self care Archives - Page 3 of 6

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.

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.

Continue reading How To Love Your Body In Bikini Season

Watch for Symptoms

Are you or any of your friends struggling with symptoms of depression? Are you confused as to why you feel like you’ve fallen down into a big deep pit?

Many teenagers find themselves in very low places and often wonder how they arrived there. The good news is for some more common mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, there are signs and symptoms that we can become aware of and look out for in ourselves and in others we care about.

The key to recovery is developing awareness and becoming knowledgeable enough to be able to point out signs that don’t seem right—this can possibly prevent suffering and/or catch a problem before it gets worse.

Psychiatry.org lists some signs that something might be up.

Continue reading Watch for Symptoms

Tips to Help You Through a Breakup

Whether it is a breakup with a friend or a romantic partner, everyone can agree that breakups are the worst. I have had a difficult year in which I have experienced both a friend breakup and a romantic one, but I have learned some things along the way that I can share with others to hopefully help them, too.

Continue reading Tips to Help You Through a Breakup

High Schoolers of “Stand Together” Talk about Social Media Stress

Two days ago we ran a blog about Stand Together, a project to educate other students at their schools about the challenges of mental illness and substance use disorders, and to break the stigma of talking about mental health in ordinary conversation. That blog was about middle-schoolers. Today, we talked to the high-school students at their annual celebration of their program’s achievements at the Heinz History Center.

We talked to them about how social media throws their mental equilibrium off balance. And what strategies they employ to take care of themselves—and others.

What are the stresses they experience on social media?

Joking About Violence

“The worst is when people joke about school shootings,” one sophomore girl says, and her three friends nod. “If they don’t like a particular teacher, they’ll say, ‘That teacher is why people shoot up schools.'”

“And other people joke about hurting themselves or say it casually, like just saying it doesn’t matter,” another girl said.

“How do you respond?” we asked.

“I tell them straight up that it’s not right to talk like that,” the first girl said. “I say that those people who were in the shootings were really hurt, and that those things really happened, and you can’t joke about it—it’s not healthy.”

“And that if you really feel like you’re going to hurt yourself or someone else,” the second girl said, “that you need to talk to someone who can help—like, right away.”

“Where did you learn how to respond like this?” we asked.

They said they’d been taught in the Stand Together program.

Fear of Criticism

Another 16-year-old guy said it caused him a lot of stress when one person at his school decided to create an anonymous Instagram account and criticize people from behind that anonymity. He and some other students around him agreed that some students only post super-positive photos, “which is really misleading,” one student said.

So the guy made the decision to eliminate all his social media accounts.

“It was a little rough, because everyone around me uses social media,” he said. “But I now have a TON of time more than I had before, when I was wasting time on social.” He spends that time on activities that he says nurture him. And he can still keep in close touch with the friends he cares about through texting.

Deciding to Take Care of Oneself

A 17-year-old girl told the story of how, three years ago, she came down with symptoms of severe depression. One way she took care of herself at this time was to deactivate all her social media accounts. After getting therapy and medical treatment, she’s doing much better, and at the point where she thought she was ready to handle social media again, she bit by bit reactivated her accounts. “It’s just what I needed to do to take care of myself.”

Social Media as a Way to Support New Friends

Finally, another 16-year-old said she’d had positive experiences with social media. She has several friends that she met on one platform or another with whom she has become very good friends—and has even met them in real life a couple of times.

“It’s easier to talk about things when you’re not face-to-face,” she said. “If you love to write, like I do, you can really support someone by writing to them and showing how much you care.”

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

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!

Watching Our Family Struggle

If you are told your child may have a mental illness, you might project onto their future pictures of other family members (or even of yourself) who have struggled with mental illness.

Mental illness is common, and many of us have been affected or have family members who have been ill. It’s especially hard to watch family members struggle when they haven’t received treatment.

Continue reading Watching Our Family Struggle

Self-Care: Why Exercise?

Self-care is all about improving ourselves, having more energy, and being more satisfied with the events happening in and around us.

Self-care involves a daily routine to achieve these goals by implementing the three core methods of self-care. When used together, these methods can lead to a better well-being and happiness within oneself.

One of these core components to taking care of ourselves is exercise.

Continue reading Self-Care: Why Exercise?

Be Your Own Valentine: Love Yourself

A few months ago, I wrote a blog about an emotionally abusive relationship I was in. Afterward, I decided that I would give the relationship another shot, but the relationship escalated to be physically abusive. As a result, for the final time, the relationship ended.

It just so happened that the relationship ended around Valentine’s Day, which I felt like was the worst thing that could ever happen. I thought that I needed the love of someone else to make me feel whole. However, I learned through this breakup that loving myself was the best way to go. I think happiness should come from within.

The best way to start loving yourself is by participating in activities that you enjoy. Here are some of my interests that are helping me getting over my breakup:

Continue reading Be Your Own Valentine: Love Yourself