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Creating Healthy Routines
Creating Healthy Routines
Good routines can help you feel grounded and secure. They can promote helping you plan your time of regular scheduleed outside your home. Having an organised and predictable routine can have the following benefits:
Routines at home can help you feel safe and secure, and can provide stability.
Routines that include time for fun or spending time together with immediate family members can strengthen your relationship.
Having a regular bedtime can help set your body's clock so your body ‘knows’ when it’s time to sleep.
Having an important job to do in your daily routine (such as feeding and walking the family dog) can help you develop a sense of responsibility.
Routines can help you to develop basic work skills and time management. As our mantra indicates: Work Hard, Today Counts!
What should be included in your daily schedule?
Set a daily schedule with the same wake-up times and bedtimesand stick to them. (You can splurge on times from Friday -Sunday)
Make study time part of your daily routine. Plan on including time for both your vocational and academic subjects and make it fun.
Factor in time off—where you can do the things you really enjoy doing.
Make it visual—Use the button bellow to access a link to an online daily/weekly planner where you get to decide and design what your day will look like.
Practice your new routine. (The one you designed for yourself from the morning you wake up until you go to sleep). It might sound silly, but the only way to make a routine stick is to stick with it! Don’t worry if it's a little challenging at first. Adapt it as needed. No one’s perfect. If the day does not go according to your plan, just smile, stay positive and start again the next day.
Here are some suggested routines to include in your daily calendar:
Wake up, make bed, morning hygiene activities, tidy up room, make morning meal (try something new like making waffles, French Toast, scrambled eggs ), go for morning walk/run/ bike ride or do Yoga, dedicate an amount of time to practice and dig deeper in each of the following subject areas: Science, Math, English Language Arts, Social Studies, Health/Physical Education, Business, your vocational programs, prepare lunch and clean up, face-time with friends from school and neighborhood, weekly grocery shopping (in practice with social distance guidelines), interact with family through games or helping do chores/ assisting with siblings older family members etc., hobby time, help prepare and eat dinner, interact with other household members, movie time, game time, alone time, evening hygiene, bed time. (please add any daily activities not included).
A Morning Waiting to be Fulfilled
A Morning Waiting to be Fulfilled
Start each day with a positive attitude and keep long term goals to help you remain productive. Each day, work on expert practice to reach these goals. The opposite of Expert Practice is mindless practice—just going through the motions without a real goal in mind, without concentration, and without meaningful feedback on how you can improve. When you practice like an expert, you make the most of your practice time. The same three-step process applies whether you want to become better chef, athlete, musician, and student.
I am certain you are familiar with the proverb: "the early bird catches the worm". The proverb signifies the importance of time.
The morning routine you build for yourself will provide you with ample opportunities to schedule in activities that you can improve upon each of them through expert practice. See short video link about expert practice at bottom.
Wake up - deciding when you wake up will provide you with information on how much you can achieve each day toward reaching your goals at becoming better at what you wish to do.
Make your bed- Click the link to hear from Navy Seal Admiral William H. McRaven about the importance and benefit this and other actions can have on your future.
Eat breakfast- (The most important meal of the day) Start your day energized and enthusiastic to accomplish all you set out to do. Use the resource on this page to further understand the nutritional importance of what you eat for breakfast and be creative with your meals.
Physically Fit-Go for a run/walk/bike ride- why not combine story telling and running/walking ? Zombies, run is a fun app you may want to use to motivate you getting out and getting some exercise: "Run in the Real World. Become a Hero in Another. Only a few have survived the zombie epidemic. You are a Runner en-route to one of humanity’s last remaining outposts. They need your help to gather supplies, rescue survivors, and defend their home. And you have another mission — one they don’t know about..." If you prefer to practice Yoga you will find many studios who are offering free Yoga classes online.
Read- Access Sora (on your mobile device) to read and listen to articles and stories that can fulfill you in many ways such as entertainment and information. Reading sharpens our mind. When you concentrate on the words and storyline it stimulates your brain in the part that is responsible for concentration and analysis. Reading can help relieve our mind away from the stress and hand, lower stress levels , and ward off depressive occurrences. Reading on a regular basis stimulates the part of the brain that helps memory and attention. Reading enhances your imagination especially when your read about characters and places. The act of reading in the evening can help you relax, de-stress and help pull you into a deep and peaceful sleep. Reading can benefit both your mental and physical health and most importantly brighten your day! Click this link to see another 100 additional benefits you can gain from incorporating reading into your day.
Share Your Story
Share Your Story
Sharing your story is an important way to connect with other teens, and it can provide comfort and encouragement during these uncertain times. No matter how you’re feeling, you are not alone.
One of our resources, Teen Health & Wellness, has a Personal Story Project where teens share stories of their own experiences dealing with various issues such as: Alcoholic Parent, Bullying and Cyberbullying, Child Abuse, Dealing With Your Parents, Eating Disorder, Friendship, Dating, and Relationships, Grief and Loss, Home and Family Relationships, Living With a Single Parent, Parent Is Out of Work, Protecting Yourself Against Infection and Illness, Self-Esteem and Confidence, etc.
You may access many personal stories written by teens by clicking this link. (Click the Instant Login and use your school Google credentials).
What would you like to tell other teens who are dealing with the same fears, challenges, and concerns ?
According to Harvard Research writing may ease stress and trauma. Write from your personal experiences. Here are some ideas to get you started:
What is helping you cope with the issue you are facing at the moment?
How have things changed for you, your friends, and your family?
How do you and your friends stay in touch?
How are you helping to support others in your school or local community?
Click here for the Personal Story Project guidelines before submitting your story to Teen Health & Wellness.
New personal stories are added to Teen Health & Wellness on an ongoing basis. You can send personal story at any time. If your essay is selected for the database, you will be notified by Rosen Publishing.
Spending Time with your Hobby
Spending Time with your Hobby
Hobbies can make a serious impact on your quality of life. When you’re engaged and fulfilled pursuing meaningful hobbies, that happiness spills over. It can make you more focused and enthusiastic. People tend to enjoy hobbies that appeal to their own unique strengths, interests, and personality characteristics. If you are unsure of what hobby to pursue, there are a number of personality assessments that can help you figure out which hobbies might be the right fit. These assessments can help you figure out which hobbies are most aligned with who you are and offer insights into what you might enjoy. You can call your login credentials contact your guidance councilor on Schoology).
It is no accident that many of you love the things you already do in your vocation and that is great! Obviously it's great if you would like to spend all the extra time you have now to become better at these shop skills. Angela Duckworth talks about 10,000 hour rule (time it takes to become really good at what you do). However, if you love what you are doing, the time you spend with your hobbies does not seem tedious.
Hobbies do not need to be what you are practicing as your vocation. You might be in culinary shop but really enjoy tinkering with cars or computers or playing a musical instrument.
Below are just some categories of hobbies you can pursue. Click the links to go to the sub categories and explore how to get started with each of these suggestions.
Arts & Crafts (animation, calligraphy, ceramics/pottery, fashion design, floristry, graffiti, knitting, origami, paper airplanes, photography, scrapbooking, sewing, tattoo, architecture, candle making, crochet, film making, gardening, jewelry making, lomography, painting and drawing, papier mache, quilting, sculpting, soap making, woodworking, balloon art, etc.)
Pets
Spiritual & Mental (astronomy, genealogy, languages, neuro linguistics programming, reading, sign language, novel writing, poetry, screen writing, play writing, song writing, meditation, etc.)
Click link to view additional 285 hobbies you might consider
Click the button bellow to watch a TEDx Youth segment where someone was facing a similar situation. By picking up a hobby, he was able to find his passion and redirect his negative emotions. It helped him rediscover himself and his happiness.
Endless Paths to Explore
Endless Paths to Explore
Traveling the world has many benefitss. However, time and resources are not always available to all. Most people would have to spend lots of time traveling, standing in long lines, as well as paying entrance fees to view some of the worlds greatest collections. Google Arts and Culture provides us an unimaginable access to see the natural world and amazing contributions made to quality of life throughout the years. Here are just a few world renowned museums and collections you might choose to explore in the furture:
Louvre, Paris This iconic museum houses Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa which attracts 30-50 thousand people per day just to see this painting.
British Museum, London This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone, Egyptian mummies and hundreds of artifacts. Make sure to check out the museums Google virtual tour.
Guggenheim Museum, New York Google’s Street View feature lets visitors tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase without ever leaving home. From there, you can discover incredible works of art from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary eras.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. This famous American art museum features two online exhibits through Google. The first is an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895, including many renderings of clothes from the colonial and Revolutionary eras. The second is a collection of works from Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer.
Musee d'Orsay, Paris You can virtually walk through this popular gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Get a peek at artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, among others.
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul One of Korea’s popular museums can be accessed with the first link or Google’s virtual tour which takes you through six floors of the museum.
Pergamon Museum, Berlin As one of Germany’s largest museums, Pergamon has a lot to offer. This historical museum is home to plenty of ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and, of course, the Pergamon Altar.
Rijks Museum, Amsterdam Explore the masterworks from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt by clicking the first link or Google offers a Street View tour of this iconic museum, so you can feel as if you’re actually wandering its halls.
Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City Built in 1964, this museum is dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic heritage. There are 23 exhibit rooms you can see in Google's Art and Culture filled with ancient artifacts, including some from the Mayan civilization.
Click the button below to explore so much more Art and Culture
Direct to Washington D.C.
Direct to Washington D.C.
The Smithsonian’s Learning Lab brings you all of riches of the Smithsonian Institute. With more than a million images, recordings, and texts, it encourages discovery and creativity. Click the button bellow to access one of Washington D.C.'s amazing treasures.
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