1.2.

5 Practice: Your Mental and Emotional Health Practice Assignment

Health (S3446478)

My answers are typed in blue.

1. Many factors influence your mental and emotional health.

a. Describe how each of the following factors helps you make decisions that enhance your mental and emotional health.
Mental and emotional health involves many things such as: the way we feel; managing stress; and developing coping
strategies when dealing with difficult events in your life. It also includes having a positive self-image, feeling confident, and
being able to manage your feelings in a positive way. Symptoms of poor emotional health include stress, anxiety, and anger.
While signs of good emotional health include: taking time to relax; feeling like you have a good support system; feeling
confident in your abilities and yourself; sharing feelings with others, taking actions to reach your goals, and taking
responsibility for your actions. Many factors influence your mental and emotional health. Below, I have described how factors
such as your peers; your family; your school and community; and technology can enhance your mental and emotional
health.
 Your peers
Your peers can help you make decisions that enhance your mental and emotional health by providing positive peer
influence. If your friends encourage you to eat nutritious foods and use seat belts, this would have a positive influence on
your physical health. Peers can also positively enhance your mental and emotional health by giving you positive support.
When peers have empathy for other, then they can provide positive peer pressure which boosts your mental and emotional
health by increasing your chances for success. Furthermore, when you interact with your peers, you expand on the values
and behaviors you have already learned from your family. Your peers give you an opportunity to develop social skills,
including empathy, sharing, and leadership.
 Your family
Your family is one of the most important influences on your health. They are the first group of people you interact with. Your
family members raise you and shape your personality along the way. Your family history is an important influence on your
mental and emotional health. Family can enhance your mental and emotional health by providing family structure; supportive
relationships; and behaviors and values. Your family provides structure for you. They set rules and limits on your behavior.
Your parents show you the proper way to act within your family and in public, and they can set you on a better path if you
need help. If you have siblings, you are role models for each other. Over time, these relationships show you how to act
responsibly on your own. By providing a positive and healthy family structure, you grow up with the ability to make decisions
to enhance your mental and emotional health. Additionally, family members provide supportive relationships. Your family is
the first group of people you can talk to about problems. You can talk to them about how you feel and what you are thinking.
When your family provides supportive relationships, then you grow up how to talk about your problems and feelings. Lastly,
your family raises you with behaviors and values. Your family sets the boundaries for how you behave. In doing so, they
teach you how to act around other people and in public. Your family also influences your values, which are your moral
standards and discipline. Your values are your views on what is right and what is wrong. By raising you with positive
behaviors and good values, you have the ability to make decisions with enhance you mental and emotional health.
 Your school and community
School is a place for learning, but it is also a place for social interaction with your peers. Because of this, school is part of
what shapes your life. Your school environment can have a positive effect on your mental and emotional health and help
you boost your self-esteem. When at school, you can make the following kinds of decisions that will enhance your mental
and emotional health: (1) You can surround yourself with peers who pressure you to do well, (2) You can get involved with
extracurricular activities or clubs, (3) You can develop good habits for taking notes and studying, and (4) You can find a
trusted adult at school whom you can talk to. All of these decisions will lead to enhanced mental and emotional health. In
addition, your community is a factor that can improve you mental and emotional health. Your community helps you learn
about a bigger world. Volunteering in your community helps your mental and emotional health because you make new
friends; you become more connected to your community and build a support network; you increases your social and
relationship skills; and you increase self-confidence which can boost to your self-esteem when you can see you are making
a difference and doing good for others. The better you feel about yourself, the more likely you are to have a positive view
of your life and your goals. In these ways, both school and community help you make decisions to improve you mental and
emotional health.
 Your use of television, cell phones, computers, and other telecommunication technologies
Technology and social media are everywhere in our lives today. They can produce both benefits and risks. You can use
technology and social media to enhance your mental and emotional health by connecting to new people, staying connected
to friends you already have, sharing content and self-expression, and . In these ways, technology and social media can
positively enhance your mental and emotional health.
b. Describe how the above factors create barriers for maintaining your mental and emotional health.
What barriers do they create?
While the above factors can enhance your mental and emotional health, they can also create barriers or result in negative
consequences that can result in poor mental and emotional health.
Your Peers
When peer influence and peer pressure is unhealthy, it can create barriers to healthy mental and emotional health. For
example, when peers insult you or make you feel bad for not doing what they want, when peer reject you by threatening to
end your friendship, when peers reason with you trying to convince you to do something you don’t want to do, and when
your friends use unspoken pressure to try and get you to do something, these are all barriers to positive mental and
emotional health. In order to maintain healthy mental and emotional healthy, it is necessary to implement strategies to
overcome these barriers. These strategies are outlined below in Section c.
Your Family
While your family is often your greatest source of positive mental and emotional health, it can also create barriers when you
family-life is not positive. Some of the negative barriers that family can create include: lack of a positive family structure
without any rules or limits on your behavior; lack of supportive relationships and presence of negative, unhealthy family
relationships; and lack of teaching healthy behaviors and values. If your family has no rules whatsoever, insults you, or fails
to raise you with moral standards and discipline, then you will not learn healthy ways to create positive mental and emotional
healthy. Instead, you may be more likely to engage in risk behaviors that can increase your chance of suffering illness or
injury because you lack self-discipline, act on impulse, or haven’t learned how to delay gratification…all skills you learn in a
healthy family environment.
Your School and Community
Barriers to positive mental and emotional health can occur in your school and community. There barriers include: bullying
and cyberbullying at school or the absence of feeling connected to the world through your community. Furthermore, school
can create stress in your life which can be a barrier to positive mental and emotional health.
Technology and Social Media
Technology and Social Media can also create barriers such as cyberbullying or the feeling of isolation if you are excluded.
c. What are some strategies you could use to get past these barriers?
In order to overcome the barriers listed above, there are many types of strategies you can use. The following strategies can
be used to resist negative peer pressure: choose friends wisely; have self-confidence; understand your own values and
beliefs; talk to a trusted adult; and speak your mind. In addition, you can use strategies to build self-esteem in order to
overcome barriers to positive mental and emotional health. These strategies include: being forgiving, being reasonable,
being hopeful, being positive, being confident, and being encouraging. Furthermore, healthy strategies exist to manage
stress. These strategies include: getting adequate sleep, eating a healthy diet, being active, practicing deep breathing,
talking to someone, and making time for fun. Moreover, practicing strategies that limit the risks of social networking can help
you get past the barriers created by technology and social media. These strategies include: sharing appropriately online,
being aware of adult online predators, not sharing too much information, limiting exposure to inappropriate advertisement,
and ensuring time for physical activities. Finally, using strategies that stand up against cyberbullying such as saving the
evidence, reporting threats of harm, being relentless in reporting abuse, and blocking contact can be effective strategies for
overcoming the negative barrier that cyberbullying can create.

2. One way to manage or cope with stress in your life is to make a list of goals. Think about each of the areas in the table.
For each one, write at least two goals to work toward in the next few months. The purpose of the goals is to help you
formulate a plan to guide you to better mental and emotional health.

Area List of goals

In order to manage stress, my goals are:

Manage stress 1. I want to eat healthier
2. I want to get more sleep

Increase resiliency when faced When face with new and unexpected challenges, my goals are:
with new and unexpected 1. Not be overwhelmed when I first look at a challenge
challenges 2. Look at the new change in a positive way instead of a negative way

In order to manage deadlines, my goals are:

Manage deadlines 1. To be done with the deadlines earlier than they are expected
2. Create a schedule to meet my deadlines

When I am face with anxiety, my goals are:

Deal with anxiety 1. Become aware of what causes anxiety
2. Implement copying strategies

When I need to cope with lost or disappointment, my goals are:

Cope with loss 1. Work on expressing my feelings
2. Work through accepting lost or disappointments

In order to maintain a positive self-concept, my goals are:

Maintain a positive self-concept 1. Work on being positive
2. Work on being forgiving
3. Once you have identified your goals for a mental and emotional wellness plan, who will you enlist as positive role models
to give you support and encouragement? How will that support help you succeed with your plan?
My mom will be my role model because she is always around when I need her, she already gives me support and this will
help me to be emotional healthy.

4. Review the goals you listed in your answer to question 2. Write at least two steps to help you meet those goals.

Area Steps to reach each goal

In order to meet my goals of eating healthier and getting more sleep, I will:
1. Make healthier eating choices. For example, when I eat at The Habit,
instead of always ordering a hamburger with fries, I will order a salad with
chicken.
Manage stress 2. Start a sleep schedule of going to be earlier while still waking up at my
normal time. This will give me more sleep each night.
Both of these steps will help me reduce and manage stress levels because proper
nutrition and adequate sleep are important components your body needs to have
in order to manage stress is a healthy way.

Increase resiliency when faced In order to meet my goals of dealing with new and unexpected challenges, I will:
with new and unexpected 1. Take deep breaths to calm myself
challenges 2. Set realistic expectations I can handle

In order to meet my goals of managing deadlines, I will:

1. Not procrastinate and begin each day by starting my work
Manage deadlines 2. Work a little at a time at a constant pace.
3. Reward my progress by taking breaks each hour or after I have completed
an assignment or lesson.

In order to meet my goals of dealing with anxiety, I will:

1. Take a timeout when I feel myself starting to get upset
Deal with anxiety
2. Pace myself by breaking up a large goal into little steps so the anxiety
reduces

My steps to reach my goal of coping with loss and disappointments are:

Cope with loss 1. Accepting the loss, know what has happened cannot be changed
2. Allow my feeling to be expressed like crying or talking to someone

In order to reach my goals of maintaining a positive self-concept, I will:

1. Be positive and not negative about myself.
Maintain a positive self-concept
2. Focus on positives things in my life
3. Learn from my mistakes and forgive myself when I make a mistake
5. Implement the plan that you formulated in question 4. Enlist the aid of the people you selected as role models to support
and encourage you. After implementing the plan for one week, write a summary to evaluate how you are progressing toward
meeting each of your goals. Describe how you will check back on your plan in the future to evaluate your progress.

After implementing my plan this week, I have written the following summary evaluating my progress towards meeting each
of my goals. Overall, for the most part I have met most of my goals. However, there is room for improvement.

Managing Stress
In terms of managing my stress, I have eaten healthier foods. I have had salads instead of hamburgers, and I have had
chicken instead of pizza. So, for the most part, I have been successful with that goal this week. In terms of getting more
sleep, I have gone to bed at 9:00pm and gotten up at 7:00am. This has given me 10 hours of sleep. However, a few nights
I have stayed up until 11pm playing video games. On those nights, I have slept in the next morning until 9am. So, I have
still gotten 10 hours of sleep, but I have started my days later those mornings. Overall, I am ok having stayed up late a
couple nights during the week. I plan on making better choices by staying up only on Friday and Saturday nights. That way
I will be able to get up at 7am each weekday morning in order to get started on my online summer school.

Facing New and Unexpected Challenges

In terms of facing new and unexpected challenges, I have used the deep breathing technique a lot! I have felt stressed
about summer school (I am taking a full-year of Spanish 1 as well as Health). It is a lot of work. Right now, I am behind in
both because the start date that we picked began before I was done with middle school. And because I was still in middle
school with finals, I did not start my online summer school until 1.5 weeks into the semester. I still haven’t started Spanish.
I am two weeks behind there and must catch up this week. So, using the deep breaths has been helpful. In terms of setting
realistic expectations that I can handle, it turns out that I am not very good at this goal / step. This has been a problem for
a couple of reasons. First of all, I think I should be able to get things done quickly. Sometimes I do, like the online quizzes.
However, other times, like with the paper assignment, I don’t. What makes things worse is when the Apex Syllabus says an
assignment should take a certain amount of time, but I end up spending 3 to 4 times MORE time to complete it. For example,
Apex says this assignment should take 1 hour to complete. However, already I have spent 4.5 hours on it and probably
have another ½ hours’ worth of work until I am done. This is one of my biggest struggles and I need to figure out how to
manage this better.

Managing Deadlines
In terms of managing deadlines, I am diligently working on this goal and steps. For the most part, I have not been
procrastinating. Some days I relax before I work because I don’t want to work. But I am working each day which is my
second step, pace yourself and work little by little, in managing deadlines. I am hard workings, so I can say I am good at
this. I am working each day, plugging away. My last step in reaching this goal is to reward myself when I complete an
assignment or lesson. I am good at this, but sometimes I let my reward break last too long. Taking breaks makes me feel
better helps be get ready to do more work. I just need to do a better job of limiting my breaks so I get back to work sooner.

Dealing with Anxiety

In terms of dealing with anxiety, I have been taking time-outs when I get mad or frustrated. I am doing an ok job of taking
time-outs. They sort of help. When you are mad and anxious it’s hard to turn that around to become positive, but time-outs
do help a little. After my time-out, I do reassess my progress and break down my deadline or goal into small steps. Knowing
I only have to read 5 more pages (a small task) is easier to tackle versus telling myself I have 4 overdue assignments.
Coping with Loss and Disappointment
In terms of dealing with loss or disappointment, I have tried to incorporate the step Acceptance into my plan. I have found
that I don’t like all of the paper assignments required in this Health class (they are hard and take me a long time) and I have
been disappointed about it, but I am trying to accept that this is the way the program works. Some days I have been more
accepting than others. As I get close to finishing something, it is easier to accept that this is how the program works and I
am hopeful that I can get it all done. In terms of my other step, expressing my feelings, I think I have done a good job there.
To be honest, sometimes I have cried while other times I gotten mad instead. I share these feeling with my mom who lets
me get them out and then tries to help me refocus. I am going to try to work on expressing my feelings in a better way…by
being able to talk about them instead of just getting frustrated, mad and crying.

Maintaining a Positive Self-Concept

In terms of maintaining a positive self-concept, I have don’t a good job of trying to be positive by saying to myself, “I am
almost done with this assignment,” rather than saying “I still have 3 Health and 9 Spanish assignments more!” When I start
to stress about Apex Summer School, I have done a good job of thinking about other things (like baseball) which make me
feel better. This past weekend I tried out for the high school baseball team and made the team. We start summer baseball
today and I am excited to be a high school baseball player. Maybe that sounds a little strange, but I have been playing
baseball since I was 4 years old, so it’s really cool for me to think that I now am able to play for my high school. Lastly, I am
trying to learn from my mistakes. I think this Wellness Plan will help me with that. I have set goals and steps for myself.
Some of them I have completed. Some of them I can improve on. Time management is an important skill for me to work on.
So, I do think that I will be able to learn from my mistakes as I work through my online summer school.

Evaluating Progress
As I progress this summer with Health, Spanish, and Baseball, I do think that I will be able to evaluate my progress as it
relates to this Wellness Plan. The Apex calendar provides a benchmark by which I can measure my progress…am I getting
everything done, is it on time, how do I feel about my progress as I am working. As I work through everything this summer,
I plan on evaluating my weekly progress each Friday. I will review my Goals, my Steps, and ask myself what I have done
well that week and what I can still improve upon. In this regards, I think that I will be able to effectively evaluate the progress
I am making on implementing my Wellness Plan.