Tips for Starting a Journaling Practice

We have published a few short posts about benefits of journaling. Done regularly, this practice has physical benefits—for example, it really helps strengthen the immune system. Emotionally, it helps us to organize our thoughts, explore and articulate our emotions, and better appreciate our lives by helping us focus on positive experiences and attitudes.

You may ask, What parent has time to spend on journaling? With any regular practice—as with yoga, exercise, meditation—it can be hard to overcome the idea that we don’t have time to do what may be good for us. There are some effective strategies that can get you started, and you may wind up asking yourself how you’d for so long overlooked the pleasures of this way of spending a few minutes with yourself every day.

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How to Help Your Teen Deal With Emotional Outbursts

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 for us to share.

As someone diagnosed with depression, I will sometimes have outbursts. Everything catches up to me at once, and I will feel so sad and frustrated. All I want to do is sit in my room and cry. However, that’s typically not a viable option. The longer I’ve dealt with outbursts, the more I’ve learned about how to stop them in their tracks. For this post, I’ve compiled a list of what helps me, in hopes that it can help someone else!

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Looking at Substance Use

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.


16720279-abstract-word-cloud-for-substance-use-disorder-with-related-tags-and-termsSociety often looks negatively at those with substance use problems. There is a stigma and a false belief that those struggling with substance use are making a conscious choice to spiral downwards. It is rare that society considers the factors that may lead to a substance use issue—such as a poor mental state.

Actually, it is not uncommon for a person struggling with a mental health problem also to have a substance use difficulty as well. Many of those who are fighting depression and anxiety may use drugs or alcohol to escape or cope with the struggle within themselves.

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A Feminist View on Mental Illness

fem logoThe 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 for us to share.


In a recent gender studies class, we read Fiona Rummery’s “Mad Women or Mad Society: Towards a Feminist Practice.” Part of this work explores the connection between a woman’s assumed role as the homemaker and her increased risk of mental health issues. I wanted to share a few points made by the author that I think are very interesting.

First, femininity has emphasis on serving others and ignoring a woman’s own needs. We all have heard the saying that a mom never gets a day off, but this undoes self-care and easily leads to burnout, anxiety, and depression. If a woman begins to experience such an issue, it is frowned upon for her to assume the sick role, a term that describes the acceptable behavior and expectations a person can receive when they are ill.

For example, if you are a student you are expected to show up for class and complete assignments.  However, if you end up in the hospital because you broke your arm while running, your professors most likely would not expect you to come to class and might allow you to submit assignments after the due date. Your injury excuses you from your normal responsibilities. You have taken on a new role: the sick role.

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Perfectionism: A Good or Bad Way of Thinking?

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.


I strive for perfection all the time, especially when it comes to academics. If I feel as if I scored less than an A on any assignment or exam then I have terrible anxiety accompanied with crying spells. During these times of distress, it’s nearly impossible to calm myself down. I shake and mentally exhaust myself so much that I cannot do anything else for the rest of the day. These intense distressful experiences last for hours.

The definition of perfectionism is a person’s constant effort to achieve unobtainable goals, and measuring their self-worth according to their accomplishments rather than their own values and essential worth as a person. Being a perfectionist can have positive aspects, such as being very detail-oriented and highly motivated. However, when perfectionists fail to meet their unrealistically high standards, they can become depressed.

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Does Your Pediatrician Screen Your Child for Depression?

As many as one in every five teens experiences depression during adolescence, but their symptoms often go undiagnosed and untreated because they lack access to mental health specialists.

But everyone’s main point of contact with the health care system is usually their primary care physician—and for adolescents, that can mean a pediatrician. So to support adolescent mental health, in February the American Academy of Pediatrics for the first time in 10 years released updated guidelines on adolescent depression.

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Police Killings Hurt Mental Health In Black Communities

(TW: trauma.)

Antwon Rose Jr., 17, was unarmed when he was shot to death by a white police officer on July 19 in East Pittburgh.
Antwon Rose Jr., 17, was unarmed when he was shot to death by a white police officer on July 19 in East Pittburgh.

Each year, American police officers shoot to death more than 300 black Americans. (By the way, that is a lot more than the number of deaths per year in school shootings.) At least a quarter of the victims are unarmed, and some of them are adolescents or young adults.

Recently, an international medical journal called The Lancet published a study that indicates that when police in the United States kill unarmed black people, it harms the mental health of black people living in those states.

Black readers might be like, “Duh, we could have told you that.”

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Treating Teen Insomnia Could Prevent Mental Illness

It is usually assumed that disturbed sleep is a symptom of depression. But health-care professionals are starting to think that maybe that idea is putting the cart before the horse, especially with adolescents. For example, a study of more than 350 middle- and high-school students found that sleep irregularities may actually happen before mental health problems.

The study indicated that teens with insomnia were more likely to have depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder—and that early treatment of insomnia might have prevented the onset of depression in almost half of the cases.

When adolescents experience disturbed sleep, it usually occurs in the following ways:

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How To Love Your Body In Bikini 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.


Most of the time the infamous Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue looks like this.
Most of the time the infamous Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue looks like this.

Ah yes, it’s summer. The time for short sleeves, tiny denim cutoffs, and swimsuits. While many people may think of summer as a time to post cute Instagram pictures on the beach, to stay out late with friends every night and to tan in the sun, I have to say that it’s my least favorite time of the year.

As a heavy girl, the summer season causes me a lot of stress. I’m told that I’m curvy and “thicc” in the winter when I’m wearing jeans and a sweater, but the moment a pair of shorts goes on my legs and a bikini exposes my stomach, my self confidence plummets, and everyone’s eyes go to my most vulnerable body parts.

I constantly compare myself to the other girls that I see on Instagram who are posing in the sunset, their thighs separating to show a perfectly shaped gap. I know in my heart that these girls spent hours in front of the mirror, perfecting the art of the “Instagram pose,” and most of them use many filters to get their pictures to look awesome. But it doesn’t stop my eyes from looking down at my size 14 legs every time I look in the mirror, wishing that I had been born in a different body, and wishing that I was one of the girls who can eat five slices of pizza without gaining a pound.

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Anxiety—An Under-Diagnosed Phenomenon Among Adolescents

Francis S. Lee, M.D.

The summer 2018 issue of Behavioral Health News has an interview with Francis S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., the Mortimer D. Sackler Professor and Vice Chair for Research at Weill Cornell Medical College’s psychiatry department. Dr. Lee specializes in studying anxiety disorders, and he talked about the consequences of under-diagnosing anxiety among children and adolescents.

Here are some highlights:

Why anxiety is misunderstood in children

Anxiety disorders are under-recognized, he said, because everyone feels anxiety, including adults. For kids, an example of normal anxiety is to feel nervous before an test or on the first day of school. The child might come to the parent and says they feel anxious. The parent herself sometimes feel anxiety, so she doesn’t grasp the difference between her own anxiety and the severity of her child’s. She just hopes the child will get used to a new routine and the anxiety will go away “naturally.”

But it’s important to get treatment early so that the anxiety doesn’t get worse, and so that it doesn’t lead to depression or dysfunctional behaviors such as substance use disorders.

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