Mental Health

Grow Into a New Mindset

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By Skylar Millard

In a transformative space, such as college, it is important to have a growth mindset and to develop positive self-talk. Having a growth mindset allows people to develop more from learning opportunities and embrace change as it happens. It also helps prevent people from falling into stagnation. Here are some tips on how to develop a growth mindset.

Try new things

It is hard to grow in the same environment that you have always been in and college provides the opportunity have new experiences. It is important to get out of your comfort zone. Try a new hobby, play a new sport, eat new food, or generally challenge yourself to do something you have never done before.

Reframe Challenges

Think of difficult situations as a challenge to overcome rather than a reason to give up. This allows you to embrace new challenges and use them to your advantage. They provide opportunities to learn, grow, and improve yourself. When you believe in your capacity to improve your own talents, failure stops being something to be afraid of. Reframing does not only have to apply to external challenges but to internal dialogue as well.

Be Your Own Hype-man

Allow yourself some grace and give yourself some slack. If you’re putting yourself in challenging situations that are unfamiliar in, there is going to be a learning curve and you might not be great at everything you try at first. Continue to believe in yourself to be able to improve and develop. Be kind to yourself; if you would not say it to your best friend do not say it to yourself. You have to spend 100% of your time with yourself so be your own hype-man and try to make your thoughts a kind and welcoming place for yourself.

Be careful about falling into negative thought patterns such as stewing and personalization. Stewing is when you repeat negative thoughts or bad experiences over and over in your mind. Try to recognize when these intrusive thoughts occur and become intentional about stopping them. If you find yourself often stewing, consider starting a gratitude journal to bring your attention towards positive things in your life. Personalization occurs when you take things too personally or over generalize. For example, I failed a quiz so I am a failure or will always fail. For personalization it is recommended to focus on the big picture of life. Continue moving forward and realize that you have the power to change and do better in the future. It is important to be able to make mistakes and forgive yourself. If you find yourself continuously struggling with negative self-talk or obsessive thoughts consider going to Counseling and Consultation Services.

The Resilience of Champions

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College comes along with all types of new challenges, and resilience is important in order to withstand these adversities and bounce back. It is hard to know if you are resilient enough or how to improve it. There are five important aspects of resiliency: social support, self-esteem, coping skills, communication skills, and emotional regulation.

Social Support

Humans are social creatures and often need a community to help them through hardship. A person’s supportive social systems fosters their resilience in times of crisis. A support system can include immediate or extended family, community, friends, and organizations. It can be hard to find your niche especially in a place as big as OSU. But getting involved with Student Organization can help you find a support system and a sense of community.

Self-esteem

A positive sense of self and confidence in your own abilities can help with resiliency. Remember to be kind to yourself; if you would not say it to your best friend do not say it to yourself. We will touch more on self-talk a maintaining a growth mindset next week.

Coping skills

Having problem solving skills and coping skills can help empower a person to work through the challenges they face. Using positive coping skills can help bolster resilience more than nonproductive coping skills. Here are some examples of positive coping skills:

  • Exercising
  • Writing/drawing
  • Being with others
  • Watching a comfort show or movie
  • Making a to-do list or setting goals
  • Asking for support

Communication skills

Being able to communicate clearly and effectively helps people seek and receive support. People who are able to show empathy toward and inspire confidence and trust in others tend to be more resilient. Here are some tips to improve your communication skills

  • Actively listening (and do not just wait for your turn to speak)
  • Be clear and concise
  • Consider nonverbal communication
  • Be mindful of tone

Emotional regulation

Certain emotions and feelings can be overwhelming at times. The ability to manage these overwhelming emotions, or find assistance to work through them, helps to maintain focus when overcoming a challenge. Here are some tips to help with emotional regulation:

  • Identify and reduce triggers
  • Take a breath. Slow down the moments between the trigger and the response.
  • Make a choice about how to respond
  • Notice and name what you are feeling
  • Accept the emotion

Here is more material on resilience:

By: Skylar Millard

All the Small Things: A Note on Self-Care

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By: Jason Dodson 

Let me paint you a familiar picture. You wake up, it’s Monday, the beginning of the week. You’ve got to get food and get to your classes. After classes you want to spend time with friends or your partner, maybe go out for food as well. Instead, you head home and open Carmen, navigating through the syllabi, and skimming the modules to see what readings are required. While doing the mental math of how many pages of how many books, articles, slideshows, etc. you will have to read over the next 144 hours, you move on to assignments (the actual work that needs to be done in those same 144 hours): 4 discussion posts, 2 papers, a group project, and two quizzes.   

 And then after the already exhausting task of putting together a priority list of things to do for the week, you get an announcement notification from a professor with the title, “Don’t Forget About Self-Care!” The professor more than likely has good intentions, but its impact at the top of a busy week is twofold. For one it is blind to students’ gargantuan pile of assignments and readings to sift through and complete, it is adding on to said gargantuan pile as well. Self-care can feel like an additional assignment if you either A: don’t know yet what the best and most effective form of self-care to can practice or B: are not able to work your ideal self-care practice into your incredibly busy schedule.   

 It can be terribly easy to write off self-care as an impossible task to incorporate into your day simply because of how hard it is to achieve and keep up with in the first place. But, maybe taking the time to brew a fresh cup of coffee in the morning is self-care to you. Maybe listening to music in your headphones for a few minutes without a screen in front of you feels meditative. Whatever it may be, whatever small thing that brings you joy and ease even for a short period. These things may seem like a waste of time, or something you may feel like you haven’t earned due to all the other obligations you have, but should be incorporated anyway if they bring you a sense of calm and happiness. 

 Self-care is not about finishing all of your assignments and slumping down in your chair, exhausted, and then carrying on with the things that you enjoy doing that you’ve deprived yourself of to that point. It’s about finding ways to incorporate, even to a small degree those things you enjoy so you don’t feel deprived and exhausted at the end of it all.  After all, self-care should be considered more literally as “taking care of yourself”, which is only definable by you. 

 So next time you’re reminded about self-care, don’t ignore it. Find something, some time in that day in the middle or beginning of all the assignments or whatever expectations you have, take some time to yourself for, again, even a small thing to give yourself calm and happiness in that moment, enough to carry on. 

Knocking People-Pleasing Tendencies

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By: Jewell Jones

You all may be wondering what a people pleaser is; it’s exactly as it sounds- someone who pleases people. Although most people try to do right by others anyway, people pleasers go the extra mile to make sure they are doing good by everyone. Some examples are not being able to say no, even though you want to, not establishing or enforcing healthy boundaries, being too agreeable, and worrying about what others think regarding your behaviors. Having these qualities can lead to you feeling overwhelmed, being stressed out, overextending yourself, and not exhibiting the best you possible.

Now, the question is why? How does one become a people pleaser? There are a few ways all disclosed on this website, but I’ll discuss a few if you don’t feel like opening another tab. I’ll also address some others that aren’t on that site, but this one. One reason behind being a people pleaser is simply being a person full of compassion. This is probably the most common reason, but we still have to remember that we are important as well and need to take care of ourselves first. Another reason is how you were raised- authoritarian households (high expectations followed by punishment if not met), tiger parenting (pushed to perform successfully) and trauma are all ways people end up exhibiting people-pleasing tendencies. More ways include fear of rejection and disappointing others, wanting to fit in, and lack of self-awareness and love.

In order to reverse these tendencies, we have to first be aware of them, then work on changing them. Next, we have to realize we can choose what we want and don’t want to do, no matter who for or how important it may seem to them. Another step is setting boundaries and following through with them- the boundaries are no good if people continue to disregard them. Simply saying no, and ‘sitting with discomfort’ is one of the most important factors when reversing people-pleasing because people then have less power over your actions. The website above lists a couple more along with reminders to tell yourself when it gets difficult to challenge your behaviors.

Now ask yourself this question- am I a people pleaser? If you answered no, and aren’t lying, congratulations! I wish I could say the same. If you answered yes, I hope you considered this post and will do some of the things to help you gain your power back. Please feel free to let me know if this post was helpful, and any other comments you may have.

Staying Motivated and Healthy For A New Semester

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As the Spring 2021 semester begins, it can be challenging for students to get prepared and find their motivation to begin coursework and attend classes while getting into the swing of a new semester. One way students can prepare and motivate themselves for a new semester is by creating a schedule and planning out the workload for classes and sticking to that schedule. Creating a schedule and plan for the semester will help put stress at ease and get students excited and motivated! Students should review their created schedules and plans every couple of weeks and tweak if you find your previous one was too ambitious or to reflect any new priorities and commitments. One great resource that OSU offers to help motivate and prepare students is the Dennis Learning Center. The Dennis Learning Center is a resource that offers courses, academic coaching, and workshops to help students develop their learning and motivation strategies. As important as it is to get prepared and motivated, it is also crucial for students to stay healthy throughout the semester. OSU offers many supportive resources to help keep students healthy. One of those resources is the Student Wellness Center which empowers students to strive for strength and wellness through their programs such as nutrition coaching, wellness coaching, and many more! Another resource offered by OSU to support students’ health is the office of Student Life Counseling and Consultation Services which strives to support students struggling with their mental health. Although the start of a new semester can be a stressful time for students, OSU offers a variety of resources to support their students and keep them on track to succeed! With the support of these resources, students can have a successful semester at OSU!

The links to the above resources are listed below:
https://dennislearningcenter.osu.edu/
https://swc.osu.edu/
https://ccs.osu.edu/

Let’s talk about mental health

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Let’s talk about mental health. With finals coming up soon and everything going on in the world, sometimes we just need to talk about how things are going. Let’s Talk is a Free and confidential resource offered to all Ohio State students. It’s a one on one session for about 15 to 20 minutes that allows for a new insight on something you may struggling with or the time can be used to allow you to vent. One of the best things about Let’s Talk is there is very quick sign up process where you have the option of a video call or audio call. This allows you to get rid of that sometimes-awkward moment of having the person see you while you talk to them. Overall, Let’s Talk is a wonderful service that helps get students connected with someone to talk to and it is easily accessible to all.

Here is a link to signup if you want to give Let’s Talk a try:

https://ccs.osu.edu/services/on-demand-services/lets-talk-consultations

The Importance of Self-Care 

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As the Autumn 2020 semester begins to wind to a close, many of us are worried and stressed about our final exams and projects. As all of these assignments and exams pile up, we as students begin to stress out and overwhelm ourselves about completing these assignments on time. Although the completion of these assignments and exams are important; it is essential for us to put time aside to focus on self-care activities. Our mental, emotional, and physical well-being are critical to remain healthy so that we are able to avoid burnout. If we are unable to take care and focus on those aspects of ourselves, how can we expect ourselves to stay motivated and determined to finish out the semester strong? Self-care activities are meant to relax and re-energize ourselves while increasing our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Research tells us that self-care keeps us healthy and improves our moods. Remember, you are just as important as that assignment, so let’s spend time caring for ourselves and finish out the semester strong! 

Attached below are a couple of resources that give you more information about why self-care is important, how you can practice and prioritize it, and a few self-care activities you can engage in. 

https://cmhc.utexas.edu/selfcare.html https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/134-activities-to-add-to-your-self-care-plan/