Are you tired of hearing about Covid yet? Well me too, I never want to hear about it again, but the truth is that even though the dangers of the virus have passed, the effects of it will stay with us for a long time.

Welcome!

Hi, welcome to my very first blog post ever! For this project, my maker teacher has assigned me with making a post on a topic that interests me. I decided to write about the impacts of covid on our mental health as teenagers.

Getting Into It

When covid first hit Canada, i was 9 years old. I remember waking up one morning to my mom rushing out the door to get grocery’s because she heard the stores were all shutting down. That’s when covid started effecting my lifestyle.
Now it’s 2023 and worrying about covid has significantly decreased. There is no more mask acne, cancelled vacations, online schooling and toilet paper shortages. The thing we are all stuck with now are the after effects.
We might not realize it, but covid has made a big impact on most of our lives and mental health, more kids and teenagers then ever before are now struggling with the following,

•  Anxiety
• Depression
• Trouble focusing in school
• Discrimination
• Addiction to phones
• Being on time
• etc

A research team surveyed more than 1,350 parents, kids, and teenagers in April to June of 2020 to ask about six areas of their mental health: depression, anxiety, irritability, attention span, hyperactivity, and obsessions/compulsions. 70.2 per cent of school-aged children (age 2 – 18) reported worsening in at least one area since Covid.
This is something i have noticed as well, which is why i have decided to write my first post, to share my knowledge, and learn more.

Anxiety

WHY IT SUCKS: Anxiety is a struggle many people including me have to live with, it is a feeling of fear, dread, or discomfort. Anxiety is not fun, it takes over your life, it makes you miss out on things, and is hard to over come.

WHY IS IT RELEVANT TO US:  I remember one time, right after the covid guidelines were cut back, I went to a restaurant with two of my friends. During our one evening at the restaurant all three of us all had to leave the restaurant at one point and take a break outside because of each of our different fears and anxiety. This story goes to show how much Covid has made an impact on the number of teenagers that suffer with anxiety.

WHAT HELPS: Although anxiety is something that never truly goes away completely, there are many tips and tricks that of helped me live with it. With anxiety, you have to learn how to control it rather than it control you. Different strategies work with different people, these are some that help me when I feel like I am losing control,

• 4 square breathing
• EFT tapping
• Butterfly hugs

Addiction to screens

WHY IT SUCKS: Having and addiction to phone sucks, you always have to be around your phone or screen, you always feel the need to look at your device, and you even feel empty without it.

WHY IS IT RELEVANT:  During the lockdown, we couldn’t see our friends in person, so most of us turned to communication over devices, which made our daily screen time rocket. We also had a lot of time at home on our hands which contributed to our time on screen as well.

WHAT HELPS: I know, I know, you are probably very tired of hearing people telling you to ‘get off your phone’ and ‘stop being so addicted’, but being addicted to a phone or a screen is like any other addiction, and it is hard to ‘get rid of ’. You can start by distracting your self with something that doesn’t involve screens when you feel like picking up your device, like going outside, or starting a craft, or baking.

 

Trouble focusing in school

Image credit

WHY IT SUCKS: Not being able to focus is really hard because it effects your motivation in school and can make it really hard to finish and hand in assignments in time.

WHY IS IT RELEVANT: Ever since covid there has been a sever increase of addiction to phones, this has made a lot of teenagers attention span as long as it takes for you to watch one TikTok video before scrolling to the next. Which makes it really hard to focus in school because our brains can only concentrate on one thing for so long.

WHAT HELPS: Putting any distracting device away so you don’t have to worry about checking your texts or social media can help with staying focused and on task. Also, you need to get sleep and be in the right frame of mind.