How can you talk to young people about their mental health?

Talking openly about mental health with young people is vital for their well-being and development. By engaging in meaningful conversations and providing a supportive environment, young people can be supported to navigate challenges, foster resilience, and promote positive mental health.

In this blog post, we'll explore effective strategies to initiate and maintain conversations about mental health with young people.

Listen: Create an Open and Supportive Environment

Regularly ask your child how they're doing and genuinely listen to their responses. By demonstrating active listening, you'll communicate that their thoughts and feelings are important and valued. Encourage them to share their emotions and experiences, helping them feel comfortable discussing their mental health. Remember, listening without judgment or interruption is crucial to building trust.

Be Involved: Show Interest in Their Life

Take an active interest in your child's life, hobbies, and interests. Understanding what matters to them strengthens your bond and creates a safe space for open communication. This involvement makes identifying any potential problems or signs requiring additional support easier. Make time for activities together and engage in conversations that allow them to express their thoughts and feelings.

Value Their Perspective

When your child opens up about their emotions, validate and respect their experiences. By acknowledging and valuing their perspective, you empower them to work through their emotions constructively. Help them understand and label their feelings, with healthy coping mechanisms such as journaling, art, or physical activities.

Provide Support: Be Attentive and Responsive

Pay attention to changes in your child's behaviour and mood. If you notice anything concerning, gently initiate conversations to understand their perspective and offer support. Avoid dismissing their experiences or trivializing their emotions. Instead, create a non-judgmental space where they feel comfortable discussing their challenges, fears, or anxieties.

Encourage Personal Growth: Support Their Interests

Motivate and encourage your child's participation in hobbies and new interests. Engaging in activities they enjoy, learning new skills, being physically active, or joining a team can boost their mental well-being. These activities can also help to encourage a sense of achievement, foster social connections, and help them develop a positive self-image.

Establish Healthy Routines: Sleep, Exercise, and Nutrition

Create regular routines around sleep, exercise, and eating habits. Sufficient sleep, physical activity, and balanced nutrition play a significant role in maintaining good mental health. Physical activity can include anything from a walk outside, to boxing - it's important to find something that the young person genuinely enjoys.

Conclusion

Talking to young people about their mental health is essential in nurturing their well-being, but it can often be difficult to know how to approach the situation.

By actively listening, being involved, and providing consistent support, you can support a young person with their mental health. Creating open communication is an ongoing process, and your support can make a huge difference in their lives, helping them to thrive.

If you would like to find out more about mental health in young people, you can find resources here Mental Health Support For Young People | YoungMinds.

What is social prescribing?

Social prescribing is a relatively new, alternative approach to health. It's where health professionals refer patients to support programmes in the community to improve their health, wellbeing, and mental health. As part of a social prescribing approach, doctors prescribe into a sport or social activities rather than straight onto traditional medication such as antidepressants.

Who does social prescribing work for?

Social prescribing takes a holistic approach, connecting people with local groups for practical and emotional support.

Social prescribing works for different groups of people, including:

people with one or more long-term conditions
people needing mental health support
those who are lonely or isolated
people have complex social needs which affect their wellbeing

Social prescribing can use activities such as sports, arts and crafts and volunteering. In addition, many social prescribing programmes focus on improving mental health and physical wellbeing.

Social prescribing and exercise: increasing dopamine

People often don't realise how much sport and exercise can benefit their physical and mental health. And these benefits are for two main reasons. Firstly, being part of a group and feeling a sense of belonging can significantly help mental health. The impact of COVID, where access to this type of group support was reduced, has been massive across society.

Secondly, the dopamine-boosting effect of exercise can have massive positive impacts, especially on depression and anxiety. When taking medication such as antidepressants, the number of neurotransmitters in the brain increases. This increases the amount of 'happy' hormones such as dopamine, helping people feel better and more positive. Exercise has the same effect, reducing reliance on prescription medication, which has traditionally been the first approach.

As Joe Lockley from Brightstar explains, 'If the benefits of exercise could be bottled, it would be the best medicine that's ever been made'.

Of course, it's often harder to be motivated to increase exercise, which is why group environments and socially prescribed support to encourage the feeling of belonging can be so effective.

Social prescribing through boxing with Brightstar Counterpunch

We know how powerful boxing is in improving mental health and wellbeing. Our Counterpunch programme uses boxing and talking to support young people and adults across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, using the exercise to drive positive mental and physical impacts.

Brightstar is working closely with the Shropshire Council Social Prescribing Team to offer more opportunities for young people struggling to manage their mental health. A vital part of this pilot programme is to increase the support for young people (many of whom have experienced trauma or Adverse Childhood Experiences) to access support through the Counterpunch programme.

Counterpunch uses a powerful combination of talking therapy and boxing, supporting young people holistically to manage their health and wellbeing. Although the programme is relatively new, we're seeing improvements in mental health, self-confidence and anger management. The programme is currently running in Brookside in Telford, and Ludlow and Bishops Castle in Shropshire, allowing young people struggling with their mental health to be referred to our sessions and access socially prescribed support.

Does social prescribing work?

Although social prescribing is relatively new, initial evidence supports that social prescribing, especially through sport and physical activity, leads to a range of positive health and wellbeing outcomes. These outcomes can include improved quality of life, mental and physical wellbeing, and decreased depression and anxiety.

Many young people need support for their mental health and wellbeing. Social prescribing through sport offers a community-based approach, supporting the NHS and GPs in managing an often complex increase in service demand.

We're excited to be part of this relatively new approach, increasing the access to support for young people.

To find out more about the Brightstar social prescribing programme, or Counterpunch, contact Joe Lockley at [email protected] or 07966 416267.

How can boxing help veterans with PTSD?

Boxing can provide huge benefits to veterans with PTSD, supporting them and their therapy in a safe, controlled environment.

What exactly is PTSD?

Think about when you experience a stressful event. As your nervous system reacts with a fight, flight or freeze response, your heart will beat much faster, your blood pressure rises quickly and your muscles tighten. All of these automatic changes prime your body for a rapid reaction, helping you defend against danger (or avoid it). Importantly, once the stressful event has ended, your nervous system instantly calms your body down, reducing blood pressure and heart rate levels back to normal.

But for people with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), this final step doesn’t happen. There’s no instant calm down after the event. Instead, the fight, flight or freeze response continues - even after the danger in a stressful situation has ended. Due to this stress overload, the nervous system stays ‘stuck’, stopping your system from recovering, and leading to the situation often being relived with nightmares and flashbacks. This is because of the part of the brain called the Amygdala - responsible for processing short term memories to long term memories.

PTSD means that a traumatic memory becomes stuck in the short term memory. For someone with PTSD, whenever they experience a ‘trigger’, their brain will take them back to the traumatic situation, tiggering the fight, flight or freeze response in the body and producing a massive corresponding amount of adrenaline. Triggers can include certain smells, sounds or events.

PTSD is often experienced by veterans

PTSD is often experienced by veterans, due to traumatic experiences while serving in the armed forces. Triggers in everyday life can start the fight, flight or freeze response, leading veterans to experience constantly frightening and exhausting events. Symptoms of PTSD in veterans can include constantly putting themselves in danger, hypervigilance, defensiveness, agitation and being extremely quick to anger.

To deal with these symptoms and in an effort to block out the triggers and painful episodes, veterans in particular often react to PTSD with disorders such as depression and anxiety; leading them to be disinterested in work and family or social life. In the most tragic cases, taking their own lives may seem like the only option. Many veterans are not aware that they have PTSD, making it even harder to access support.

Funding crisis for mental health support for veterans

People with PTSD need support from their friends and family, even if they feel they don’t. But especially for veterans with PTSD, specialised and targeted support and treatment is needed, and this is often incredibly difficult to access. Budget cuts to mental health support for veterans mean that there’s often a significant wait to access traditional treatment for veteran PTSD at facilities such as Audley Court.

In response to this funding crisis, many groups are seeking to create their own mental health support groups and programmes for veterans, especially using sport as a powerful tool. Boxing in particular offers real benefits; specifically due to the specialised approach needed.

Boxing for veterans: treating PTSD differently

So why does boxing offer huge potential in supporting veterans with PTSD? It’s a common misconception that a sport involving hitting people isn’t a good fit for people experiencing symptoms such as aggression or anger. But it’s actually the opposite – and it’s all due to changing brain chemistry and supporting recovery. Veterans in particular experiencing PTSD are used to producing massive amounts of adrenaline, and the body quickly gets used to this. As a result, PTSD in veterans needs to be treated differently, and boxing facilitates this different approach, often in combination with other treatment.

When triggers occur in people suffering from PTSD, the brain instantly takes them back to that negative fight or flight response. Boxing helps give this same adrenaline rush (often really important for veterans used to this), but in a controlled, safe environment – helping them to function outside of the triggering and traumatic thoughts.

Boxing can help support veterans with PTSD by:

Learning to manage anger. Boxing, as well as the supportive atmosphere of a boxing club can support veterans to manage their anger better. Hitting a punch bag allows negative emotions such as aggression and tension to expressed in a healthy way leading to a clearer, calmer mindset and better mental health.
Improving confidence. This can be important in overcoming symptoms of depression associated with PTSD.
Using the power of adrenaline. The adrenaline fuelled environment of a boxing session can be really helpful in specifically treating veteran PTSD. It gives access to adrenaline in a safe, supportive and controlled environment.
Teaching using logic instead of emotion. Boxing teaches the value of using logic to think about, and overcome issues, as well as the problems of reacting solely on emotion in a situation.
Support. A supportive, often group environment can be really important while veterans are receiving therapy for their PTSD, and for support for better mental health generally.

‘I can’t cope in day to day life without boxing’
Stu Cook, Bright Star Counterpunch Coach and PTSD Veteran

How to coach a veteran in boxing with PTSD

It’s important that each veteran has an individual care plan when working with, or coaching a veteran with PTSD through boxing. This identifies any specific triggers, helping the coach and club to understand and build up active support.

Bright Star’s Counterpunch mental health support sessions, for example, use a model of Accept, Assess and Overcome (similar to CBT therapy) to structure sessions using a combination of boxing and talking support. A group environment can be especially supportive, particularly when the going through therapy.

To find out more about Bright Star's Counterpunch sessions and support for veterans with PTSD please contact Stu Cook on [email protected] or 07739 561062, or get in touch with Bright Star Boxing.

10 ways to look after your mental health in lockdown

Whilst we know the current situation won’t last forever, lots of us are finding it hard to look after our mental health during this lockdown. Our Bright Star Counterpunch team have put together ten great tips to help.

Limit your screen time

Screens are important for work and connecting with friends and family during lockdown; but too much screen time can actually increase feelings of stress, anxiety and low self-esteem. Reducing the amount of time you spend on a screen each day, even by small amounts, is a great first step to positively impacting your mental health.

Daily exercise

Exercise is a fantastic way to support your mental health during lockdown, helping you feel a lot more positive. That’s because exercise releases powerful feel-good brain chemicals, including endorphins. In fact, exercise is so effective, GPs now prescribe it for mild depression. So whether it’s walking with a friend or completing a home workout, try adding some exercise into your day. The guidelines suggest doing 30 mins of exercise a day.

We’d love to help you with some different exercise ideas during this lockdown, so please get in touch with us to find out more.

Think about your daily routine

One of the most challenging things about lockdown can be lack of structure, and this lack of routine can negatively impact your mental health too. Creating your own routine is a good way to address this, separating waking from work and other daily activities, as well as helping you create time to relax, stay active and focus on your health. You can start small, but developing consistent, daily habits can really help.

If you need help with this, our Counterpunch team can help you create a routine that suits you.

Get outdoors

Getting outdoors and into nature is a great way to increase positive feelings. Not only will getting outside help improve your physical health, time outdoors in the fresh air can help reduce feelings of stress and anger, as well as boost your self-esteem. It can be as simple as taking a walk in your local park, but it can really improve your mental health during this lockdown.

Keep connecting

One of the hardest parts of lockdown is not being able to see your support network in person. But this doesn’t mean you can’t connect. There are many ways to stay in touch with friends and family, using apps such as Zoom, phone calls, or even writing a letter. As the Mental Health Foundation says, making an effort to connect, asking how people are (twice!), and keeping communication lines open- even with the people in your house, is really good for your mental health.

We're running mental health support groups, completely free of charge if you wanted to connect with others on Zoom over lockdown. Please get in touch with us to find out more.

Listen to music

Think about how great you feel when you hear your favourite song. That’s because of those feel-good brain chemicals, endorphins again. Music is also powerful in other ways, with lots of studies finding that listening to soothing and comforting music can improve mental health by reducing anxiety and feelings of stress. So why not put together a great playlist to enjoy? You can share it with your friends and family for an extra way to connect, too.

Reduce negativity

The news and social media can be full of negative stories and reports that can quickly become overwhelming, particularly due to lockdown. One great way to improve your mental health is to reduce your exposure to negative media and try not to stress about things out of your control.

It’s not easy, but actively taking a break from the news or social media for a while can really help.

Carry on learning

Learning something new is really powerful for better mental health, helping you develop new skills and discover new approaches to situations. Whether it’s reading a new book, challenging yourself to do something different or listening to an interesting talk; choose a subject you find interesting and learn more around it. There are so many great resources to do this, including reading, podcasts and Ted Talks.

Eat and drink well

Not eating well will cause fatigue and a low mood, so think about how you can improve your diet. Where possible, try to eat regular, balanced meals to help your mood and energy levels. Make sure you hydrate and drink water regularly too- it’s essential for feeling more energised. We recommend aiming for 8 big glasses of water a day.

Sleep

Sleep is essential in stabilising your mood, but it can be difficult, especially in periods of worry and stress like a lockdown. If possible, try to wake up and go to bed at the same time each day (remember, routines can really help!) and try to have some screen-free time before going to sleep. You can also try some relaxation exercises too to help you get to sleep.

The current lockdown is difficult for everyone, and can really affect your mental health. If you’re finding it tough, you’re not alone. We hope that some of the tips above help you feel more positive during this time, and if you would like more support contact Bright Star.