Having a Bad Mental Health Day

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.


Living with depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues can sometimes be taxing. I know I have come across this a lot—I feel down, anti-social, or just plain exhausted! While it’s true that we are starting to talk more about mental health conditions, lots of people still find it difficult to talk about what they are experiencing. It’s especially hard when you feel like you were doing so great the past few days and today you just feel like … ugh.

I often don’t know what to say on my ugh days when someone asks me, “How are you doing today?” or, “Do you want to hang out later?” Most of the time I end up just saying something like, “I feel a little tired today—must not have slept well,” or, “I think I’m just staying in tonight, I have a lot of work to do!” Usually, what I really want to say is:

My depression/anxiety symptoms are acting up, and I’m just having a bad mental-health day.

I just feel like people can relate to tiredness and stress a bit more than a real confession of mental-health difficulties. And I don’t want to feel like I’m being a downer or burdening people with my current symptoms.

However, some friends of mine have recently started being completely open about their bad mental health days!

Continue reading Having a Bad Mental Health Day

Give Yourself Credit!

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.


Towards the end of the semester, the stress level of every student skyrockets. So many papers, exams, quizzes, and projects are thrown at every student all at once. With only 24 hours in a day, it may seem impossible to students to get everything done.

Students may start the day with a mental list of all the things they have to get done in that day. It may feel frustrating not to be able to achieve everything on their list by the end of the day.

Continue reading Give Yourself Credit!

How To Practice Preventive Self-Care

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 took a Pilates class this past semester at school, and in our last class our instructor posed us a question: What does self-care mean to us?

I thought about how I’ve used self-care throughout the semester, and most of the examples I came up with involved finding little things to lift my spirits and allowing myself to relax when I felt stressed or overwhelmed. Then I heard my instructor point out a distinction that I had never thought of before: there is a difference between corrective and preventive self-care. Suddenly, I realized that most of my self-care involves coping with problems in a healthy way—but I tend to abandon these practices when I’m not actively facing intense emotions.

Mostly, I’ve been engaging in corrective self-care. I would like to add some of the preventive kind.

Corrective and preventive self-care are both important for our physical and mental well-being. The goal of corrective self-care is to ease pain and difficulties in the moment—for instance, going to bed if you’re feeling sick or tired.

Preventive self-care, on the other hand, might involve going to bed at a decent time each night so you feel energized each day. This type of self-care is intended to maintain a state of wellness in our everyday lives. It involves cultivating healthy habits, listening to your needs, and looking for simple moments of joy. This can include things like:

  • eating a nutritious yet satisfying diet
  • scheduling some time each week for an enjoyable activity
  • keeping a gratitude journal.

By doing what’s best for your mind and body on a regular basis, you can mitigate some of the tension in your life and feel even more ready to take on each day.

The term “self-care” is often associated with stress relief, and while it is certainly helpful for dealing with overwhelming and acute pressure and emotions, it’s helpful to practice self-care in less stressful times as well. As its name implies, preventive self-care is designed to prevent or mitigate pain and distress before it fully develops. Any action that brings comfort and positive feelings in your life could be defined in this way.

What kinds of corrective and preventive self-care do you practice? Where did you learn these methods? And in what ways do you think you might already be practicing preventive self-care without realizing it? Share with us in the comments!

 

Nature’s Beautiful Patterns

Take a look at this video of starlings in a flight pattern called “murmuration.” They do this at certain times of the year.

No one knows why and how the starlings do this murmuration! Which bird is leading them in their flight? How do they know when to turn or to settle onto the ground? No one knows.

There are patterns that occur in nature that, despite all our technology, we really don’t understand. Every snowflake is different.

Continue reading Nature’s Beautiful Patterns

Get Involved: Do Something

DoSomething.org is a cool social movement site that uses easy steps to help change the world. We recently revisited their site, and we wanted to let you know about a couple that may interest you.

Tobacco-Free Campuses

Secondhand smoke causes cancer, which is why thousands of colleges have gone tobacco-free. The problem is that 3,273 campuses still allow tobacco use on their properties. Through DoSomething.org you can combine with thousands of other voices by using social media to tell your college to pledge to go tobacco-free.

Continue reading Get Involved: Do Something

Benefits of Teen Mental-Health First-Aid Programs

MHFAA little while ago one of our blogging ambassadors reported on their positive experience becoming certified in mental health first aid at a workshop at her university. There are scientists who are studying programs like this, and evidence is coming in about how beneficial it is to teach adolescents about mental health so they can help their at-risk peers and reduce stigma against people asking for help.

Continue reading Benefits of Teen Mental-Health First-Aid Programs

Coming Out as a Positive Experience

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.


“Coming out” is a decision to tell someone a fact about yourself that they may not know—usually something extremely personal and potentially something with a social stigma to it—so it can be hard to remain positive through the process. 

Most people know of the phrase “coming out” in relation to sexual orientation or gender identity—like “coming out of the closet”—but it has also been used to refer to times we reveal secret behaviors, beliefs, affiliations, tastes, identities, and interests. Examples could be “coming out as an atheist” to a religious family member, “coming out as disabled” to one’s community, and so on.

Continue reading Coming Out as a Positive Experience

Spring Cleaning Your Life

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.


While this may seem like a daunting task, here are some ways, both large and small, that you can bring more balance and order to your day-to-day activities and improve your overall well-being:

Continue reading Spring Cleaning Your Life