Alexander's Portfolio

In this project our goal was to analize either real world or fictional relationships. We had to look at what was the relationship like. For example, was their relationship healthy, unhealthy, and/or abusive.

In this project I think that the most important ideas were analyzing what part of their relationship made it healthy or unhealthy. For example our group looked at Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina’s relationship. When analyzing we had to keep in mind health concepts such as communication, boundaries, consent, respect, power dynamics, and how they demostrated these health concept.

Gender roles/stereotypes & Boundaries

When looking at their relationship, it was observed that Georgina initially worked as a sales assistant, and Ronaldo, a global sports star, is often portrayed as the provider/celebrity, reflecting some traditional gender roles where the man is the public figure and financial provider, and the woman supports family and manages domestic roles. Both appear to maintain personal and family boundaries through selective sharing, but exact boundaries are not disclosed.

Communication

Rodríguez credits Ronaldo for how he “really encouraged me” to get back out into the world after the heavy loss. The incident shows how much they care about each other and how they use communication to leave a positive impact on their relationship

Healthy relationship characteristics

Mutual Support and Loyalty: Georgina has consistently shown unwavering support for Ronaldo’s career, moving with him across countries and cheering him on at matches. Ronaldo has publicly acknowledged her as a key source of peace and strength in his life.

Strong Family Unit: The couple prioritizes their blended family, raising their children together in a “loving environment”. Georgina has embraced a maternal role for all of Ronaldo’s children, and they are often pictured as a close-knit household.

Unhealthy relationship characteristics

• Dominance: Given Ronaldo’s fame, wealth, and global stature, there’s often speculation about an inherent power imbalance in the relationship. Some observers might argue that this dynamic could result in Georgina having less autonomy or influence in certain aspects of their lives.
• Financial Dependence: Georgina, although successful in her own right, often appears financially dependent on Ronaldo, which could lead to an unhealthy power dynamic where she may feel pressured to maintain the relationship for security reasons.
• Excessive Public Attention: Their relationship is constantly in the public eye, which can be incredibly stressful. The constant media scrutiny can put strain on any relationship, with both parties facing invasive questions about their personal lives, which may impact their emotional well-being.
• Performance of Relationship: There’s often a sense that their relationship is not just personal but is somewhat performed for the public. Social media plays a major role in shaping their public image, and this can create pressure to constantly “perform” happiness, which may mask any issues they are facing privately.

We concluded that even though Ronaldo’s relationship has a few good healthy relationship characteristics, the amount of stress and unequality that’s observed, I think their relationship should be in the unhealthy catagory.

Before this unit on mental health I always knew mental health was something more serious than just feeling sad about a grade. I thought mental health meant just feeling depressed or having anxiety frequently. I believed that mental health could be solved just by talking to an adult once or it was only temporary and could be solved by just doing a activity to keep your mind off of it.

After this unit my perspective on mental health has changed a lot. For this unit, my topic to research about was Addiction. My thinking on mental health changed because of what I learned about stigma. Learning about addiction made me realize that mental health was more to just quitting and that the things I saw on social media or movies regarding addiction or any form of mental health, were mostly false.

I also learned that people with a disorder like addiction were not just mindless drug addicts, but people who didn’t even want to get addicted in the first place. They might have done it out of peer pressure or algorithms from social media platforms feeding to peoples reward center in their brains, so that they can make more profit on those platforms.

I learned people who have Addiction disorder, can’t just quit. Their body releases this chemical in their brains called dopamine which makes you feel pleasure. Addiction is a cycle. You seek out these experiences because they reward you with good feelings. Learning this surprised me because it made me wonder if I might also be experiencing a form of addiction when it comes to social media and endless scrolling.

• Based on my WOOP goal, The more I use this app, the further it can benefit my goal.
• I think the outcomes that I expect after using the app called Headspace after 7-10 days might be I would start to probably feel more calm, I would have a new routine of using Headspace, and I would succeed in my goal.
• The baseline wellness metrics that I am using would be Mood scale.

What has this unit taught me about my Brain and behavior?

In this unit we learned about how stress can affect our brain and our behavior. More specifically we learned mostly about the Amygdala, Hippocampus, and the Prefrontal Cortex. Learning about these parts of our brain deepened our understanding of our behavior because knowing these parts of our brain tells us how stress works and how we can help to reduce it.

Amygdala: The Amygdala is a almond shaped structure in your brain. It is the emotional part of the brain. Responsible for fear, stress, excitement, sadness, and more. It also sends signals around the brain, more specifically, it sends signals to the Prefrontal Cortex. When stress is triggered, the Amygdala gets so overwelmed that it fails to send signals to the Prefrontal Cortex(the logical, thinking, and reasoning part of the brain).

Prefrontal Cortex: The prefrontal cortex (PFC), located in the frontal lobe behind the forehead. It is the part of the brain responsible for executive functions like decision-making, planning, personality, working memory, and emotional regulation. It processes sensory information, integrates it with memories, and guides behavior toward long-term goals. The PFC is the last brain region to mature, typically developing fully in late adolescence, explaining the lack of Logical thinking in childhood and in early adolescence. 

Hippocampus: The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped brain structure that plays a critical role in memory, learning, and spatial navigation. There are two hippocampi, one in each hemisphere of the brain, located deep within the temporal lobe. It also plays a key role in the memory storage.

Learning about these parts of the brain allows us to understand how stress impacts these parts of the brain. It also allows us to think about how can we regulate stress using breathing techniques like box breathing, or exercise, and other skills that help the brain a lot like keeping things tidy and organized.

Most Surprising thing learnt about the Brain

For me the most Surprising or interesting thing learnt about the brain, would be learning about the Prefrontal Cortex. Learning about the Logical thinking part of the brain was just fun for me to learn about.

Understanding teen brains compared to Adult Brains

Teen Brain:The teen brain learns faster. It learns faster because there is more activity in the teens brain Reward Center. However the teen brain is a lot less mature than the adults. Because the PFC is the last brain region to mature, typically developing fully in late adolescence, explaining the lack of Logical thinking in childhood and in early adolescence.

Adult: The adult brain is the most mature brain. This is because the PFC is fully developed explaining the significance of logical thinking compared to the teenage brain. This is why adults are allowed to drive. However the adult brain learns a lot slower than the teenage brain.

Stress Management Strategies

I feel the most affective stress manegment for me is some sort of breathing exercise like Box Breathing. I feel this way because I do a lot of competitive sports and also activities like diving where staying calm is essential. Breathing is affective because according to Cleveland clinic, regulating your breath can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and maybe even help lower blood pressure.