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Managing stress is a challenging but important part of life and building independence. Together, matches can discuss what situations or events can trigger stress, identify and explore managing strategies for managing stress, and build skills for asking for help, when needed. This is not just an opportunity for protégés to build their self-care and stress management toolkit, but also an opportunity for mentors.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of our matches were able to build their relationship by sharing their successes and challenges in managing the stress associated with our "new normal." Whether you are new to stress management skills, or looking for some new tools, here you will find some conversation starters and tools to explore these topics with your match.
Why is Self-Care Important?
Why is Self-Care Important?
While everyone should practice self-care, it is especially important for young people who are under stress from multiple areas in their lives. Developing the skills, definition, and practice of self-care will help teens to handle everyday stress as well as emergency situations. These practices can help young people grow personally as they learn about their needs and themselves.
Mental and Emotional Well-Being
Mental and Emotional Well-Being
The state of your mental health is dependent on your emotional, psychological, and social well-being, significantly shaping how you think, feel, and act. It can influence your ability to handle stress, your relationships with others, and your choices. Taking active steps that strive to enhance your mental health and well-being could extend positively into different aspects of your life—academically, professionally, personally, and the mentoring relationship. Here you will discover a range of informative resources and tools that you will explore alongside your protégé or mentor to understand the importance of prioritizing mental health and ways to improve and maintain it.
Conversation Starters:
What are some things you do whenever you are feeling upset or sad?
How about when you are feeling happy or excited?
Do you practice self-care?
If so, what does it involve?
What do you think is the importance of practicing self-care?
What interests or hobbies make you feel most happy and relaxed?
Do you feel comfortable talking about your feelings with someone?
If so, to whom?
How do you maintain awareness of your feelings?
What are some things you can do to improve or support your mental health?
Video:
We All Have Mental Health - 5:39
Tools and Resources:
Looking to improve your emotional well-being? Take a look at this toolkit of six different strategies intended to help you enhance your mental health and well-being. It provides a checklist of various ways you can implement each of these strategies in your daily life.
Educational Websites on Mental Health: Review websites like “KidsHealth” and “Child Mind Institute,” where you can find videos and articles discussing different topics associated with mental health. Both websites go into depth about understanding feelings and thoughts and offer many useful skills.
Activity Ideas:
Play Bingo! Engage your protégé or mentor in this game to gain a better understanding of what strategies each person utilizes in their daily lives to help them maintain good mental health.
Conversation Starters: Identifying Stressors
Conversation Starters: Identifying Stressors
When do you feel most stressed or overwhelmed?
Can you identify any activities or commitments that make you stressed?
What are stressors in your life? Create a list and share with each other. Discuss differences and similarities and healthy ways to cope.
How does stress affect you?
Do you have a kind of red warning flag that indicates too much stress?
When you are stressed or overwhelmed, how do you feel physically? How do you feel emotionally?
How do you cope when you are stressed?
What is the hardest thing about being you at the moment?
Conversation Starters: Identifying Allies
Conversation Starters: Identifying Allies
Who are the people in your life that you ask for help? Adults? Peers? Family/Friends?
Share a story of a time you asked for help and got it. How did that make you feel?
What is something in your life right now that you need or are getting help with?
How to ask for help: Sometimes it can be difficult to ask for help. This guide will encourage you to ask for help when you need it by reinforcing the idea that asking for help is a strength, not a weakness.
5 Steps to talking to someone you trust: This guide breaks down five steps to talking to someone you trust and asking for help when you need it. Use it to clarify thoughts and gain confidence to talk about sensitive topics.
Conversation Starters: Start a Self-Care List
Conversation Starters: Start a Self-Care List
When is a time where you felt relatively happy, safe, or content with life?
When have I felt supported?
When have I felt at peace?
What does it mean to you as an individual to relax?
What activity brings you enjoyment? How often do you do this task?
Do you think you are being selfish if you put your needs first or do you feel guilty by doing so? Why or why not?
Conversation Starters: Experimenting with Self-Care
Conversation Starters: Experimenting with Self-Care
Part of successful self-care is identifying strategies that work and don’t work for you! Experiment with different self-care activities and check-in with your match about how it’s going.
For self-care activities that are working:
How do these activities help you or make you feel?
Is there anything else that all the activities have in common?
For self-care activities that aren’t working:
How do these activities make you feel?
How do you want to feel when doing activities for self-care?
Tools and Links for Self-Care and Stress Management
Tools and Links for Self-Care and Stress Management
Self-Care Tools
Yoga for Teens (Yoga with Adriene)
Breathing exercises
Virtual Therapy (for young people) - First five sessions are free
Stress Management Plans and Tools
Focus and Productivity Apps (Free!)
Flora: Flora has you plant a virtual tree (alone or with friends) every time you set your 25-minute timer. If anyone who planted the tree touches their phone, the tree is killed. You also have the option to join the Flora Care service, which plants real trees when you reach your goal of total number of focused hours.
Flipd: Flipd is both a screen-limiting app and a meditative app. It offers a timer and a Focus Lock to limit distractions, it allows you to connect and challenge your friends, and it has a Wellness Hub where you can listen to relaxing music, white noise, or motivational audio tracks.
The Science of Well-Being for Teens - Audit this online course for free! This 6-week course aims to curb this mental health crisis by bringing together the best insights from Dr. Laurie Santos’ popular Yale course Psychology and the Good Life. In this course, you will explore what the field of psychology teaches us about how to be happier, how to feel less stressed, and how to thrive in high school and beyond. The lessons along with short weekly ‘happiness homework’ assignments will ultimately prepare you to put these scientific findings into practice. The ultimate goal is for you to feel better and build healthier habits. Mentors can also take this course alongside your protégés to learn more about their experience, or audit the original course on Coursera!
Mental Health Resources for BIPOC youth
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