SHARE Wellbeing book

The SHARE team are very passionate about improving the mental health and emotional wellbeing of our young people in Somerset. During these difficult times surrounding Covid-19 we understand that it can be especially hard to look after our mental health, our wellbeing, our stress levels and to regulate our emotions.

This booklet will contain some education on how to look after your general wellbeing, some helpful ideas and lots of resources that will hopefully help young people until the SHARE team are able to get back into the schools.

We all have mental health, but what is it?

It is our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions and our moods. All these influence our behaviours and our behaviours can also influence our mental health. It is important that we look after our mental health just like we look after our physical health.

If we do not look after our bodies we will not be able to regulate our emotions or do the things we enjoy so this will affect our mental health.

Also if we don’t look after our mental health we will quickly lose motivation and energy to do the things that promote good physical health.

It’s important that we understand that all emotions are ok and that having good mental health is experiencing good and bad emotions. It’s not about being happy all the time but building resilience to bounce back from really difficult emotions. Below is an illustration of a mental health line that all of us are on. Most of us will spend each day moving from reacting to healthy coping, some of us time to time may drop into poor mental health and a few of us may need professional care suffering from a mental illness.

We should continue working on being in the green as much as we can and try not to overestimate how bad things are for ourselves. With this we can also underestimate how well we recover from things.

SELF-SOOTHING

DISTRACTION

Comforting yourself through your

Taking your mind off the problem

five senses.

for a while.

1. Something to touch (ex: soft toy or stress ball) 2. Something to hear (ex: music, sounds) 3. Something to see

EXAMPLES: Puzzles, books, artwork, movie, TV programme, YouTube, crosswords, Sudoku puzzles, music, games console, cooking, writing, baking.

(ex: photos, paintings) 4. Something to taste (ex: mints, tea, sweets) 5. Something to smell (ex: perfume, candles) OPPOSITE ACTION

EMOTIONAL AWARENESS

Doing the opposite of your impulse

Tools for expressing and

which is consistent with a more

identifying your feelings.

positive emotion.

1. Affirmation and inspiration.

EXAMPLES: A list or chart of emotions, writing

(ex: looking at/drawing

a journal, drawing or painting an

positive images/statements.

expression of how you feel, talk

2. Something funny or cheering.

with someone you trust.

(ex: funny TV, movies, books) MINDFULNESS

ADDITIONAL PLAN

Tools for centring and grounding

For when coping skills are not

yourself in the present moment.

enough.

EXAMPLES:

1. Speak to friends/family,

Meditation or relaxation

Sign up to Kooth for online help,

recordings, grounding objects (like a rock or paper weight), breathing exercises.

2. Download a self-help app on your phone.

3. Contact your GP.

Stress is the way our body and mind reacts to the changes in our environment/situation every day. Sometimes stress can be caused by expected changes such as moving house/school or sitting an exam. Other times it can be an unexpected stress like running late, knocking over a drink or forgetting something.

There are two types of stress: Eustress – This is good motivating stress. (ex: when running late and small amount of stress may motivate me to move quicker to help me arrive on time. When sitting an exam, eustress will motivate me to study harder.

Distress – This is negative stress. (ex: if distressed about being late, you may choose not to go. If distressed around exams, you may feel too unmotivated to revise or may even forget what you have learned.

We all have an individual capacity for stress, no two people are identical, you can learn what causes your stress bucket to fill and what coping skills you can use to try and keep your stress bucket from over filling (becoming distressed).

WHAT WILL YOU ADD TO YOUR WELLBEING TOOLBOX

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED Dancing

Drawing

Sleeping

Reading

Listening to music

Writing

Yoga

Art

Games console

Movies

Deep breathing (in for 4 hold for 4

Talking with someone you trust

out for 4 hold for 4)

Singing

When we experience difficult times, emotions and stress it’s good to have resilience. This enables us to bounce back, we shouldn’t be avoiding situations that are difficult, that makes them worse. We should gradually expose ourselves to these things and remember to BOUNCEBACK.

B – Bad times don’t last, and things get better.

O – Other people can only help if you share with them.

U – Unhelpful thinking only makes you feel worse.

N – Nobody is perfect – not you, not your friends, not your family, not anybody!

C – Concentrate on the good things in life, no matter how small.

E – Everybody suffers, everybody feels pain and experiences setbacks; they are a normal part of life.

B – Blame fairly – negative events are often a combination of things you did, things others did, and plain bad luck.

A – Accept what you can’t change and try to change what you can.

C – Catastrophizing makes things worse – don’t fall prey to believing in the worst interpretation.

K – Keep things in perspective. Even the worst moment is but one moment in life.

When we get stressed our blood pressure rises, our heart rate rises and we tend to do quicker chest breaths instead of deep stomach breaths. By controlling our breathing we can lower our heart rate and the counting can also act as a much needed distraction. Square breathing can be done anywhere at any time.

UNDERSTANDING THE BRAIN

Our brain is amazing but can often work against us, understanding why it does some the negative things it does can help us to feel better mentally.

Firstly our primitive brain, our instincts and reflexes often described as our flight, fight or freeze response. These instincts are built into our brain to help preserve our survival as a species. Sometimes our brain can misinterpret stresses and daily pressures as a need to activate these responses in our body. The way the brain does this is by starting to shut down your digestive system (this we sometimes call butterflies in the stomach). It also disables parts of our brain (making it hard to think or talk), it opens our blood valves and pumps adrenalin into our bodies (to get it ready for a fight or flight response) which makes our muscles tense (around the neck this may cause headaches).

Second is our emotional brain, this is the feeling part we develop as a kid.

This part of our brain is not rational and is pure emotion. When we lead with this part of our brain we may shout, scream, cry and act in a way we would later regret.

Lastly our intellectual brain, this part of our brain (if it has good connections to the other two parts) will help us to regulate and control our emotions. It can also reassure our brains that flight, fight and freeze are not needed helping us to think clearly and make really good decisions.

If we do not try to keep these connections strong by looking after our mental health, by managing our stress levels and looking after our general wellbeing the intellectual part can disconnect causing us to “flip our lids� also known as losing it, raging, seeing red etc. We will get a sense that are emotions are wobbling at this time we should learn to STOP and try to intervene.

Pure emotion, lid is flipped, person has lost it, raged, seeing red.

Be nice to yourself

SOME GOOD RESOURCES

CALM HARM: Managing self-harm.

HEADSPACE: Mindful & meditation.

SMILING MIND: Mindful meditation.

COVE: Mood & music journal.

CATCH IT: Making sense of ur moods.

MIND SHIFT: Anxiety support.

SAM: Self-help for anxiety management.