Do you find yourself checking your phone every five minutes? Checking before you fall asleep at night? Cuddling your phone as you fall asleep? Here are some tips to get away from device addiction:
Device Addiction
Author: Moderator ★
Is it just a phase?
Sometimes it is hard to tell if your child is just going through a temporary mood swing or if the problems they are having are more serious. It can be normal for them to be moody or want privacy.
Interpersonal Therapy
We don’t live our lives in a bubble. Whether we want to or not we have to live with each other and this can affect our day-to-day experiences.
Interpersonal therapy, or IPT, is a type of psychotherapy that has been shown to be effective for depression and anxiety in adolescents.
Time is your friend
“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them — every day begin the task anew.” -Saint Francis de Sales
Do you have any other positive words to start the week off right?
Using Behavioral Methods to Manage Your Depression
Often times when a person is depressed they may feel tired or have a lack of motivation and energy. These changes in mood can often times lead a person, who is feeling depressed, to not carrying out their daily tasks, activities, and responsibilities. All of these responsibilities at home, school, or work can begin to pile up for your adolescent. This can lead them to feeling overwhelmed and creating an increased feeling of guilt, uselessness, and failure. This can become a vicious cycle that increases the depressed mood and further lowers motivation. By encouraging your adolescent to increase their activity levels, it can help them to feel better, be less tired, and think more clearly. Positive experiences can help alleviate some of the depressed feelings and mood. 
Continue reading Using Behavioral Methods to Manage Your Depression
A Few Tips and Tricks to Using Social Media with Depression and Anxiety
Symptoms of depression and/or anxiety can be made worse by using social media. In recent blog posts, we have talked about some of the ways social media can bring out negative emotions in people. Social media content can make people feel jealous of one another. Your adolescent might be comparing the number of likes they get to those of their classmates and it doesn’t do anything to build positivity. People tend to show their “best self” on social media. But the truth is everyone has their own, unique struggles, even that girl your adolescent knows who’s always posting hilarious, creative stuff. For today’s post, we wanted to share a few tips and tricks to using social media when you’re feeling depressed or anxious. Continue reading A Few Tips and Tricks to Using Social Media with Depression and Anxiety
What Makes Someone A Good Member of Your Child’s Support System
A key part to improving and getting better while dealing with a mental illness is having a support system. That’s why at SOVA and WiseSOVA we are trying to start and build an online community that supports each other. However, a support system can also include friends and family. But when it comes to supporting your adolescent, how do you know what makes someone (or something) a good support? Psychology today wrote a great article about what makes someone a good, supportive friend. Being a good friend is broken down into 3 major components: integrity, caring, and congeniality.
Integrity
Trustworthiness – knowing you can share your thoughts and feelings with this person and they won’t talk behind your back or tell others without cause
Dependability – You can count on them to be there for you when you need them, and will support and believe in you even when you can’t believe in yourself.
Being able to trust – You feel comfortable being vulnerable with this person
Caring
Empathy – Have the ability to understand what is going on with you or/and recognize your feeling and react accordingly
Non-judgmental – Friends are to uplift you, not accept you as you are-even if it is different them.
Listening Skills – close communication where you can both share intimate thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Congeniality
Fun to be around – you have to genuinely enjoying being around this person.
These are just are just a few traits to look for when your adolescent is building their support system. The people your adolescent surrounds themselves with can impact how they see the world. Knowing that they have supportive, caring, and trustworthy people in their corner to help them through the good and bad times is something everyone should be looking for. Reaching out for help can be difficult to do at times, but if your adolescent has a group of people surrounding them, whether in person or through an online community, that are non-judgmental, attentive, and trustworthy with information can make life and its challenges slightly easier.
What are some good traits you look for in your adolescent’s support system?
Easy-to-learn Yoga Poses
Yoga is a great way to relieve stress and negative emotions. Some people who practice yoga regularly can do some pretty cool poses. When you’re first starting out with yoga, it’s good to start with the basics. SOVA’s alum, Amie, put some awesome YouTube videos together outlining some yoga poses. If you’re looking to read more about Yoga and its benefits, here are some blog posts we’ve done.
Check out the videos and let us know what you think!
Selena Gomez Talks About Her Mental Health
Selena Gomez recently spoke to Vogue magazine about her experiences with mental illness and getting help. Selena is another example of a celebrity using their voice to erase the stigma about mental illness and getting treatment. The things that celebrities say have a lot of push. Their message is able to reach a huge mass of people. For Selena- or anyone for that matter- to be open about mental illness helps to normalize the experience and decrease stigma. Here are some of her quotes about mental health.
Blurbs from Selena’s Vogue interview
Before getting treatment, Selena was on tour performing her music. Looking back, she had this to say in her Vogue magazine interview:
“My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion…” Continue reading Selena Gomez Talks About Her Mental Health
Learn more about Myths Dealing with Mental Health
Mental Health.gov compiled a list of 9 commonly believed myths about mental health and provides facts to prove them wrong. Many people have learned inaccurate information about people with mental health issues for a variety of reasons. Whether it be because of how media displays mental health, or a lack of experience and exposure with the population. Listed below are 2 of the myths on the site to see more visit MentalHealth.gov.
Continue reading Learn more about Myths Dealing with Mental Health