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.