In these challenging times, it’s important to maintain the mental health and wellness of our youth. Stories of police brutality, COVID-19 case and mortality increases, and increasing stories of racial and social injustices, takes its toll on our mental health and can cause depression, anxiety, and many other mental health concerns. The California Youth Crisis Line has put together a Youth Mental Wellness Guide that is comprehensible and actionable for youth.
Be Aware of Your Mental Health
Check-in on you! Show compassion for your self, emotions, and physical wellness. Our minds and bodies are connected, when one is out of balance it can cause detriment to the other. Remember it’s okay to not be okay and acknowledge your truth. Listen to and ask yourself, how are YOU feeling? what do YOU need?
Create a wellness plan
Use a journal, use a notes app on your smart phone, use a white board, the important thing is to write down your wellness plan. When building your plan, Keep it real and keep it simple, set realistic wellness objectives and make sure they are easily executable.
Remember when we said “the important thing is to write down your wellness plan”? Well there’s another important thing to keep in mind, small steps are still STEPS forward. Some people can’t dedicate a whole hour to a certain wellness task, DON’T GIVE UP, cut it down to 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, or even 10 minutes! Mental health and wellness is not a race, it’s a marathon and then some! Pace yourself, go at your schedule.
If you need help to bounce around your wellness plan or if you need to talk, our crisis line is open and available 24/7. Call or text 800 843-5200 or visit www.calyouth.org/chat to connect with one of our counselors, today!
Practice, Adjust, and PRACTICE
You have a plan. You’ve scheduled it out to fit your day to day. The only thing that’s left is to put it to practice. According to the book “Making Habits and Breaking Habits” by Jeremy Dean, it takes an average of 21 days for a task to be committed to habit. So put your plan into practice!
…Sometimes, our plans can sound good on paper but when actually put into motion we find out that our plan may have a few bugs in them. That’s okay, the title of this section isn’t “practice, practice, practice” in the times we find bugs in our plan we ADJUST. Adjust the plan, tweak it to make it work for you, and repeat.
Mental health and wellness is not a race it’s a marathon. It’s not about being mentally healthy fast, its about listening to yourself, pacing, and adjusting when necessary. Reach out to mental health professionals to talk about your goals, talk to your support systems about how your feeling, or feel free to give us a call or text at 800 843-5200.
We hope this helps.