Managing well-being and coping strategies for stress management among youths (Part#2)

6. ME time: Me time is the uninterrupted time to nurture and nourish the mind, body, and soul. "ME" time genuinely enables feelings, thoughts, and emotions to renew and restore energy. "ME" time may be spent bubble bath, meditation, deep breathing, swimming, quiet time, and taking a nap. This "ME" time helps to prepare the mind, body and soul to reconnect with exam preparation or mood changes.

7. Gratitude practice: It is called a natural antidepressant. It supports to release of some precious neurotransmitters that improve and enrich feelings, thoughts, and emotions. The daily practice might be counting your blessings. It helps to shift the focus from what you don't have to what you have in your life. It is an antidote to whining or complaining attitude towards life.  

8. Play sport or exercise: Playing sports or regular exercises is thoroughly fused and affects mental and physical health. Sports or exercises are linked to de-stressing the mind and body. It is not only strengthens physical health but positively enhances mental health.

9. Happy hour: Everyone has 24 hours in a day. If you select and practice one hour as a happy hour in 24 hours, it may recharge, restore and renew your energy. This one hour may de-stress your mind, body, and soul and help to prepare you to reconnect with your exam preparation, and assignment and better cope with the undue pressure. A happy hour might be spent playing board games, dancing, singing, talking to friends, or listening to music.

10. Connect with nature: Nature has a variety of coatings, surfaces and expressions. It contains plants, flowers, birds, leaves, sky, rain, rivers, lakes or beaches. If you mindfully connect and observe nature, it offers you remarkably tranquil feelings and soothes your inner soul. It truly helps to connect with and find a rhythm with mind, body and soul.

 

Enduring the charge of mental and physical wellness and de-stressing yourself. Mental health is as important as physical health.

 

Managing well-being and coping strategies for stress management among youths (Part#1)

 

Nowadays, youths are immensely informative and engaged in a variety of tasks including assignments and dealing with deadlines, and sometimes they are stressed out. Stress retains numerous looks, layers, and coatings among youth. Most of the time, youth don't understand, realize, or identify the expression of the stress. Even unable to recognize that they are under stress. They name it tension, strain, worried thoughts, pressure over the frontal lobe, anxiety, anger, lack of sleep, allergies, migraine attacks, headaches, body pain, adjustment challenges, conflicts, and inability to manage day-to-day tasks/routine. These are a few peeks of stress.

The reasons for these expressions among youths are exam pressure, assignment due dates, breakups, peer pressure, relationship issues, conflicts, body image, obsession, specific habits, non-assertive behavior, and lack of support. Sometimes, youth don’t know, how to process feelings, thoughts, and emotions or deal with stress, and even don’t realize the significance of managing day-to-day stress.

Being a mental health practitioner for over 23 years, and a registered psychotherapist, I discovered these approaches and strategies worthwhile and advantageous for youth to relax and manage stress effortlessly by themselves. These techniques help the youth to recharge, rejuvenate, and restore their dynamism, and keep them relaxed and calm while experiencing stress.

1. Deep breathing: Deep breathing is the most manageable mode to release and unleash stress. It gives an instant load of oxygen, and that helps to revive and restore energy. Wim Hof's deep breathing, 478 deep breathing, and square breathing are some of the worth mentioning breathing exercises.  

2. Recharge yourself: Everyone is different and distinct to rejuvenate and recharge the inner soul, for example, an activity might relax you and at the same time cause stress for someone. Find those moves that truly refuel your inner soul and nurture or recharge feelings, thoughts, and emotions. It is called a recharging station. This might be a phone call to your best buddy and sharing your thoughts. This small conversation may recharge you. Discover your very own recharging tone, and practice while stressed out.

3. 50/10 rule: This rule is genuinely beneficial to refueling the mind and de-stress while busy with exam preparation or dealing with the assignment due dates. This rule is practiced while busy with work or assignments for 50 minutes and taking 10-minute breaks. This pause truthfully enables nerves to relax and calm down, and at the same time, it de-stresses your mind and body and prepares you to focus on a given assignment or task.

4. Journaling: This is the most robust mechanism to decode your thoughts, feelings, and emotions into noted words. Journaling helps to slow down the racing thoughts, for example, if you have 55 thoughts per minute while writing those thoughts, it may decline to 10 to 15 thoughts per minute. Journaling makes you conscious of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. After writing, you can review and find some meaning or build a new perspective and gain some valuable insight. It helps to release stress.

5. Create a list of gestures that fetch joy, pleasure, and happiness: Sometimes, due to varied reasons, youth forget to enjoy and are not able to find pleasure in their everyday routine. Life seems dull or tedious to them. Try to create a list of small gestures that bring joy, pleasure, and happiness. Whenever you are stressed or unable to unwind or de-stress, that moment connects with this inventory, and practice the gesture. The small gesture might be watching birds, enjoying ice cream, dancing, and singing.

To be continued.....

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to comment.

Parenting Versions

Parenting is a multilayered phenomenon and wonder. This is a gorgeous interaction or a contract between a child and parents/caregivers or guardians. Parenting is a rewarding journey. After research and analysis, I found a lot of versions of parenting. The versions are as many as cultures, races or ethnicities around the globe. At the same time, parenting is a complex interaction with multi variables. I am penning and composing parenting versions as per my knowledge and research such as

1. Single parent
2. Separated parents
3. Divorced parents
4. Widowed parent
5. Step-parenting
6. Adoption and parenting
7. Educated parents
8. Uneducated parents
9. Parents with mental health issues
10. Parenting with a physical disability
11. Parenting and a child with a mental or emotional disability
12. Parenting and a child with a learning disability
13. Working parents
14. Non-working parents
15. Homemaker and parenting
16. Working from home parenting
17. Parenting and a pandemic
18. Parenting within a joint family system
19. Parenting in a nuclear family system
20. One parent living abroad
21. Parenting in a shelter
22. Parenting with a terminal illness
23. Parenting with physical health issues
24. Parents with depression or bipolar disorder
25. Parenting with serious mental health issues
26. Parenting and a single child
27. Parenting with multiple children (3 - 5)
28. Parenting with twins or triplet
29. Parenting with lower/middle/upper-middle socioeconomic status
30. Parenting with immigration experience
31. Refugees and parenting
32. Parenting with the work visa
33. Parenting at a young age (below 20)
34. Parenting at old age (45 and above)
35. Grandparenting
36. Islam and parenting 
37. Christianity and parenting 
38. Jewish and parenting
39. South Asian parenting style
40. African-American parenting
41. Indigenous and parenting
42. Parenting with student status
43. Professional parents and their parenting such as a doctor, engineer, pilot, professor, captain, nurse, teacher, counsellor, psychotherapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, IT professional and a chef
44. Politicians and their parenting journey
45. Prime minister and parenting

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask or comment below

Who are you as a parent in your child's life? a butterfly🦋, fly or a bed bug. Be mindful (part # 2)

 Are you a fly or a bed bug

Who are you as a parent in your child's life? a butterfly🦋, fly or a bed bug. Be mindful (part # 1)

 Are you a butterfly🦋, fly or a bed bug 

The butterfly symbolizes magnificence, attractiveness, loveliness, beauty and a variety of structures, tones and intensities. A butterfly conveys perseverance, transition, growth, maturation and hope in one's life. Butterfly invariably hooks with a flower and carries beauty and charm to the atmosphere and ambience.

Features and characteristics of a butterfly!

• Butterflies are beautiful and stunning

• Butterflies have a bunch of tones and tints

• Butterflies invariably track a flower

• Whenever touch, butterflies drop colours

• Butterflies constantly cruise in a smooth motion

• Butterflies always beautify the environment

• In absence of a butterfly, think about its presence and purposefully require and desire its presence

Who are you as a parent or caregiver? The butterfly metaphor applies or is directly linked with parenting. What are the implications of this comparison as a parent in your child's life?

Let's analyze this analogy!

Parents are magnificent human beings, create a precise and pleasing image as a caregiver, carries affection, perpetually concentrate on the excellence of the relationship and bring a variety of fabrications in the scene, radiate varying tones and intensities of joy and happiness. Parents or caregivers, try to convey perseverance, transition, growth, maturation and hope for their children. The most significant aspect is that parents invariably hook with the strength and positivity of a child (flower) and sustain excellence and harmony to the ambience always and anyways

Being a parent or a butterfly, let's analyze this resemblance and connection!

• Butterflies are beautiful and stunning: The butterfly analogy applies to the parent-child relationship, which means the parent-child connection or attachment is as artistic or beautiful as a butterfly. Parent's behaviour, communication and practices are the sources of excellence for children. The children will eternally recognize the excellence and express attachment, even at some point in their life when parents are not present in their life. Although the child becomes a parent however would acknowledge and appreciate that magnificence 

• Butterflies have a bunch of tones and tints: A butterfly appears in a variety of tones and tints. This metaphor represents the parent-child relationship, for instance, parenting itself progresses with a variety of strategies and components (one size does not fit all). It is being said that parenting is full of tones and tints that represent various themes and connections

• Butterflies invariably track a flower: Butterflies constantly track a flower as compared to the other flying insects. The flowers are the attraction of the scene. Parents invariably focus on the child's strengths, abilities and track his or her positivity just like a butterfly, who always tracks or sits on a flower, not garbage. This way parents help their children to boost their self-esteem and confidence

• Whenever touch, butterflies drop colours: That's true, colours are always on fingers or palms if gently touch a butterfly. This notion reminds all of the parents that whenever a child approaches them, parents leave or spread the tones or colours of hope, optimism and enthusiasm

• Butterflies constantly cruise in a smooth motion: Butterflies continuously move smoothly without confusion or hurry. I get a chance to observe a butterfly motion, I realize that there is a great lesson to be learned or get inspired by the motion. This insight is a fabulous reminder for parents for their parenting motion. Parenting cruise has to be moved continuously without any confusion or hurry, only focusing on their child's journey to become a responsible human being 

• Butterflies always beautify the environment: Butterflies constantly beautify the atmosphere with motion and shades. Butterflies have the capacity and potential to prompt thought processes or vision to the parents to embellish and beautify the life of a child with their colours and motions

• In absence of a butterfly, think about its presence: The elegance and attraction of butterflies, everyone can sense its absence in the atmosphere. There is a glorious drill for parents and a reminder to become a butterfly, a child can sense your absence and crave for your presence. That's the spirit. Children will purposefully want your presence in their life. Be a butterfly

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask or comment below

20 ways to manage an "Angry Bird" (part two)

 20 ways to manage an "Angry Bird"

Photo courtesy by Mifrah Qaisar

11. Always talk about positive occurrences: Whenever speak to your child, endeavour to focus or highlight the positive affairs or good memories, it will help to heighten pleasure, joy and satisfaction in their life. The child will likewise acquire to focus on the positive side of the situation instead of the negative affairs

12. Sports can help them to release anger: There are various sports for ventilating anger in the safest and secure mode and support a child to calm down, for instance, boxing, martial arts, football, soccer, karate, table tennis or any physical sports with hitting or punching tone

13. Don't let them watch violent content over social media: This is the most significant perspective of embodying anger tone. Radically, a spirit tuned in a way to get startled or hyper by watching violent content over a period of time. Unconsciously child learn and then try to resolve problems or easily get angry or reactive

14. Storytelling or faith teachings: This is an awesome strategy, storytelling. At bedtime teaches them stories with the theme of helping, managing, understanding and problem-solving. This way child will learn a variety of perspectives and build an understanding. Faith teaching is also great, no matter what faith you belong to. Every single faith in the world teaches us peace 

15. Avoid complaining, criticism and backbiting: This is the request for parents, please do not complain, criticize or back bitting your child. All three components are cause pf negative self-concept, low self-esteem and no confidence in your child and these children respond with anger or highly reactive, given the fact that they are empty inside. Empty souls produce sounds and confident souls communicate

16. Focus on strengths and abilities NOT disabilities: As a parent, try to focus on the positive traits, abilities, strengths and qualities in your child instead of highlighting disabilities. This conversation will help them boost confidence, self-esteem and improve communication among parents and a child

17.  Teaching them problem-solving strategies: This is the best gift parents can give to their children, teaching them problem-solving strategies instead of giving them directions or advice. The best approaches are storytelling, faith teaching, relaxation groups, discussion or give them the scenario or problems and ask them for the solution. Their mind will be tuned to focus on solutions and strategies instead of focusing on the problem. You may encounter spirits around you who argue about problems, not solutions

18. Teach them relaxing and calming strategies: Calming and relaxing strategies have many folds, it does not only benefit them to calm down but at the same time support them to be resilient, flexible and adaptable. These strategies can be discussed, taught and let them join classes. YouTube is a good option too, as various deep breathing exercises, grounding techniques and meditation are learnt easily. Strategies might be deep breathing, meditation, grounding technique, yoga, swimming, sketching, colouring or painting rocks

19. Do not repeat: Past is already passed. It is the best advice that whatever happened, it's done and over. Do not repeat it for any reason. Some parents habitually use that as a reference and this reference truly cause harm or suffering instead of calming a child

20. Get professional help: Still, you are unable to handle or manage angry birds or none of the strategies helped you then it's time to think about getting professional help. You might connect with a counsellor, psychotherapist, psychiatrist, family doctor or any social worker

If you have any question or concern, please feel free to ask or comment below

20 ways to manage an "Angry Bird" (Part one)

20 ways to manage an "Angry Bird"

 
*Photo courtesy by Mifrah Qaisar

Nowadays, most of the time parents concerning the emotion, behaviour, and well-being of their children from many perspectives including tantrums, anger, aggression and outburst. Sometimes parents are unable to manage, control or handle that behaviour, and the most important aspect is that while handling those issues, parents cause damage or harm then handle it appropriately. Today's blog is about discussing 20 healthy, positive and appropriate ways to manage anger, aggression, tantrums and outburst among children. Here you go

1. Identify your own ways to express irritability 

The first step towards managing the anger or tantrum of a child, it is needed to identify your own tendencies to express anger or irritability. Ask many questions to self, for instance:

• How do I express my anger?

• How do I react to an unpleasant situation?

• Do I shout, scream, yell, cry or moan?

• How much time I take to calm down?

• Am I be in my senses at that moment?

• How often do I show tantrums?

Once you get all answers, the next step is to compare your ways of expressing anger and your child's tantrums. You might find some similarities between you and your child and chances are that the child is learning from you or your partner. Children practice whatever they observe in their environment

2. Recognize triggers in your child 

For managing and handling outbursts, the most important aspect is that you recognize and closely identify triggers in your child. Triggers vary from child to child, situation to situation but it depends. Once you identify the trigger, it is indeed easy to manage. Triggers might be

• Child perception of injustice, or neglect from parents

• The child is being ignored or disregarded

• Sometimes, a child is frustrated, not being able to compete with the school assignment or not able to fulfill parents expectations

• The child is not sleeping well for any reason, or the bed is not enough comfortable for having a good night sleep

• Unrecognized problems that might be learning disability, emotional or behavioural issues or bullying or maybe abuse in case

• In few cases, child learn to express anger from cartoons or movies

• Or child learn that it is OK to express anger this way, learn from parents

3. Never and ever be on the same page or same boat

This is the critical aspect, whenever a child is expressing anger or being aggressive, as a parent you have to be calm down, do not react aggressively or never and ever be on the same page or same boat. Given the fact that normally, it takes 15 to 20 minutes for a child to calm down however if you react, the situation might worsen. Let the child ventilate that outburst. As a parent or guardian, you can try these strategies for managing your own emotional outbreak, for instance:

• Try deep breathing 

• Maintain eye contact

• Control your facial expression

• Try to use chew gum, it helps to control emotions

• Think something positive or try to understand the situation

• Practice positive affirmations, for instance, calm down, relax and relax

4. Validate feelings/emotions at the time of distress 

Neuroscience suggests that anger usually takes 15 to 20 minutes to subside. As a parent, try to validate the feelings and emotions of a child at the time of tantrums or outbreaks. You might be using the following "I statements" for validations, for instance:

• I understand that you are angry at this time

• I realize that you did not like the situation

• I know it is hard for you at this time or moment

• I recognize that it is inappropriate for anyone 

• I appreciate that your expressions let us think deeply

All of these statements have to be used wisely and appropriately in the situation. Your tone has to soft and relax. You can mix and match the ideas with the situation, it will certainly calm down the angry bird.  The child will realize that someone understands his or her feelings and emotions. Next, you can address or investigate that concern or issue appropriately 

5. Let them express feelings at that moment

Do not rush or hurry to correct/control them or suggest them anything. The child will not be able to understand anything at that moment. First, let them express emotions and listen to them consciously or mindfully. You will find many hints or red flags while listening to them. They might share those thoughts that could not be shared normally. This expression will ventilate their deep emotions and give you a better idea of how to manage them. Your child might be saying, for instance:

• You always do this to me (Give you an idea that you need to change your strategies)

• You always love youngest sister or brother (You need to justify your time for spending with each child)

• You do not listen to me (You need to focus on proper listening skills)

• You do not care about me (You need to show more affection and love )

Every single statement will remind you of something. Later on, you can request your child specifically what he or she requires from you, and in another way, you can figure it out by yourself

6. Listen, Listen, and Listen only

This is the most suitable strategy for any situation, just listen, listen and listen only. While hearing a child, closely pay attention to the content or wording or the situation child is communicating about. Listening not only assist you to better understand a child but also let the child realize that someone listening and understanding his or her feelings. This strategy is also helpful for an adult to calm down

7. Distract your child

This strategy is really helping for diverting angry bird attention to different things. While the child is arguing or yelling, you can ask different questions related to the conversation. These questions will distract your child for a moment. The most important appearance is your own temperament, mood, tone, and behavior

8. Magic of holding a hand or hug

Most of the time parents usually ignore the power of a physical touch while the child is in anger mode. It has a magical impact if you just hold hands or touch the shoulder or hug him or her. It will immediately provide support and comfort to the child, and also soothes emotions or help him or her to calm down

9. Wait for the cooling time 

Parents normally try to advise or instruct them how to behave but it is useless at that time. Please wait for the cooling time or let the child come into his or her senses. A child usually takes 15 to 20 minutes to get into senses. You have to wait and try the above-mentioned strategies, for instance, deep breathing, holding the hand of your child, listen appropriately and distract a child

10. Offer something for eating or drinking  

If you noticed that child is too high while in an angry tone, you can distract your child by offering a glass of water or juice or any other drink at that time. You can also offer chocolate or candy while properly listening to him or her. Once the child starts eating or drinking something, 5 senses would activate at that time, and connect the child with the present moment. This way a child would be grounded, for instance:

• The child will observe something, that will help to stimulate visual senses 

• Holding something for drinking or eating will help to activate touch senses

• The aroma or smell will help to activate the olfaction senses 

• While drinking or eating something will activate taste buds 

• The child will also be listening to something from parents that will activate temporal nerves

This way a child will be fully grounded and connected with reality (To be continued)

If you have any question or concern, please feel free to ask or comment below






*Mifrah Qaisar is a grade 7 student of VPMS and she drew this hand-made angry bird at my request for this blog. I really appreciate her contribution and adding value to this blog. Thank you Mifrah, I really appreciate your kind gesture