What can I do if I’m concerned about the mental health status of a family member or friend?

1. Write down the behaviors or actions that worry you. Be as specific as possible.
2. If your friend is another teen, talk to their parents or school counselor.
3. At a time when you both are calm and comfortable, share your list and the fact that these are symptoms of an illness that can be treated.
4. If he/she already has a mental health diagnosis, encourage a return visit to the doctor.
5. If no diagnosis has been made, stress the fact that these symptoms require medical assessment and treatment.

How can I best support family members and friends with mental health conditions?

 
1. Be willing to talk honestly, without judgment or shame.

2. Encourage them to openly communicate with their medical team.

3. Invite and include them in activities that have always been fun.

4. Be an example of safe and healthy living.

5. Learn new and healthy ways to spend time together.

I care about someone with a mental illness.

What can I do to help?

• Accept the diagnosis without placing blame.
• Educate yourself. Learn the facts about symptoms and treatment to alleviate your fear.
• Remember, despite symptoms, this is the same person you care for.
• Know that there is help and hope for your loved one.
• Continue to offer love and support.

What is mental illness?

• A mental illness is a disease that causes disturbances in thought and/or behavior.
• Mental illness makes it hard to cope with ordinary demands and routines.
• Mental illness can be triggered by a variety of causes, including a stressful situation or series of events, another illness, genetics, biochemical imbalances, or a combination of those factors.

Are you the parent of a teen?

Get that kid to bed by 10!

According to a new study published in the journal, Sleep, parents who enforce earlier bedtimes are doing their teens a big favor.

Why?

Kids who stay up until midnight or later are 24 percent more likely to be depressed and 20 percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts, than teens with bed times of 10 p.m. or earlier.

Dr. James E. Gangwisch and his colleagues of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City made the discovery. According to Dr. Gangwisch, “It’s… a common idea that older adolescents don’t need as much sleep as younger adolescents, but that’s really not true–they still need about 9 hours of sleep at night.” Depression has long been linked to inadequate sleep in both teens and adults. The team’s report verifies this fact and notes the connection could be “bidirectional”-meaning getting too little sleep boosts depression risk, while being depressed makes it harder to sleep.

Gangwisch’s team looked at over 15,000 seventh- through twelfth-graders who, along with their parents, were surveyed in 1994-1996. Fifty-four percent of parents said their teens had to go to bed at 10 p.m. or earlier on school nights. Twenty-one percent set bedtime at 11 p.m., and twenty-five percent allowed their children to stay up until midnight or later. More than two-thirds of the teens said they went to bed when they were supposed to.

Considering the possibility that parents who were stricter about bedtime might have other traits or behaviors that protect their child from depression, the researchers analyzed the relationships between the teens and their parents and then accounted for this in their study.

They found no link between a set bedtime and how much teens felt their parents cared for them, but there was a strong relationship between bedtimes and whether or not the teens felt they got enough sleep. Adding to the importance of getting enough sleep, the team learned that kids who got five hours of sleep nightly or less were seventy-one percent more likely to be depressed, and forty percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts than their peers who got eight or more hours of sleep a night.

“Getting adequate sleep is really important for our mental health as well as being able to focus and have the necessary energy and motivation to do the things we need to do during the day,” Gangwisch noted.

So, parents of teens, take note: Eight or more hours of sleep are vital to your teen’s mental health. Staying up late is not to be considered a privilege, but rather a health risk.

Sergeant Major Eduardo Leardo & Brigadier General Loree Sutton talk about the challenges soldiers face when they return from the battlefields with injuries, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

See additional video and learn more at www.bringchange2mind.org

Glenn Close’s nephew, Calen Pick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia. Here, he and his cousin, Close’s daughter Annie Starke, discuss living with the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Additional video and information can be found at www.bringchange2mind.org

Have a forgiving view of events and people.

Accept the fact that we live in an imperfect world.

Have an optimistic view of the world.

This is the most recent installment in an ongoing series elaborating on 52 proven stress relievers identified by researchers at Texas Woman’s University.

Shari and Brandon Staglin share their experiences living with schizophrenia.

For more video and information about mental illness visit www.bringchange2mind.org

Learn NEVER to say or do that which will not improve the situation.

Forget about counting to 10.

Count to 1,000 before doing something or saying anything that could make matters worse.

This is the most recent installment in an ongoing series elaborating on 52 proven stress relievers identified by researchers at Texas Woman’s University.