This week, we wanted to highlight a website that uses videos and storytelling as a way for teens and young adults to be open about their mental health and well-being and how a variety of things can affect them. Well Beings uses both traditional news-style reporting and vlogs to talk about topics such as controlling one’s thoughts, using positive psychology in class, and how things like reading and music are useful coping tools. Going beyond these videos, Well Beings is also planning to virtually tour across the country, paring with local communities and public media stations to help address stigma and talk about mental health in 24 cities. Continue reading Well Beings
The Neuroscience Behind Why We Use Instagram
Using social media can feel like a mindless activity. Most of the time, we’re opening apps and scrolling and before we know it, it’s been an hour of alternating between apps and retaining absolutely nothing about what you just saw and who you interacted with. Using social media is a way for our minds to go on autopilot, spending time on your phone to kill time in line, in class, and when you’re lying down to put off going to bed. Continue reading The Neuroscience Behind Why We Use Instagram
Radical Acceptance
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
One mental health technique that I have been thinking a lot about recently is radical acceptance. According to Psychology Today, radical acceptance is the process of accepting life the way it is, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Continue reading Radical Acceptance
Online Therapy
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
Do you have reservations about online therapy? Do you feel like your therapist won’t really “get” what you’re trying to say if you’re not physically in the room with them? I’ve been in therapy for a few years, and I hated the idea of online therapy so much that I had never tried it, until COVID forced my sessions onto a virtual platform. While I hated the idea, I actually didn’t mind it at all once I got started! Online therapy has definitely grown on me a lot over the last few months. Continue reading Online Therapy
The ABCs of Gratitude
As the weather gets colder, news seems to always be getting worse, and traditional end-of-the-year holiday plans have become either limiting or cancelled altogether, it can be difficult to find something to be grateful for, much less multiple things. Mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety can make finding the positives in day-to-day life impossible, and these outside events can worsen these feelings of hopelessness and negativity too. Continue reading The ABCs of Gratitude
Writing Letters for Mental Health
Letters to Strangers is a youth-led, youth-based organization that aims to help break down the stigma regarding youth mental health and make treatment and information about it that much more accessible. Continue reading Writing Letters for Mental Health
How to Help Someone Through Social Media
With more and more people opening up about their mental health online, you may find yourself thinking about a few things. You may feel proud of them for opening up about their struggles on a large platform, or you might feel comforted and feel less alone that someone you know also has struggles with their mental health. You might think about how social media is helping reduce the stigma about mental illness by giving many the opportunity to write about what they’re going through too! Continue reading How to Help Someone Through Social Media
My Struggle with Binge Eating
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
Writing this is very freeing to me.
For as long as I can remember I’ve had an issue with food. I’ve associated food with good feelings, and to have that make sense, every time after a good soccer game, we would go get ice cream. Situations like that began my unhealthy relationship with food. Continue reading My Struggle with Binge Eating
What is Excoriation?
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
BFRB’s, or body-focused repetitive behaviors, is an umbrella term for a variety of conditions that include excoriation disorder (skin picking), trichotillomania (hair pulling), nail biting, cheek biting, and other BFRBs that arise as a form of obsessive compulsive disorder. Continue reading What is Excoriation?
Soup Season
The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
As the weather and leaves start to change in Western Pennsylvania, my mood tends to decline. However, this year I am determined to make the most of autumn. One of my favorite foods is soup, and this time of year happens to be perfect for soup. Continue reading Soup Season