength, be positive, and grow.
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.
Something I realized as I was staying home more and more during the pandemic was that I was constantly on my phone. My addiction to my phone started before the pandemic when I was still in in-person school. I was away from my family and hanging out with friends felt like a chore. Therefore, I spent every spare minute of my time on my phone and the Internet became a place where I could relax and stop thinking negative thoughts for a moment.
Music is a part of the human psyche. Cavemen banged together stones rhythmically and vocalized. Music has evolved a lot since then and is constantly evolving.
Stress and anxiety are terms we hear a lot in our daily lives, especially while living through such extreme circumstances, like the current pandemic, but how often do we see these topics broken down in a helpful way? In a 30-minute talk presented by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Dr. Krystal Lewis, a licensed clinical psychologist, explains where stress and anxiety come from and some coping strategies.
We all have things that we turn to when we need to improve our mood. Many also have things to turn to when depressive and anxiety symptoms start to surface.
One of my biggest coping skills is practicing one of my endless hobbies. Whenever I feel like my feelings are going to swallow me whole, I try to use a hobby to channel that energy. This is where it helps to have multiple hobbies.
You don’t need me to tell you that this year has been a very stressful time. With the year coming to a close, I want to take the opportunity to find some techniques that will help me take a step back and work on relaxing and be more mindful. If you ever feel like you are getting stressed or overwhelmed, try one of these activities and see how it can help!
Given the past year and the ongoing conversations about how important self-care is, you might be considering more ways to explore and include coping mechanisms that really help you. This can be the predictable ones like exercising more, incorporating more meditation practices, and journaling and writing things down, and you may have added a bunch of relevant items in your online shopping carts to help support these goals.
For anyone who needs to hear this: you are not alone. It’s hard for a lot of people to know that, especially when their mind convinces them otherwise, and if you fall under that spell, do me a favor and read the first sentence again. And again. And as many times as you need until you can feel all of us from SOVA right next to you. We may all be anonymous, but we’re here together to support each other.
Memes, quite honestly, can be a great coping mechanism. Using humor as a way to deal with terrible things going on allow us to find some sort of happiness among the sea of bad, and using humor and memes online can help disrupt doomscrolling. Many have found that memes can serve as a bonding activity in a way, allowing all of us who have been affected by negative things to share a laugh and make us feel less alone.
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