Essential Advice from a Mentor

Blog post written by Nazia Tabasum A

In today’s fast-paced world, the majority of people silently struggle with many mental health problems. Because of the various wellness awareness activities done through digital mediums, most teenagers, adults, and older generations try enough to handle their mind health issues efficiently.

While teenagers and young adults aged 14–19 years are mature enough to get support in order to improve their mental well-being, children, typically up to 12 years old, are the ones who struggle with mental health issues.

But collectively, all these mid-level age groups are unsure about the changes that are happening to their psychological health, so they are hesitant to communicate about this to their parents, caretakers, and teachers.

Although these students get guidance from elders through care and support, their mental health problems continue to increase day by day.

To get detailed information regarding this topic, I had the pleasure of connecting online with Fiona Demark, a Keynote Speaker and Resilience Coach, who has 25 years experience of working with people to build personal resources and inspiration to achieve their goals.

In this blog post, she shares her insights and key strategies that will aid in enhancing students’ cognitive health.

Q: How recent global events (pandemics, climate change, and political issues) are affecting students’ health psychologically?

Fiona Demark: Students can feel anxious due to social pressures from major events. They are constantly bombarded with information regarding the various conflicts overseas and the issues of human rights, pandemics, and the impacts of climate change, and these things set the scene for long-term concerns for the future and what this may look like for them.

Family violence and the current economic concerns and way of life may be something that is having a direct impact on their families and causing additional stress and anxiety for the household, which then stays with the young person throughout their daily life.

Pressures from school, social media, and bullies—yes, they still exist. This can also have an impact on the daily lives of young people.

Q: Why are social media and technology the major threats to causing mental health problems in students?

Fiona Demark: One word: ‘comparison‘. Young people get to see an unrealistic view of the world and see the way ‘things should be’. However, these lifestyles are often out of reach.

When you only see the small glimpse into a person’s life that they choose to share on social media, and then that glimpse has been filtered and edited, the lifestyle that is portrayed is totally unrealistic. And if the young person attempts to build their life expectations around modeling these influencers, they find it an impossible ideal to achieve.

Q: How do you support students who are hesitant to ask for help?

Fiona Demark: Open communication means everyone needs something individual to help them. It is about “what can I do to make this easier or better or to help you?”.

Instead of just making the questions as part of everyday conversations, there should be efficient ways to identify problems and assist those who necessarily require proper assistance.

It is the human rights model to help everyone be their best, no matter what their circumstances. Rather than the more medical model, where you see the problem as something that needs to be ‘fixed’.

Q: What role do educational institutions play in improving students’ mental health?

Fiona Demark: Creating environments where students have the ability to share openly, to know where support can be found, and to know that they are being treated as individuals rather than just another student. Having the opportunity to explore and discuss mental health issues and to make this a regular part of the curriculum.

Q: What practices do you recommend for improving their quality of sleep and well-being? (As sleep quality plays a major role in improving mental health)

Fiona Demark: Not taking on too much: Some students are working and doing school and doing several sports competitively, and they end up burning themselves out.

Spending quality time with family and friends, following good sleep hygiene with limited time on the phone or other devices before bedtime, having a healthy routine for bedtime and for other life activities like exercise and hobbies, and focusing on studies— all these will help to improve students’ overall well-being.

Final Thoughts:                      

To sum up, awareness about mental health issues should be clearly emphasized by parents to their children, irrespective of their ages.

Educational institutions should also prioritize students’ well-being through necessary awareness about mental wellness along with their academic syllabus.

Social media platforms should also be minimally used by the students’, as they are prone to getting more affected by stress, anxieties, and depression due to the excessive usage of those digital mediums.

Above all, guided mentoring and counseling by mental health professionals should be made compulsory for all students individually in their respective educational institutions so they can get an opportunity to express their emotions without any hesitation. Through this effective strategy, every student’s mental health can be assessed effectively and can be monitored actively.

What creative approaches would you like to see in schools and colleges that can enhance the overall mental well-being of students?

Share your thoughts that can inspire new strategies for creating supportive environments for our youth.

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