Hi everyone! I’m Neva, the blogger for the month. Recently, Ms. Montelongo, our school social worker, came to visit our West Microschool to present on mental health. At the start of her visit, she led a “‘snowball fight” activity where we all wrote about stressors in our, and our peers’ lives on a few pieces of paper and then crumpled them into little balls and threw them across the room. Then we gathered them all up and read the different stressors everyone wrote about. As a student who has dealt with stress, hearing that others have gone through the same thing or similar experiences, made me feel a lot less alone.
We watched a video on stress and the signs or symptoms of this equally good and bad experience. As a group, we went over symptoms of stress, and the effects of those symptoms such as how we interact with the world around us when we’re stressed. It is important to talk about the symptoms because there are a lot of stigmas around stress and anxiety. Talking about what our stressors are, what we do when we’re stressed, and the mental/physical symptoms helps us understand stress more, so we can learn how to cope with it. We got to see a visual of our “supports”–our inner circle, which holds groups, such as our best friends and family. The middle circle, which holds groups, such as teachers, coaches, friends, and extended family. Then the outer circle, which consists of groups, such as community supports and lifelines. This helped everyone see that we are never truly alone.
This visit helped me see that I’m not alone, and everyone goes through some form of stressor in their lives. Stress isn’t something to be scared of, and if we work on coping skills and managing stress, then we can actually use it to help us. I want to thank Ms. Montelongo for her time and for helping us learn more about the importance of mental health. For those reading this blog, thank you for taking the time to learn about our fun visit, and I hope you know you are not alone, and you are seen. That’s all for today!
- Neva Recla, ASU Prep Student
