Positive self-talk can be an effective tool to boost your mood. Be kind and gentle to yourself!
Instead of checking our phones at red lights or in grocery lines, we can choose to use that time to give ourselves positive thoughts. Here are some mantras to use for those meditative moments:
Have you heard of Calm.com? It’s a collection of relaxation and meditation tools, some of which are free and some of which are accessed through subscription.
Just landing on the homepage lets you listen to gorgeous sounds of running water and birds—designed to help you close your eyes and take a refreshing 10-minute break in your stressful day.
They have a free smartphone app, and it’s great! One of the things we really like about the app …
Earlier this week we wrote about traditional self-injury behaviors that adolescents engage in, such as burning and cutting. These behaviors are identifiable because they usually leave visible marks on the body. However, as technology advances and more teenagers engage in online activities, a new form of self-harm behavior has emerged: digital self-harm.
Digital self-harm can take on many forms similarly to traditional self-harm.
Adolescents compulsively send themselves hurtful digital messages and disclose demeaning information about themselves online. One result?—peers respond by posting negative comments/messages about the original posters.
A new study found that 6% of the teenagers aged 12-17 in the US engaged in digital self-harm.
This is a personal story of recovery written by a young SOVA blogging ambassador.
Does your depression ever make you feel overly motivated instead of unmotivated? If so, then you are not alone. When many people hear the word “depression,” an image comes to mind of a person by themselves—typically staying in bed and being inactive. The reality is, depression is multifaceted. If you are currently talking to a therapist and have not discussed the different ways in which your depression manifests, I highly encourage it because you may learn things about your depression that you did not know previously.
In my experience, I have had the types of days when I was not motivated to leave my room and felt depression actually weighing me down. However, I also would have other days that my therapist told me were fueled by “OCD-like tendencies”—my therapist said this also was an effect of my depression.
This came as a surprise to me. I was not diagnosed with OCD, but my therapist explained that she thought I did enter that mindset sometimes. During these days, I would spend hours cleaning my room, throwing out things I needed, making sure nothing was on the floor of the house, and feeling like I had unlimited energy. When I was in those moments, I would feel productive, but it was only after the spells ended that I realized it was an unhealthy compulsion.
If you can relate to this experience, your depression may also manifest itself as an OCD-tendency state. My therapist explained to me this was my mind’s way of distracting myself from my thoughts and sadness. Instead of lying down and letting the depression hit me, I was fighting it off obsessively through my actions. But it didn’t work: the more I fervently cleaned and threw away, the more depressed I was becoming.
How can you manage this compulsive behavior?
Trigger Warning: Self Harm
This is a personal story of recovery that was shared with a SOVA team member.
Have you ever seen a classmate or friend walking around wearing a long sleeve shirt even on a hot summer day? Is there another student at your school who always seems hesitant to join swimming or gym class? Well, I have. One of my friends in middle school frequently displayed these behaviors at school, and she did not tell me the reason until years later.
When we met each other again last year, she confided in me on what was going on with her during those adolescent years. She was self-harming, and the marks on her arms made her feel ashamed. She was scared to telling anyone what was happening because she was too worried and afraid that people might not understand.
Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. One day, she suddenly realized she could use other healthier and effective coping mechanisms to soothe her when she was feeling overwhelmed, anxious and stressed. She confided in me that she only made it because of the genuine support and care she felt from the trusting adults in her life, as well as her love for rock-n-roll music.
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by a SOVA Ambassador. SOVA Ambassadors help create meaningful blog posts for us to share.
On November 19, Ben Platt took his final bow playing his role in Broadway sensation Dear Evan Hansen. He devoted his mind, body, and soul to his craft, and his dedication produced a gripping and sincere performance that touched the hearts of the audiences. I had the privilege of seeing Platt and his amazingly talented cast mates in this show earlier this year. The play instantly became one of my favorite musicals of all time (and that’s saying a lot for a Broadway devotee like me).
Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a socially anxious teenager who becomes caught in an ever-growing lie regarding a classmate’s death. Mental illness remains at the forefront of the story, and the show offers an honest and non-romanticized portrayal of how severely it can impact one’s life. I have never related to any fictional character as much as I do Evan; when I first heard “Waving Through a Window,” I thought, “This is me, 100%. No exaggeration.”
Continue reading #YouWillBeFound: Dear Evan Hansen’s Hopeful Message
Thanks to our dedicated readers, we receive lots of questions—and here’s one that came in recently:
What are some immediate steps teachers and other concerned adults can take, even if they are not trained in mental health support, to help students who are hurting?
This is an especially good question to consider as the holiday season approaches. Many times, families have expectations that drive stress: either that things should be perfect; or that things will probably be super-hard, and we won’t know how to respond. And those expectations can bleed over into classroom situations as young people anticipate the holidays.
The first step is to recognize the difficulty.
So if we’re not trained professionals, how can we support our children? Here are some ideas:
Happy Thursday to all our readers! We hope you have the opportunity today to sit down with your loved ones. This time is a wonderful chance to consider the things you are grateful for and to celebrate the harvest season, because we can truly find joy in gratitude.
In this video, Brené Brown talks about the benefits of practicing gratitude.
The team here at SOVA is thankful for you and we are grateful to have you as part of our online community!
Gratitude lists are a powerful tool for reorienting our minds to what we have, rather than what we feel we lack. What are you thankful for this holiday? Please share your gratitude list below!
Yesterday on the blog we talked about how resilience can be a tool in our emotional first aid kits. Here are some more ways that you can strengthen this skill! Remember, you can also use these skills to help others improve their resiliency. Here’s how:
Continue reading Resilience: A Skill that Can Be Learned (Part 2)
Resilience (or flexibility and toughness) is a skill that can be used to bounce back from stressful situations and to respond to life’s challenges. The United States Army Reserve developed a Resilience Training Program based on research about how to improve resilience. Designed at the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center, the program is called Master Resilience Training Skills. Army service members are required to dedicate 24 hours to studying this curriculum, which can benefit anyone—including our children.
Check out this video about building up your resilience against shame.
Continue reading Resilience: A Skill that Can Be Learned (Part 1)
