Organization: Most days I accomplish all of the things I set out to do that day.
Stress Resilience: I feel good that things going on in my personal life rarely interfere with my concentration at school or in work.
Healthy Relationships: I am able to identify and end an unhealthy relationship when I need to.
Rest and Play: I have at least 1 hobby or interest that renews me, and I take intentional time for it on a regualr basis.
Spirituality: I am truly thankful for the good things in my life.
School and Work: I am satisfied with the way I pay attention, participate, and prepare homework for my classes, extracurriculars, volunteer work, or job.
Care or the Body: Most days I get at least 8 hours of sleep at normal sleeping hours.
My WOOP Goal 2 is to build up on positive relationships with my friends by spending more time both online and offline with them. I chose this wish because based on my wellness compass, the rating is not really high, and I also think this is a really important thing to focus on because its fun socializing and is important to maintain our friendships. The steps to achieve my goal is through talking and socializing with my friends on wechat and maybe dropping around in some mall with them.
Some obstacles that I might face is not having enough time to talk with them offline (because they have a lot of classes), but a solution could be to talk to them in school. Also, I might feel a little shy to talk but they are my friends so maybe not 😀
My current progress is going on quite well. Although I haven’t been talking to my friends on wechat, I have been spending a lot of time with them in person. Overall, I think my goal is achievable and for next steps, I will also start talking to my friends online on wechat.
I used to think that social media cannot have a really large effect on people’s health, but now I understand how social media can negatively impact teen’s mental and physical health. Through research about the impact of social media, I discovered that on media like TikTok and Xiaohongshu, people, especially teens, can start to compare themselves to the people who posted things. They can start to feel anticipation and self-abasement, feeling more and more worried about their impression on other people. Then, they could start to follow people who do nutrition or fitness programs, hoping to make themselves look better. However, many of these programs are false on social media and they only want to gain followers, so their programs cannot help with their physical appearance. This can really hurt teen’s mental health because they might feel depressed to find that these programs do not work for them, making them more anxious about their looks. This can impact their physical health because if people starts to feel very bad about their appearance, they can start to not eat enough food or exercise for a long time, which can lead to bad nutrition and health problems.
Mental Health
Later in the unit, we learned about different mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, OCD, bipolar disorder, eating disorder, and PTSD. These common types of mental health issues are important because by knowing about these problems, people can better support people with these issues. We also learned about stigma. Stigmas are something that people believe are true but actually are false, and usually they believe that it is bad. Some common stigmas about mental health include:
Mental health issues is not a disease.
Mental health issues goes away by itself.
People with mental health issues are useless/bad/unhelpful
Anxiety Presentation
For the final project, we worked as a group to complete a presentation on anxiety, a very common mental health disorder. First, we conducted research about what it is, common causes, symptoms, protective and risk factors, stigmas about it, celebrities/popular people with it, and solutions for it by using reliable sources and organizing them into a long list. At the end of the project, we concluded that anxiety is a common issue that many people have and needs attention about the false stigmas and ways to support people with it. It is very important to raise awareness about these issues and support people by giving them kindness. I think we did a great job with the presentation and I also learned a lot from other groups’ presentations.
This semester, I have learned about the psychology of the human brain (especially the teen brain) and how I can change my habits to achieve my wellness goal.
Unit 1: The Brain
In the first unit, the psychology of stress, I learned about the science behind how the brain controls our emotions, and different ways we can stay mindful. Firstly, we were introduced to the different parts of the brain that controls our emotions and ability to think rationally, such as the prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking and reasoning center, the hippocampus, the long-term memory center, and the amygdala, which is the emotional center. From studying about this, we learned that teens are often the most emotional because their brain is still developing. According to scientist’s discoveries, in the teen brain, the last part to develop is the prefrontal cortex.
Then we learned about the FFF response, which is fight, flight and freeze. Lastly, we were informed about all the different ways that people can stay calm and mindful through presentations of our classmates. The breath anchor is one way that helps regulate your stress levels, or increase the cortisol in your body, the hormone that helps regulate stress.
This semester in health, we also experimented with how technology can help us manage our own wellness. I used the app OneSec to help with my goal of limiting technology use. The basic functions include selecting apps that you want to ban, and then chose a time period, so in that time your will not be able to open that app. Some more advanced features include an alternative activity plan that can also be found in the app. These features can help people calm down when stressed, and can also help people pass time when we are extremely bored. The app is easy to use because it does help me manage tech usage, and these functions described above are easy to find and use. However, I couldn’t find a calendar option in the app, so it wasn’t as easy to plan out when I could and couldn’t use my phone. This could be because I didn’t get the VIP :D.
OneSec helps support my WOOP Goal by helping me manage how much time I spend on technology. When I get home, I usually turn the app-banner function on for 3 hours. Some of the apps in the app-banner list include WeChat, some games I downloaded, and an e-reader. By doing this, I was able to first complete my homework before I go on my phone again. This app can help me develop the habit of doing homework first before going off to play. This will relieve stress because most likely I will not have as much overdues, making me less worried about not getting my work done on time (because no more work is left for me to do). This app can improve me mental and physical health because the advanced features can help me calm down (mental), and they can also help me relax and stretch out a bit after a tiring day (physical).
I think this is a humane design because its purpose is to help us get rid of tech addiction. However, relying too much on this app can still cause addiction because we are now used for it to help us take care of technology, so when its not there anymore the addiction would probably come back quickly. This app adds an value to the user’s life because it helps people save precious time to do things that have a greater meaning than just scrolling down a train of videos. With extra time not wasted on technology, people will have a better relationship with friends and family members (not digitally), and generally a better health condition (eyes, mental health). The long term impact of using this app can go in 2 directions: tech addiction is gone or lack of self management skills. If things go the right way, people will have no tech addiction anymore, but sometimes that doesn’t happen, and people head right back into the deadly cycle of doom-scrolling. This can impact our self management skills because after using it for a long time, people may rely on it so much to the extent that we cannot resist the urge to use our devices once the app is gone.
Basic Features: Locking apps during specific times
Advanced Features: Healthy alternatives in replacement for going on WeChat, etc.
Creating a portfolio, or blog is a great way to collect all the work you’ve done throughout your academic career. You can include academic, athletic, and personal artifacts or experiences that you want to share with a wider audience. This is a great way to organize all your learning in one place and you can take it with you when you leave SAS. When you make your portfolio, you create posts that are categorized according to your subject. Some categories have already been set up for you, but if you need more categories you can add them as needed. It’s important that your posts have the following:
An engaging title – this should not include the name of the subject since this is referenced in the category. Think of this as the first opportunity to engage and hook your reader!
Body – this is where you share your learning. This should include a combination of text and media in the form of images, graphics, and embedded videos. You should always consider how your post looks to your audience. Is it engaging and organized? Do they want to keep reading?
Category – select one that has been set for you or add a new category. Posts can have more than one category e.g. Humanities and Myself as a Learner
Tags – create tags that can be used as keywords to describe your post. Tags help organize your post a little more! Aim to have 3-5 tags for each post. For example, if you are posting about a novel you wrote, you might want the following tags: #Fiction, #MurderMystery, #Theme, #PlotDiagram
Click on the images below to find a few helpful tips for creating your posts, adding media, and making categories:
