Summer Self-Care: How to Boost Your Teen’s Mental Health

So we do something that we like I eat a cake, I

watch a favorite video, I do something fun, I get this rush

of dopamine, I spike, I feel awesome. But what happens is

what goes up must come down. So then our dopamine crashes, and

it doesn't crash back down to normal, it goes below normal.

Welcome everyone to Roadmap to Joy. I'm Jake sparks, the Embark

treatment director and I am excited to be here today I am a

marriage and family therapist with over 15 years of experience

working with adolescents and their parents. And I'd love to

go over some questions specifically related to mental

health, and summertime. So we think of summer time as this

really lovely enjoyable time schools Out Stress Free, Let's

go party. But we know a lot of families actually struggle a lot

more and a lot of our adolescents actually increase

their symptomology around areas of mental health. So one of the

things I'd love to frame this discussion, I would actually

like to focus on mental health versus mental illness. And the

reason is what we're talking about today really impacts

everyone and impacts all of our adolescence. So as we go

through, what are some of the barriers? What are some of the

ways that you can protect yourself or your teens in your

house, I want you to think about ways that we can minimize,

minimize risk. So there's an inherent in life, there's always

risk. But hopefully, you'll have some tools and resources to

minimize the disruption or the risk of disruption that having

school out for three or four months in the summer time

causes. So we're going to talk about mental health as it

relates to summer, I'm going to answer some questions. And then

I have three big points that are always there. But we really need

to tackle and understand these three big related issues related

to mental health. So first question is, is it common for

teens or kids to struggle with their mental health during the

summer? And the answer is, yes, that is common. It's also common

for kids to struggle when it's not summer. Every fall, we talk

we say where it's back to school, more stress, more

anxiety, mental health issues are going to increase. And

that's true that happens every fall, and also happens when

school's out. So what we found is that depending on who you

are, who your child is, and your situation, your mental health

needs, might increase or decrease as the changes come,

your or some specific risks, though, to be aware of

specifically associated with summertime. So there is a thing

called seasonal affective disorder, which is an increase

of symptomology that look very similar to depression. Now we're

typically seeing this in the wintertime, as it's cold, the

sunlight is low, people don't get as much vitamin D, and we

see these depressions that can occur. There is evidence of it

happening in summertime as well. And we'll talk a lot more about

circadian rhythms and schedules and all of that why that might

be however, we also know that when we are seeing summertime

seasonal affective disorder, it's probably also related to

shifts in scheduling, and timing in support and access to

resources and social engagement. So So here are some of the

reasons that we know clients, kids, families, even parents

might struggle in the summer. So first one, it's a really big

disruption to your routine. So if you do school, nine months a

year, then all of a sudden, great, do nothing, just hang

out, you have nowhere to go nowhere to be that sounds

awesome on its on its face. But it's a really big disruption to

their schedule, that can be really hard to tolerate, we tend

to minimize the disruption and actually the difficulty that

that is, particularly for our kids and adolescents, especially

if they have any mental health issues or propensities or

history of mental health symptoms. Medication often gets

disrupted. Sometimes ADHD medication or other types of

medications are prescribed for school year and sometimes

psychiatrists are medical doctors recommend to come off of

them. And while we should always listen to what our health care

provider says, always do ask your pediatrician. Ask your

psychiatrists, what's best for you, however, know that whatever

that recommendation is, might be a stressor and might be a

healthy stressor. But again, it might be adding to the risk of

mental health issues. Reduce sleep is a big one, which you

would think it's not because they have more time and there's

not school or not getting up but we know Oh, that sleep is really

closely tied to our mental health. And all of that goes out

the window, all of the scheduling, that can be really

difficult. A lot of kids struggle with isolation. So

think of how many kids have friends and have peers at

school, but maybe they don't quite hang out with people at

home. So when they're not going to school, or how much are they

seeing and interacting with other people in a face to face

environment, we know that that can decrease throughout the

summer, and actually increased feelings of loneliness and

isolation. So that leads to sometimes more screen time

social media, we're gonna dive into that in a really detailed

way. But if they're not doing school, that time is being

filled with something else. And then lastly, is, is just what do

they do with themselves? And it's hard for each of us to know

what to do with ourselves. So those are some risk factors that

might increase someone's mental health issues that you need to

be thinking about. Those are all existing, how can you minimize

those risks in your family or with yourself? So we get asked a

lot, well, what are some signs that I might need to know to

know if my child needs extra support, or maybe even therapy.

So please do not say my kids really depressed and really

anxious, but school is almost over, let's just wait till

school ends, and maybe these problems will go away, they're

probably not going to go away on their own. Now, it is true when

our stress level exceeds our ability to cope, we can

experience mental health issues. So as schools goes down, and it

decreases the stress, maybe that child can now cope better, and

they might become less symptomatic over the summer,

great. Take the wind when you can. However, if nothing, no

growth and development happens, what's going to happen when that

same level of stress gets thrown back in their face in the fall?

Are they going to be better prepared? Probably not. So as a

therapist, I'm always saying the best time to go to therapy is

when you can, when you're already regulated and coping,

when you're in crisis, it's really hard for me to do

effective therapy with you, I have to do a lot of work, you

have to do a lot of work to get out of that crisis. So we can

get back on a path towards long term health and healing. So if

your child or yourself are struggling during the school

year, don't assume summer is going to fix it all. I would

encourage you to take the summer take the relaxation in the break

as a time for self growth and self improvement so that you are

better prepared come fall that you're actually can cope and

tolerate a higher level of stress. I get asked is it a good

idea to change medications we talked on that briefly. It may

or may not be please speak with your medical provider, your

pediatrician, your doctor in and make sure they understand the

the symptomology that's happening, and how that

symptomology changes throughout the summer. Again, there's so

much disruption so much changes that while those sometimes are

welcome disruptions, we can't underestimate how, how difficult

it might be to tolerate for one of our students or our children

or someone in our family, I want to give you some really tangible

things to look out for and to be aware of. So school as it

separates, and now we're into the throes of summer. There's

three, three main things that I want to suggest we think about

today. So I want to dive into these a little bit more

specifically. So the first one I've mentioned is Sleep, sleep.

Now each human knows that we need a certain amount of sleep.

We all know that. And yet we know that most of us don't get

it. We know that it's the best thing for us. But for whatever

reason. Like I will do anything to sleep eight hours a night

except for go to bed eight hours before I need to wake up it

should be so easy, but it's not so in the teens are particularly

struggle with this. So the average amount of sleep that

teenagers get is between seven and seven and a half hours of

sleep. That's the average. And we know empirically. teenagers

and adolescents need nine and a quarter hours of sleep each

night. Okay, they're probably not getting that summertime

comes you'd think they'd get it more but the research shows they

actually don't, as a result at most adolescents are chronically

sleep deprived and sleep deprivation can have a

horrendous impact on your own mental health. It impacts your

mood negatively, so moody, irritable, cranky, so you feel a

greater intensity of emotion. And then an ability to regulate

and behave appropriately in social contexts with that

emotion is also decreased. So it's kind of a double whammy we

feel worse and our ability to manage our emotions also

decreased. So then we start to see negative behaviors

disruptive behaviors, We know chronic sleep impacts our

ability to think. So think of how important

cause and effect are to work now to relax later that planning.

All of those things are really diminished. When we're sleep

deprived, we end up thinking, what do I want right now? And I

just want it right now, we don't really think about what's

healthy and good for us in the long term. And then there are

other things as, as our teens and adolescents go out engage in

the world, are they more prone to drowsy driving, or more prone

to make unhealthy decisions with peers and with friends and to be

in places that they may be otherwise wouldn't make. But

again, we're talking about risk factors. So when we're sleep

deprived, we're increasing a risk factor that creates an

environment where mental health issues are more likely to arise.

So be thoughtful and intentional about your sleep or about your

child's sleep. Now, it's totally normal for adolescents to want

to stay up later and sleep in longer. That's actually it's

called the latest phase, sleep preference. And it's

developmentally normal and necessary for teens and

adolescents. If you're a parent, you did that too. Well. So what

is important to remember is that just because they're programmed

to want to stay in bed longer and stay up later, that's might

not always be what's what's best for them. It's really important

to maintain a sleep schedule. Okay. So there's a couple of

ways that you can do this. There's a researcher out of

Stanford University that has a famous podcast, he's done a

great job of disseminating information. His name's Dr.

Andrew Huberman. He is a professor of biology and

ophthalmology. And he's made it his life's mission to talk about

the power of sleep and circadian rhythms, and how they can govern

our lives. So here's a protocol that he recommends, you can go

and learn more. But he talks a lot about the power of light to

reset our circadian rhythm. So what happens is, if a teenager

doing is they might get more sleep, but their circadian

rhythm is not imbalanced, or biologically, they're not those

rhythms and there's patterns, it's actually quite disruptive,

and is really hard for our bodies to tolerate. There's been

lots of studies on shift workers, a graveyard workers, we

know that that is associated with more stress, obesity,

mental health issues, cognitive impairments, there's a whole

laundry list of symptoms that come from having your circadian

rhythm thrown out of whack. So please focus on getting sleep.

One thing that you can do, this is not it takes a little bit of

work, but I promise it's worth it. So if you are struggling or

your child is struggling with their circadian rhythm, a couple

of things you can do. So first thing in the morning, it's

imperative that you get some sunlight into your eyes. So if

you can wake up and go out, don't stare at the sun, please

don't do that. But if you can get some of that morning

sunlight into your eyes, some of the blues, some of the oranges,

some of the the yellows as it comes out the beginning of the

day, what that does, is that sends a signal inside of your

body that 16 hours from now I'm going to need to go to sleep. So

what you do in the morning, will set your body up biologically to

sleep in 16 hours. Okay, now you can get this double effect if

maybe 30 minutes at sunset, get that Twilight sun into your eyes

that will send another signal to your body of I need to get ready

for bed in time to start producing melatonin and get

these physiological processes in line. So these are great ways to

make sure your circadian rhythm is on track so that biologically

you are not thrown off by the by the scheduling if you can do

will have a giant impact on your ability to fall asleep, stay

asleep and wake up in the morning actually feeling

refreshed. Isn't that awesome? A couple other things that you

need to be aware of. If you need to take a nap, I would suggest

take it in the early afternoons, which means your wake up time

probably needs to also be earlier. So if you sleep till 11

You're probably not going to be ready for your 12 o'clock nap.

Right? So be really thoughtful mindful of that. The other thing

we know is the power of law. ate, as I just said, and screens

and noise. So I know a lot of people that fall asleep with the

lights on with the TV on. With the noise blaring, the research

is very clear. While those things might not disrupt your

sleep, you might feel like I got a full night's sleep, I didn't

wake up at all the TV was on all night, what we know is that

sleep is much less powerful and effective for you. So sleep with

the lights on is not good. Sleep with the sound on is not good.

So I would encourage you to not do it, try to not be the the

person that falls asleep at 2am with the TV on you're not going

to get good restful sleep, you're not going to wake up

feeling good. And it's going to just perpetuate the same

dysfunctional cycle. Avoid caffeine, smoking, drugs,

alcohol, particularly in the evening, all of those things

keep you awake. And then if you have any specific sleep,

diagnoses, apnea, insomnia, these skill, these tips and

tricks probably aren't going to cure those things. But again,

it's about minimizing your risk. So if you can be thoughtful, and

I'll speak directly to any adolescents out there, this is

not the funnest thing you'll ever do. However, part of your

growth and journey from being a child to a human is figuring out

how to take care of yourself. So these are some really clear ways

you can manage your sleep to where you can feel rested, and

ready to go the next day. Okay, so summer, think about sleep,

super important for your mental health. The second issue that

comes up all the time, is screens, now, screens, TV

screens, cell phone, social media, all of that this is not

going to be an exhaustive review of what you can and should not

do all those things, we could do a whole episode just about that.

But wanted to give you some nuggets. Now. It's really easy

to demonize electron technology, electronics, that is not what

this is about. I, I'm a full believer that screens are here

to stay. And it's important for us to teach ourselves and our

families, our teens, specifically how to use these

tools and resources in a way that's valuable for them. We can

really concerned about their children reading books, and then

like the kids are reading too many books that's gonna rot

their brains, which sounds crazy to us today. Well, that'd be

awesome. If our kids read more books, we would love that. But

basically, every generation has been fearful of all this new

technology is gonna break society. That's not what I'm

saying screens are good, the connections are good. There's

lots of good, valuable tools, and they're here to stay. Our

job is to how do we figure out how to use those to our

advantage. And again, mitigate the risks that they will have to

our own mental health. And the risks are many. So here's a

couple of details for you think about if this applies to you, or

to your child. Cool. The average team spends eight hours and 40

minutes looking at screens each day, not including schoolwork.

So they go to school, they do their thing. And then the rest

of their free time, eight hours and 40 minutes of that free time

is spent with their face in a screen. So that's about half of

their waking hours. Okay, now before you feel like I'm bashing

teens, okay, kids these days with their phones, adults aren't

much better. Okay, so let's be honest about ourselves, none of

us are good. And as a society, we're not good. And it's really

difficult for parents who are also not good at managing this

to teach their, their their children. But this is something

we need to be aware of. So eight hours, 40 minutes is what the

average teen is spending on their phones. On the screen

outside of schoolwork. There is some difference about what

people are doing teenagers spend more than three hours a day of

that time watching TV or videos. We know that there's some

relationship between is that like YouTube, Netflix, or is it

social media, those are treated a little bit differently.

One thing that the research is very clear that kids aren't

doing on their phones is reading. Most of us are not

struggling with our addiction to the Kindle app, you might have a

great book that you know and love. But most That's not the

thing that hugs most of us. So here's some data from common

sense. Media puts out a report almost annually about the state

of media and adolescents and consumption. So here's some

stats. So only 34% of teens say that they enjoy social media a

lot. So two thirds of teens are like yeah, I don't love it. It's

fine. It's okay. However 95% say they use it daily. And more than

a third say they use social media almost constantly. So I

see this a lot. times in my practice where I'll have clients

come in and they'll say, I'm on my phone, I don't like love

Snapchat, tick tock is not my favorite thing in the world, I

don't need to be on Instagram. But there is a sense of

impeding, there's this fear of missing out, of course, but it's

also where they connect with people. And there's a sense of,

I'm worried someone's gonna send me a message, and I'm not going

to be there, I don't want to let anyone down. And there's this

all the social pressure to just exist. And in my head, I've

always thought about if I, you know, I have a job, I would not

say, email is a hobby of mine. I don't really enjoy checking

email. But I do it a lot. And even on the weekends, when I

like, I'm not working this weekend, I'll check my email.

And if other people are emailing me, and work still happening,

you know, I'm gonna jump in and do email. Now think about if you

had a different email accounts all on their own app, and

different people contacted you in different emails that you all

had to check. So there's this pressure with social media that

most the vast majority of teens say I actually don't love it.

But I feel like I have to participate in it. So social

media in that sense, is, is a is a is a risk factor. Because

there's one more obligation one more thing to do on actually

relieving or helping us to escape, it's, we're just feel

like we're caught up. Now, there's some great things about

it is that it can help us to connect. And we do know,

especially from populations that have been marginalized, it's a

great way to find a community that's accepting and

accommodating, and one that you can feel belonging to. So it's

not all bad. Most of it, I would say is actually really good.

However, you need to be intentional about protecting

yourself from the risk factors. So adolescents, so here this

adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social

media face double the risk of poor mental health system

symptoms. So if you spend more than three hours a day on social

media alone, that doesn't include Netflix or all that this

is just social media, you're twice as likely to be anxious,

depressed, or have other mental health issues. Now, here's the

kicker, how much are people typically spending on social

media? The average client average teen is spending over

three and a half hours a day. Okay, so that's, that's the

data. So over three hours, you're doubling your risk. And

most of all, most of us, adults, too, are more than double cam.

So as a society, you can imagine how that spells out, we do know

that greater social media use predicts poor sleep, which you

already talked about. It predicts online harassment, poor

body, poor body image, low self esteem, and higher depressive

symptoms. So we can see how much social media someone uses. And

we can predict how likely they are to have symptoms in those

area. And this is this bad news, I sorry to have to say this,

this is particularly true for young women compared to young

men. And we'll won't get in. There's lots of reasons probably

why for that, but that's just what you need to be aware of

social media is going to have a bigger impact the data says on

young women than it will on young men, young women who

struggle, who are struggling socially offline are three to

four times as likely as others to report daily negative social

experiences online. So let me say that, again, if you're

struggling with mental health issues, in your everyday life,

you are more likely three to four times more likely to

experience negative content that will impact your mental health

in a negative way. So it's almost the way these algorithms

work. If you are mentally distressed, anxiety, depression,

other symptoms and you hop online, it is literally more

dangerous for you than for the person who's not distressed.

Okay, we know those with moderate or severe depressive

symptoms. roughly seven and 10, who use Instagram and Tiktok say

they come across problematic suicide related content, at

least monthly on these platforms. So among those who

are most distressed are the ones that are most likely to see the

distressing content. Okay. So that's why again, I would

encourage us to have this risk factor, how do we protect the

number one way we can protect is to limit and decrease our

exposure. I'm not saying throw your phones on the toilet and

never look at it again. I know that's not realistic. But can

you understand where you are mentally, emotionally understand

developmentally where your child is, and provide an environment

that is most attuned and developmentally appropriate for

them in their current state, okay. That's what parent

caregivers have to do. So you have to be able to say, here's

my child, if they're having mental health issues, that

probably means you need to decrease their exposure to these

really detrimental impacts, probably can't minimize it, you

can't do can't forget about it. But if you can go from three and

a half hours a day to one hour a day, that would be we know, if

you can do less than one hour, your outcomes are so much

better. Now, with social media, it's really hard because no one

just says, oh, it's one o'clock time for my social media hour,

here I go. It's something you do in little bite sized chunks all

throughout the day, I'm on Instagram for two minutes, and I

pop over to this and I meet dinner that I do this. And it's

just all over. So it's really difficult. So here's some things

that caregivers can do, you can create, what I would say is a

family media plan family technology plan. And this is not

something that you can just say, kids, you have to do this, but

parents don't, you all should do it together. Okay, because, as

we've said, parents, adults aren't any better at the social

media thing than kids. So I would actually suggest call me

old fashioned that you do, you have a structured set of point

time where you were going to do all your social media being in

one setting in one place, and you have some supports nearby

and around. And you say our app from two to three is that's when

I'm going to check all my social media stuff, tell hide, have

everyone do what I need to do. And that way, if I come across

something, or I need support, I can go talk to my mom or my dad

or get help in whatever way I need to. So create a social

media plan that everyone follows. I highly suggest you

create spaces in your house that are technology free, and that

you dedicate a time to be unreachable. Okay, so the

research is very clear. If you can have an hour a day without

your phone, where no one can call you. No one can texture,

there's nothing that's going to buzz, your mental health

dramatically improves. So maybe this is go for a jog. Do you do

yoga, leave your phone at home, when you go and check them out.

I don't whatever, do look for opportunities to be away from

your technology, model responsible social media

behavior. So this is one thing that I have found. I as as a

clinician, I've worked with a lot of victims of bullying,

whether in person, or virtual, social media bullying, a lot

that's happened, it's rampid, you're going to come across too,

and it's going to be destructive. So first limit your

access. But the thing I've never come across is a client that has

come in and says I am a bully. I am a virtual bully, I bully

people on social media. I haven't ever really seen that

person come into my office. And the reason why is that the vast

majority of those bullies don't perceive themselves as bullies.

Oftentimes they perceive themselves as victims. And when

we feel as we are victims or we are hurt, we will reach out and

try to find some power, try to find some influence and hurt

other people. So the message is just like in the real world, but

for online, virtually it's expanded tenfold. There's hurt

people out there. And they do not great healthy things

sometimes and we are the same. That's a natural human reaction.

So model responsible social media behavior. And don't

participate, block limit, get out of those toxic environments,

virtually.

And then lastly, this is really hard to do, but would be really

great work. This is what parents can do work with other parents

to create shared norms. So there's so much social pressure.

And when the data is very clear, teens do not want the social

pressure. They don't want to be there. They don't want to have

to have all the stuff to manage. Now they do like the videos and

they want to have the privileges and of course they want to have

the freedom. But the actual experience of it is really

distressing and difficult. So work with other parents to

create shared norms about what's appropriate for your, your

group, your child's group of friends, what are they doing,

the more we can be utilizing social supports and positive,

uplifting ways, the better we can be. It's often said that we

become who our peers are. And that's probably there's some

truth to that how our children's friends how they project into

the world, how they show up their mental and emotional

health, how vulnerable they are with their parents, all of those

things come out in friendships. So it's all really interrelated.

Here's my last tip. We talked about tech free zones. I highly

encourage you to leave your phone outside of your bedroom,

everyone in your family. If you're asking your teams to do

it, you got to do it too. So the research is also really clear

having your phone in your bedroom negatively impacts your

sleep. Now someone out there is gonna say, but Jake, I don't

even look at my phone, I plugged in my nightstand, I sleep all

night, I don't look at it till morning, I believe you and

you're wrong, it impacts your sleep negatively. And what we

have found through the research is that just having the phone in

the room, it causes you to exert psychological energy to not look

at it. So even though you're resting, and you're not looking

at it, it's causing, in order to do that it takes energy. So you

don't actually sleep very well. So that's why we have to set up

in our spaces, places where it's like, you don't have to use any

energy, you're not going to use your phone, you couldn't use it

if you even wanted to have to go walk downstairs and into the

kitchen and unplug it. So there's some relief that comes

from that now if I go up to an adolescent and or probably

anyone and actually and I say, Hey, give me your phone for 60

minutes, or give me your phone for the night. That is not a

comforting, we want it by us, we have it with us all of the time.

I am suggesting we don't let yourself relax and to know

nothing's going to ring or Buzz and that you have to exert no

energy into not looking at it. Okay, here's what adolescents

can do in regards to their own social media. Oh, and I do want

to say, this comes up all the time for parents is they'll say

my, my child is using her phone inappropriately. And what are we

going to do? And how do I make her follow the rules? And she's

going to have these boundaries? And always what I say is, would

you give your eight year old child the keys to the car? And

they say, Well, no, of course I wouldn't. And I say well, but

you gave her the phone, you gave it to her you bought it, you

paid for it, you pay them phone bill, you see her you more than

likely than not you gave her the phone. And if she is misbehaving

or not handling it appropriately, what that means

is she's not developmentally ready for the thing you gave

her, we wouldn't give an eight year old the keys to the car,

because it's they're not developmentally ready to drive.

And if we did, and that eight year old crashes the car that's

not on the eight year old that's on the parent for expecting this

child to do something they're not developmentally ready to do.

So if misuse comes up now misuse can be defined how your family's

planned determines that but maybe they accessing dangerous

or inappropriate content or being mean or rude and bullying

other people online or using it appropriately. But just 24/7

don't know how to turn it off. All of those things, I invite

you as caregivers to see those as your problem. And your your

child is asking the saying, I'm not managing this, I need your

help to manage it for me. That doesn't mean take it away

doesn't mean throw the phone in the toilet, you can never see it

again. I'm not saying be pejorative and punitive and

punish them. I'm not saying that I am saying they need help and

support and they're looking to you for that help and support.

They might not want the help and support. But that's what they

are saying they need. So you're never allowed to blame your

child for their myth, electronic misuse. And that's on us as

caregivers to assess what developmentally they're ready

for. And we're going to get it wrong. And that's why we have to

correct okay, here's what adolescents can do. So

adolescents out there, listen up. This is really glamorous

stuff to talk about. I know. But part of being an adult is having

to figure out how to do the right thing and manage us now I

will also say, teens, if you want control and manage to

manage this, then do it. Right. If you don't want your parents

policing it for you, it's your on you to show them they don't

need to police manage this. Okay? So number one thing teens

can do is they can ask for help. We actually know depending on

how your family communication, we know that when teens

adolescents feel like I can go to mom and dad and show show

them the negative interaction I'm having show them the

problem. They actually feel so much better about their social

media use parent, both parents and the student and the client

and the child. So ask for help create boundaries and separation

between online and offline activities. So I suggest no

screens for 60 minutes before bed. I suggest strongly no

screens and bedrooms. And no screens at mealtimes are other

times of connection. So have some time each day where you're

just going to take a screen fast. And I'm not doing screens

right now. You need it. Okay. It is a fun thing, but it's a

pressure and a weight that you can't carry 24/7 You will become

exhausted, set it down separate every day, some time to just

know I'm unreachable. Develop proactive strategy. So there's

tons of apps apps that can track your time track what your

activity that can say you spent this amount of time on social

media this amount of time on YouTube this amount of time. So

they can tell you that be thoughtful about a plan. So

don't just use your phone and be like, I guess I use what I use,

identify for yourself based where I'm at today, my mental

health, emotional health, my time, responsibilities,

everything. How much time can I devote towards tick tock,

actually, my life right now I get 30 minutes a day. And if I'm

spending more than that, it means I'm wasting time and I'm

not doing other things. Great. So be intentional. And make a

plan, and then track it and see and you can adjust. This plan

will change depending on developmentally, mentally,

emotionally, how your stress levels, this plan will need to

change and fluctuate. But again, I will say the more mentally

distressed you are more anxiety and depression symptoms, the

more dangerous social media is for you. And sorry, that's the

way it is. But that's what the data bears out pretty clearly be

nice to each other. Don't be the bully. Be careful about what you

share, and look for opportunities to connect with

communities that fill and uplift you and guide you in the

direction that human you want to be. Okay, so that's a lot of

data and information on screens, I want to share one of my one of

my favorite studies that talked about sleep. The implications

for both sleep and screens is they asked participants to

memorize a series of numbers, like digit numbers, and some had

eight digit number came to varying degrees. And they had a

big long hall. So they told them the number, the number, the end

of the hall, he said, walk to the other end of the hall and

see if you can remember the number. So participants didn't

they walk all the way to the end. And they tell the

researcher at the end of the hall, their number and some

remembered it and some didn't. That's fine. And the researcher

said, okay, great, thank you. Give me a few minutes to

tabulate your scores, have a seat and weigh in while you're

waiting, feel free to grab a snack. And next to the

researcher was a table and the table had some fruit, a couple

of some sort of fruit cups that they could grab, and also had a

plate of brownies, or might have been cake. I don't remember his

cake or brownies. So he said, grab a snack can sit down. And

then the real study was to see did people choose the fruit? Or

did they choose the cake. And what the study fascinatingly

showed is those individuals that had to memorize a longer number,

were significantly more likely to choose the cake. So the

implication of this is they had to use the internal resources,

some energy, some psychological energy to memorize that numbers

such that their ability to regulate and to manage to think

ahead was decreased. So most people, when they get to a

plate, say I know I can't live a life where I just eat every

single cake I see. Let me have the banana. That's what they

found is the norm typically. But those who had to memorize a

longer number actually did not have the same ability to say no

to the obviously more delicious cake.

And so they just jumped in. So this is where your sleep and

your social media exist. If you are not sleeping well your

ability to track and to manage and to be intentional and

thoughtful about your use is going to significantly decrease.

And the worst part is, is once that decreases, and once you're

on this path doing more high risk activities, you have to

actually exert more energy and you become more tired. And that

is a lot of ways of how these mental health issues really

cultivate in these petri dishes of I'm overtired, I'm under

resourced. I have more threats and access to dangerous

material. And so then I get more tired and more anxious. And then

I get more access to this dangerous material. Does that

make sense? So it just kind of over goes over and over again.

So watch out for that. Okay, so we've covered summer, we've

covered sleep. In the summer, we've covered social media use

in the summer. The last one we're going to talk about today,

and it's the one everyone feels and everyone forgets about. And

that is boredom. Okay, so this is tough. So, parents, if you're

listening, you can go ahead and say it now. I've got myself I

have four kids under the age of seven. I haven't been bored in

eight years. I would love a weekend to just be bored. Oh

man, how lucky would it be to just sit back and be bored? What

we underestimate is actually how difficult and psychologically

taxing being bored is how negative of an experience being

three groups of people come into this room and they played them

video clips. So one group got a sad video, another group got

what was called a monotonous video. And then one group got

just a generic kind of neutral, wasn't too sad, wasn't too

happy, wasn't too boring, just another video. So as he watched

these three groups, each participant was hooked up to a

way to give them give themselves an electronic shock. So you

watch the video, you're hooked up to these electrodes, you can

push a button and shock yourself. So this is one to see

what would people do. And turns out those who were in the sad

video group, and those who were in the neutral video group,

didn't have that much interest in shocking themselves. Like, I

don't need to do that. Those who are in the monotonous video

group had a dramatic increase in their shocks and in the

intensity of the shocks. So the implication of this is shocking

yourself literally is superior to being bored. Right? That's I

being bored is the worst thing, I will cause physical pain on

myself, if that keeps me from having to be bored. And they

also tied this to those who had struggled with non suicidal self

injury in the past. And they found the client, the

participants in the sad group and in the neutral group, even

if they struggled with self harm, or that in the past wasn't

an issue, but in the monotony group that was. So that suggests

that sometimes, it's really not about trying to cope with the

emotion other than the emotion of boredom. Now, no one ever

tells you that you need to be ready, you need to be better at

being bored. That's, we just assume if you're bored, that's a

luxury. And adults are really good at just being really

pejorative and blaming kids and being bored. And we do something

that effective get a job. But we need to understand how

disruptive it is. Okay. So in order to understand this, we do

need to understand just a little bit of brain science. So don't

check out stay with me, I promise. We're understanding

much more now about the dopamine system. Okay, how Dopamine is a

chemical in your brain, and it feels good. It's a little more

complicated than that. But it helps you feel good. And it

helps you feel so good, that it also helps drive your behavior.

So dopamine comes not after you've done something, but it

comes to get you to do something. So what happens is,

when the dopamine, it's tied to pleasure, but it also has this

pain component. So we do something that we like, I eat a

cake, I watch your favorite video, I do something fun, I get

this rush of dopamine, I spike, I feel awesome. But what happens

is what goes up, must come down. So then our dopamine crashes,

and it doesn't crash back down to normal, it goes below normal.

So that's the pain. So any time you have this dopamine rush, you

get this pain. Now what we are used to doing is I feel this

dopamine rush, and then I started to come down. I'm like,

Oh, I don't want to come down. Let me just get another hit of

dopamine. And the electronics, the our phone screens did people

like What's this new video, a tick tock, you can watch 800

different videos on all different topics, and it's

constant stimulus coming at you, you never know what the next

video is going to be about. I can skip it immediately. If I

don't like it, it just has constant hit of dopamine. And I

have found myself watching a movie and the second it gets a

little bit boring, I'm reaching for my phone, like, Ah, I want

to go kind of just scroll through and check because I just

suddenly gradually feel this, I'm not feeling this dopamine,

so I comes down and then I gotta do something. So being bored, is

can be really dangerous, because they actually can be really

painful. Okay, so what happens is when our dopamine goes up, we

crash. And it's kind of like buying something with a credit

card. Right? I want it now. So I'm gonna buy it now. And I'm

going to pay interest on I'm going to actually end up paying

more but I comes at the benefit of I get it immediately, what I

would suggest we do is flip this and you can use it to your

advantage. So dopamine, the pain and pleasure system are related.

So if you can actually do the painful thing first, you can get

all the benefits of dopamine without any of any of the crash.

So it's not buying on credit. It's saving up and paying full

price for an out of pocket. So you don't have to stress about

the the extra money. So an example of this would be I've

been this person but let's say I have a client I'm working with

and they're really stressed about upcoming assignment. They

have a big end of semester project. And so they

procrastinate it and they put it off, and they're really anxious

and as they're sitting there watching Netflix, they're not

actually enjoying that time because the back of their mind

there's this energy going. There's a psychological energy

that's always trying to combat This, this pressure of I got to

do this project God do this project. But they don't can't

really let themselves sink into the actual doing of the project

because that would make their dopamine crash and that doesn't

feel good. So they just keep trying to distract trying to

avoid themselves trying to keep their mind busy, maybe you've

known people that like, I always gotta have the TV on. I don't,

if I'm in my house, I gotta have noise. Or I've known people that

have the earbuds in their ears 24/7, like, if I don't not

listening to something, I'm just sitting listening to my own

thoughts, and I can't tolerate that, I need to have constant

stimulation. So what we find is that person is not actually

relaxing, they're actually becoming more and more

distressed. So they need more and more dopamine. If you flip

it and make it work for you, if you were to do the project, you

would, it would be difficult. But afterwards, you would have

this rush of relief, and the dopamine and feel good. And then

when you went and watched your show, it would feel awesome, it

actually would be a healthy restorative experience, because

you've paid the price up front. An example of this. So we often

see people who have a history of struggling with addiction,

alcoholism or drugs, as part of their recovery. They become

triathletes, or endurance runners or marathon runners. And

that's the exact same principle. If I go for a run, it's painful

at first and do I really love to run? No, but I get myself out

there, I get going. And then after I'm like, I feel great.

This is awesome. I did it. And then I have this, I've already

paid the price. There's no dip, it's just this dopamine

increase. And then a really slow, gradual taper over time.

This is why we've seen an increase, people talk about

polar plunges, if you know someone that does a polar

plunge, they've probably already told you about 100 times. And

that's really what it's all about, is this painful to get

into that bucket. But we know dopamine shoots up somewhere

between 200 to 300% of normal, huge dopamine increase, and then

a nice gradual decrease over time, and there's no crash, they

can last four or five hours. So the principle is when you are

bored, don't buy on credit, pay cash upfront and do the hard

thing. Whatever that is, do something difficult up front

that maybe you don't want to do, maybe it's do laundry, maybe

it's clean your room, maybe it's exercise for 10 minutes, you

don't it doesn't matter. But if you can do that upfront actually

will help you to settle in to rest and relaxation. Long term.

Being able to manage boredom is a skill that you need to

practice. Absolutely. And no one ever tells you that that's why

you have me I'm here to tell you practice being bored.

Here's some suggestions that I have for for those who are

struggling with this. So summer comes, you have this hole of six

to eight hours of your day that you need to fill, what I suggest

you do is to rather than giving yourself all this extra free

time, schedule out your day, so Monday through Friday, from 9am

to 3pm, whatever mirrors how school was schedule it out. So

you have something at 9am that means I have to wake up, I have

to shower, I have to get ready. And by 9am, you don't have to

get up at 630 like you used to have to a school, you can span

that out a little bit, take it easy, but at 9am There's some

wear or something that you have to be doing. Okay, but you can

just have free time, all day every day. Now, what the great

part about this is you don't have to schedule algebra and

calculus or history at 9am schedule something fun,

scheduled, I'm going to go for a walk, or I'm going to play a

musical instrument or I'm going to do whatever you would

normally enjoy doing. I'm going to call a friend, we're going to

go on a hike we're gonna go to the mall, I don't know what the

activity doesn't really matter. What matters is that you

schedule out a block of time that mirrors about the amount of

time that you would spend spend in school, that is a really

great way to minimize the risk of the school disruption it

gives you structure gives you schedule, it gives you an

ability to sleep, it prevents you from having to just fill

your time with screens all day. And you can schedule in really

fun, enjoyable things do what you want to do. Then at three

o'clock when you're normally done with school, that's your

free time. You do what you would normally do in the afternoons

and and evenings. What I suggest is for teens and parents work

together and think about how do you be thoughtful and

intentional. assess where am I at with my own mental health. If

your mental health is struggling, you're going to need

more structure, more security, a little tighter container and

your parents are going to have to help you with that. That's

what you need. That's not The bad thing it's not because

you're punished or bad. No, that's what you need. Parents be

able to provide it. As they're demonstrating that they're using

these things effectively, they're scheduling their days

you can be only manage what they say that what they're not

managing, give as much freedom and opportunity as you can. But

if we can apply some of these principles, focus on our sleep,

focus on our screen time being thoughtful, intentional, making

a plan sticking to it, and be intentional about how we deal

with the boredom that's gonna come up. Those are three really

great way is to help you to have an awesome, fulfilling and

enjoyable summer and it will actually help you be more

prepared for the fall, because you'll be coming into the fall

school year, mentally, emotionally healthy, recuperate,

it rested, patterns in line, your circadian rhythms not

thrown through the wall, you will be ready and able to set

yourself up for help and opportunity. Long term. If you

find yourself struggling, maybe you're isolated, maybe there's

these issues coming up. Summer is a great time to receive

mental health services, if that's what you need, even if

it's not when you're at your highest crisis. Okay, the time

for therapy is really when you're able to cope and really

dig in and do the work therapy is kind of tough. So when you're

in crisis, we can't do much other than manage a crisis. But

when you're not in crisis, we can actually do a lot of work

and again, pay the price upfront, do maybe the not so fun

thing, so that you can have a long term rest and healing and

relaxation. Those are our tips. If you have comments, questions,

please reach out to us. But again, I'm Jake sparks Bart

treatment director. This has been Roadmap to Joy. Everything

you need to know about how to help you and your family, have

the best summer and be mentally and emotionally healthy. Thank