The quarantine and safe distancing measures have been disrupting the lives of young people for quite some time; prompting Yale experts to give them advice. Coping with the challenging times as young people remain cooped up in their homes have been limited to using mechanisms for social interactions online. Social gatherings and job opportunities such as job internships, graduations, proms and sports events remain suspended, giving young people with little to look forward to in their supposedly dynamic young life.
According to Paula Zimbrean, MD, a Yale Medicine psychiatrist, people in young age groups are in the time of their lives where social life is the primary aspect that best describes who they are. This phase of life is when people in this age group develop confidence in creating intimate relationship with others and in learning to make life decisions independently.
Laurie Santos, PhD, a Yale psychology professor who also teaches a course in Coursera created a video captioned as “Well-Being Strategies for High School Students” in tackling young people’s anxieties over college. According to Dr. Santos, the virus has given young people additional stress and feelings of loss even if they are not directly affected by the mortality incidences caused by Covid-19.
Well-Being Strategies Given as Advice by Yale Psychology Experts
Dr. Santos and Dr. Zimbrean enumerated strategies in attaining happiness even if there is an ongoing global health crisis. Their suggestions are backed by findings that have seen improvements not only in the mental but also physical well being of many college students. According to Dr. Santos, the positive side of the pandemic is that people are into bonding even more as the current situation calls for some kind of togetherness. Undergoing the same strange experience together can be comforting if people are one in facing challenges.
Here are some of these Yale psychiatry experts’ suggestions in attaining happiness that will help young people maintain mental and physical well-being:
Sustain Friendships – Young people do not have to be amidst parties and large gatherings as they are now considered super-spreader events that even made the situation worse for many young people. What’s important is to maintain friendships to show close friends that you think about them constantly.
Try Online Dating to Build New Relationships – According to Dr. Zimbrean, online dating apps give young people opportunities for building trust in forming new relationships with people of their age. She thinks it is interesting that people can still get to know each other amidst an ongoing pandemic, even if gradually. However, go out on a date only if you are comfortable with the idea and with the person with whom you will be dating.
Don’t Stop Celebrating and Marking Important Events – Nowadays it is still possible to celebrate important events by way of virtual social gatherings carried out online, Young people should continue marking the dates on their calendar and to participate in online celebrations to have something to look forward to as a novel way of gathering socially
Participating ins Such Events Denote Finding Peace in the New Normal – The normal lifestyle today is to forget the old routines even at least, temporarily. After all, we are inclined to create new practices when old ones don’t work anymore to be able to cope with changing situations.
Be of the Mindset to Make Happiness Last – Dr. Santos cites Hedonic Treadmill, a psychology term for a person’s way of adapting to changes by thinking that things will not always be too bad as initially perceived them to be. She says that studies have shown that the immensity of bad perceptions and of the expectations on how long they will last are are usually exaggerated in the thoughts we entertain in our minds.
Be Mindful of What You Consume as Contents in Social Media – Too much social media use has already drawn attention as unhealthy as many social media content tend to leave users feeling discontented with their life or lose confidence in their ability to cope with what is being presented to them by other social media users. In many cases, over exposure to unrealistic presentations of lifestyles have caused depression among young people.
In fact, in recent months even social media influencers have been driven to despair in not being able to post content that would allow them to upload photos or videos that could generate the income they used to earn prior to the pandemic. In such cases, creators of social media content particularly Instagram photo and video sharers should use analytic tools to determine which of their content are yielding the right results. That way, they will have an idea on what works best and what doesn’t instead of relying solely on guess work.
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