Hi everyone! Welcome to the Forever Blooming Blog. Forever Blooming is a bi-weekly podcast about mental health that focuses on bringing awareness as well as shattering the stigma. Throughout each episode, you’ll be provided with coping mechanisms as well as current news on wellness. How cool is that? If you’re coming from this week’s episode of the podcast, I hope you enjoyed it. And if you haven’t listened yet, you’re missing out!
Now that I’ve let you know about the Forever Blooming, here’s a bit about me. I’m Sara and I use the “she” series of pronouns. I’m currently a rising college sophomore and studying English. I hope to work in the publishing industry one day, but for now, I’m a full-time student, attempting to live in my own “coming of age” college experience. Some of my hobbies include making friendship bracelets, crocheting, reading, and obsessing over Taylor Swift. Besides those things, I’m also passionate about activism, specifically mental health. As a teenager, I feel that mental health is deemed as a sticky situation in society when it really shouldn’t be. For example, mental health has been romanticized on social media, e.g. TikTok and Tumblr. This is harmful because romanticization comes from false stereotypes that may not be accurate. Furthermore, the anonymity of social media lets users hide behind a screen and dump their thoughts out to whoever wants to see/read them. A term coined by many TikTok users known as “the trauma Olympics” is when people try to one-up one another on their mental health issues and/or trauma. In this instance, people may feel as if their experiences with mental health are invalidated if they don’t have experiences of a similar severity level. But of course, that’s not true. No matter how you’re feeling, it’s valid.
I started to become aware of my own mental health during high school. If I’m being honest, I was a terrible test taker, which I’m sure some of you can relate to. I would stress myself out before my exams just for my mind to go blank as soon as the test was handed to me. A tip a teacher taught me is to eat your favorite food right before taking the exam; this way you can get into a better headspace. During college, I found myself getting burnt out and I became extremely unmotivated; I couldn’t even muster up the energy to skim a three-page reading. This was detrimental to my mental well-being in terms of how I perceived myself. The first step I took to help was realizing that my overall well-being is more important than one small reading. Then, I started journaling anything and everything. Prior to this year, I used to think in a journal (or diary), you’d have to write every detail of every day, and since I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I just couldn’t do that. However, that’s not the case; you can write whatever you want and that’s exactly what I did. Because of that, I was able to clear my mind and have more motivation. I even made a playlist with comfort songs that I listen to every time I journal.
I find I fidget a lot when I’m nervous, so two products that I frequently use are spiral hair ties and kinetic sand. I usually keep one spiral hair tie on my wrist and I fidget with it discreetly. I play with kinetic sand whenever I need to calm myself down; It’s really soothing. Another technique that I use is the “three things grounding method.” Whenever I’m in a situation where my nerves take over (such as right before a performance), I find three things I can feel, three things I can see, and three things I can hear. I do that as many times as I can, choosing a different set of three things that I feel, see, or hear until I feel better. This is an exercise in grounding, and I recommend it.
Aside from that, there are a few popular techniques that don’t help me. As a disclaimer, remember that just because one thing works for someone, doesn’t mean it works for everyone. Try different methods and see what works for you. Some techniques that don’t work for me include meditating, yoga, and exercise. I don’t like being left alone with my thoughts, so I found that meditation really doesn’t do it for me. However, I appreciate the versatility behind meditation since it can be used for anything from sleeping better to helping with anxiety and attaining a positive mindset. Similarly, yoga doesn’t work since it also involves me being alone with my thoughts. Unlike journaling, I can’t place what’s on my mind on something tangible. Whenever I’ve tried both mediation and yoga, my thoughts spiral around my brain and I can’t organize them like I do when I write. In terms of exercise, I’ve never been athletic, and I just can’t seem to find working out to be therapeutic. I can see how it works for some people because when you exercise, you release endorphins, which you also release when you laugh. (Endorphins are chemicals that react with opioid receptors in your brain to reduce pain.) However, I did make it a goal for myself to start going on daily walks, so who knows, the whole exercise thing may change.
I hope you guys are enjoying everything the team at Forever Blooming has to offer so far. They all work really hard and I’m looking forward to posting more blogs here in the future!
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