My name is Christine Marie Frey. I am the founder of the new teen online mental health community and movement BrainXP. In today’s video, I’m going to be giving you guys my five tips to help teens stay calm during the COVID-19 quarantine. It’s been tough for a lot of us to learn how cope or for us to use our actual coping skills we already have while working at home. Without having our friends physically with us, we have to learn different ways and it’s not easy. It is hard to stay calm, but it is definitely possible. And that is why I want to share with you guys my five tips on how we can stay calm during this quarantine. Watch the video above and read a summary of my tips here:
Tip #1 is to stay informed but don’t watch the news all day. I take about 10 to 15 minutes a day just to stay informed and watch the news and catch up on updates. But I don’t spend more than that because sometimes watching the news can make me panic. So I limit the amount of time I watch the news, so I don’t feel panicked, feel defeated or lose that motivation. Allot that time to balance other things in your life.
Tip #2 is go to teletherapy. I can’t see my therapist in person right now, but I do teletherapy with her. Teletherapy is a therapy session but through a video chat. This platform gives me someone to talk to … get all those words out, those fears, whatever is going on in my life, to still cope with my challenges and still talk to my therapist even though I can’t physically be with her.
Tip #3 is pick out a coping skill that you can use at home. I think the biggest barrier for me when it comes to coping at home is figuring out what type of coping skills I can actually use at home and use easily. So when I am at home, I usually grab my guitar and grab a pad of paper and pencil, and I song write and make music. If you are not into creating music, but you love listening to music, that is another great option for a coping skill you can do at home. Just take some time to debrief and calm down. I think coping is the biggest thing we can do, and it’s so hard to do right now, but it is possible.
Tip #4 is to use social media to connect with others. I use social media to connect with my friends and connect with people I have found through Instagram that I have been friends with now. I like to use it in positive ways, though. For example, the BrainXP community is the community that I created, the teen mental health community. I’ll reach out to people through there. Just give them a positive message, light up their day. We all kind of need that sometimes and just sending positive messages through social media is so beneficial; there is no need to use it for the negativity. And I believe it’s a great avenue to spread positivity.
Tip #5 is to journal your thoughts. Now you can journal your thoughts by actually physically writing your thoughts down on paper. You can song write. You can record a video—kind of like blogging almost. You can post on social media. Whatever you want to do to keep track of what is going on right now; I think it’s really really good, so we can see how we are doing in these times. And hopefully, when the quarantine ends, we can look back and see what worked and what didn’t work. It’s kind of a tracking mechanism and is also a great release to get your emotions, thoughts and feelings out of your own head.