The body is an amazing instrument. Major organs work together to allow you to breathe, convert food into nutrients, move in space, reproduce, protect yourself or heal from illness, and perceive and make sense of the world around you. While the body is capable of so much, why do many individuals dislike their bodies? The answer to this question is more complicated than it may appear.

What is Body Image?

Body image is a term that describes thoughts, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions about one’s body (Hosseini & Padhy, 2022).

Specifically, body image is defined as:

• How you see your body, including your height, shape, and weight, and individual body parts,
• What you think and believe about your body,
• How you feel about your body, and
• What you do to address your feelings, beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions about your body.

Body image is an important component of overall wellbeing and influences how people function on a day-to-day basis. Body image exists along a negative/positive continuum and may change at any time. When realistic expectations, acceptance of and/or satisfaction with the body occur, a positive body image is experienced. Conversely, when thoughts, feelings and beliefs about the body are inconsistent with an ideal image one forms in their mind, a negative body image occurs (Office of Women’s Health, 2021; National Eating Disorders Association [NEDA], 2021).

How is Body Image formed?

The development of body image is a complex process. It begins in early childhood and evolves over time. The process consists of interactions between external and internal factors (Hosseini & Padhy, 2022; NEDA, 2021).

• External Factors: Cultural/Environmental/Social—Messages from parents, siblings, peers, teachers, and the media influence beliefs and assumptions about the body. Comparisons to others coupled with a culture that focuses on beauty, perfection, and anti-aging may contribute to shaping opinions about the self. This is often seen on social media as it often perpetuates that beauty and perfection are the ultimate goals, with filters and editing tools creating a distorted reality. The constant bombardment of images promoting youthfulness can make individuals feel inadequate and self-conscious about their appearance. Traumatic experiences (accidents, sexual/physical assault, emotional neglect) may impact body image. Developmental milestones such as transitioning from child to adulthood, starting a family, dealing with adult children leaving home, and aging/retiring from work may increase the probability of fluctuating body images.
• Internal Factors: Personality/Emotional/Psychological—Anxiety and depression, and personality characteristics such as perfectionism, rigid thinking, and high expectations of self may influence or reinforce body image.

Tips on Achieving and Maintaining a Positive Body Image

Your wellbeing is in part, dependent on your body image. Therefore, working towards and maintaining a positive body image benefits your physical and psychological health, as well as your relationships with others. These recommendations may help you in your journey (NEDA, 2021) toward an optimal body image.

• Remember your body is merely the shell in which your emotional, physical, and spiritual person resides. Your body does not define you.
• Take care of your body. To function properly, your body needs a consistent dose of nourishment, including food, physical activity, and social relationships.
• When thoughts about your appearance start to overwhelm you, remind yourself of all the things your body can do. Your body allows you to move through space, view the world around you, problem-solve, experience different emotions, and connect with others.
• Limit negative media influences: Unfollow sites that equate extreme body types (for example, very thin or very muscular) with happiness. This includes unfollowing people and influencers on social media that put a focus on unrealistic body images. Receive information on healthy dieting from your doctor, not the media. Observe the contents of advertisements with critical eyes and ears before making impulsive decisions to adopt the message or purchase the item.
• Surround yourself with positive people and messages. Being with people you trust and receiving messages that inspire you help to prevent an unrealistic body image.

Be mindful of signs that may signal a path toward a negative body image. It is normal to engage in some of these behaviors every now and then. However, if you find that these activities are starting to interfere with or prevent you from accomplishing routine daily activities, it may be time to discuss these issues with your doctor. Avoid these behaviors:

• Looking in the mirror multiple times a day.
• Believing that happiness is equated to physical attractiveness.
• Comparing your appearance to others.
• Avoiding social situations because you are not attractive enough.
• Wearing loose or bulky clothes to hide your body shape.
• Engaging in extreme diets.
• Declining invitations where eating is involved.
• Refusing to be part of a photograph or editing photographs of yourself before sharing them.
• Approaching hygiene needs or shopping for clothes with dread.
• Feeling depressed or anxious, or having trouble concentrating after you eat.
• Asking friends and family about their opinions regarding your appearance.

An ideal body is not measured by how you look. An ideal body is one that functions optimally and allows you to embrace what life has to offer. Slowly shifting your thoughts from self-criticism to ones of appreciation and respect may improve your overall wellbeing.

References

• Hosseini SA, Padhy RK. [Updated 2022 Sep 5] Body Image Distortion. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546582/
• National Eating Disorder Association. (2018, February 22). 10 steps to positive body image. Body Retrieved from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/body-image-0 https://www.womenshealth.gov/mental-health/body-image-and-mental-health/body-image
• S. Department of Health & Human Services. February 17, 2021, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health. Office of Women’s Health. Body Image https://www.womenshealth.gov/mental-health/body-image-and-mental-health/body-image

Introduction

When disasters or tragedies occur, people seek information from traditional news sources and social media. Staying up to date is part of being an informed citizen, and while consuming media can be beneficial in moderation, “doomscrolling” — exposing yourself to a never-ending stream of distressing information — could be negatively impacting your overall wellbeing.

If you find yourself overwhelmed by the constant flow of negative information but can’t bring yourself to turn away from Twitter, you are not alone. For 50 years, Magellan Federal has helped more than three million civilian employees and their families enhance their emotional wellness and reduce stress. The following information and tips can help you to avoid doomscrolling if your social media usage is getting in the way of your wellness.

Doomscrolling Defined

Doomscrolling (also known as doomsurfing) is the term used for persistent and excessive reading of negative news online. It was popularized by Quartz reporter Karen Ho in 2020 during the lockdown at the height of the COVID pandemic. Like many of us,  Ho struggled with compulsively reading upsetting news about the ongoing pandemic. She would send nightly tweets (pictured right) to her followers encouraging them to take a break from doomscrolling bad news and to get a good night’s sleep (8).

Doomscrolling Characteristics — What to Look Out For

Doomscrolling differs from regular social media usage and has four main characteristics that makes it a distinct activity.

• This is a persistent activity that becomes habitual.
• It is caused by environmental factors.
• The sessions are multiple hours, and the user often loses track of time.
• The content viewed is negative, distressing, and timely.

While typical social media usage may have one or more of the above-mentioned factors, all factors are present for doomscrolling. Further, a study used to create a doomscrolling scale found the activity was highly associated with “online vigilance, problematic internet/social media use, and FOMO” (fear of missing out) (13).

Reasons for Doomscrolling

Fear of the unknown is the primary motivator driving people to engage in doomscrolling, however, multiple factors may contribute to and perpetuate their fear.

Biological Imperative

During times of crisis or tragedy, people gather information to reduce uncertainty, create a plan, and attempt to exert some measure of control over the situation (17). This behavior is rooted in survival instincts related to paying more attention to negative information than positive and scanning the environment for danger to protect one’s family (14).

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

While FOMO typically refers to anxiety experienced as a result of seeing an exciting or interesting event happening elsewhere, FOMO also applies to doomscrolling. With no end to social media posts, there is always one more piece of information that could be read.

Perpetuating the Cycle

With doomscrolling, the information collected on tragedies and disasters that was meant to reduce uncertainty and allay feelings of anxiety instead increases these feelings, particularly when the events are beyond one’s control. As we scroll, we’re flooded with information that for the most part, we can do nothing about, except to keep scrolling and sharing, perpetuating the cycle. As a result, we feed the paralyzing loop of information that can lead to feelings of helplessness and despair (11).

Algorithms

It’s no secret that the goal of social media titans like Facebook and Twitter is to have users interact with their products for as long as possible. To that end, these platforms create algorithms to learn their customers’ habits and then customize the online experience to them (15). The more a user interacts with the platform, the more the algorithm “learns” what content to provide, without concern for possible user harm (8). As a result, the curated content displayed for each user plays on their emotions to keep them engaged—even negative ones. Naturally, repeated exposure to distressing content can have a negative impact on mental health.

Risk Factors

Current research findings show that certain individuals are more likely to engage in doomscrolling than others.

• Men and younger adults regardless of ideological beliefs (13)
• Those with anxiety or depressive disorders
• People who score high in neuroticism
• Those who are addicted to social media (12)
• Individuals with previous childhood maltreatment experiences

Effects of Doomscrolling

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been multiple studies on the mental health effects of doomscrolling. Recent research findings suggest doomscrolling is associated with:

• Increased anxiety and psychological distress
• Lower mental well-being
• Increased depression
• Increased phone use
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms
• Decline in sleep quality

Prevention & Coping Techniques

As with most harmful habits, the best time to address them is before they start. Many of the techniques and tips provided below can be used to both prevent doomscrolling (or any excessive social media use) and also to help reduce doomscrolling once it has become a habit.

Technology Tips

• See no evil: Provide feedback on social media posts with negative content by using the “hide post” or “block/mute” features. This will provide information to the platform algorithm to provide less of this type of content (9).
• Set a time: Reduce the amount of time online by using screen timers and stick to no more than 30 minutes as any more has been connected to increased levels of anxiety (3, 17).
• Scroll with purpose: Picking a specific subject to get information on will not only help meet the new scrolling time limits, but it will also create a sense of accomplishment when the information is obtained (17).
• Subdue screen colors: As all casinos know, the more flashy and colorful something is, the easier it is to keep someone’s attention. Changing social media settings to “gray–scale” will make the screens more monotone/less visually appealing and can make it easier to stop scrolling (3).
• Search for the happy: Known as “hopescrolling,” this can lead to more positive thoughts and can help “reset” social media algorithms to show you more positive content.

Beyond Online

• Connect with others: Share the burden with loved ones and others within your social networks to reduce anxiety (17).
• Connect with yourself: Perform regular self-check ins by listening to your body and paying attention to how you are feeling to understand when it is time to take a break (16, 17).
• Connect with the outdoors: Engage in hobbies that involve the outdoors including exercise and fresh air while leaving technology, and feelings of anxiety behind (17).

Clinical Support

• Nonmedical counseling: Qualified counselors can help create a plan to address the problem. Non-medical counseling is short-term and addresses general conditions of living, life skills, improving relationships, and stress management.
• For Clinicians: Since clients also consume social media for entertainment as well as coping measures, it may be helpful to work with them to identify alternative hobbies or activities they will enjoy that will not involve social media or other digital technology (10).

Summary

In a global society with a 24-hour news cycle and social media that offers infinite scrolling, there is always more news to consume. People can fall victim to doomscrolling when distressing events occur, leading to increased anxiety and stress, creating a self-feeding cycle that can be difficult to break.

For those wanting to stop doomscrolling, it is important to first acknowledge the behavior, be honest with how it may be affecting your mental health, and be proactive in your approach to modify your actions. No matter what your relationship is with the news, this technique will help maintain a healthy relationship with social media and overall digital wellness.

A life-altering situation is an event that is strong enough to upend long-held routines and can positively or negatively impact an individual’s quality of life. Examples include a death of a family member, marriage, relationship issues, and in more extreme cases, can include natural catastrophes or intense personal losses.

Crisis intervention is an immediate acute intervention after a life-altering situation. This intervention type is focused on reducing the initial distress caused by the event to foster adaptive functioning and coping. Magellan Federal supports Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) responders with onsite stress counselors to provide crisis intervention and support to FEMA employees so they can provide critical disaster response to areas in need. We have been supporting FEMA’s disaster response teams for more than 20 years.

We believe crisis intervention is critical to resilience and recovery due to the immediate intervention after a life-altering situation. Immediate intervention can help someone cope with the initial reactions of fear, worry, powerlessness, and/or hopelessness afterward. Here are some tips for normalizing and addressing these needs to improve long-term recovery.

How to Provide Assistance

It is hard to know exactly when and what to say to support someone who has experienced a life-altering situation. In our experience, it is best to reach out and offer assistance early, when the individual is most vulnerable. Here are a few steps that can help to facilitate crisis intervention:

1. Connect with them on the human level. Focus on listening with compassion and being present for the person while validating their experience and acknowledging their feelings.
2. Determine if their basic needs are being met. This includes food, water, shelter, clothing, and safety. Assess their immediate needs and connect them to available resources. Addressing immediate basic needs is a way to improve quality of life quickly while providing steps towards recovery.
3. Help them to identify additional needs they may have. Connect them with practical resources once their initial basic needs are cared for.
4. Connect them with available support resources. This can include family, friends, neighbors, and community helping resources.

How to Cope with a Crisis and Move Forward

Validate and Acknowledge Your Feelings

It is completely natural to feel overwhelmed after undergoing a life-altering event. Common reactions after a crisis can include strong emotions, numbing, and worry. It’s important to acknowledge and validate that these feelings may come and go in waves and are normal in short durations. Also, remind yourself that these feelings are an expected part of the acceptance and healing process. Identify strategies used in the past to cope, and determine if they would be helpful now.

Break Tasks Down into Smaller Actions

Recovering from a life-altering situation may feel overwhelming and insurmountable to some. The stress from a life-altering situation can affect cognitive and problem-solving abilities, and a survivor may need assistance with making appointments and completing paperwork. It’s crucial in those times to break down needs into smaller action steps. This will lead to small measures of success and increase confidence in coping.

Connect with Social Support

Social support includes reaching out to others in the community such as family, friends, or neighbors for help. It may feel challenging at first due to embarrassment, worrying about burdening others, doubting if support is available, and being too overwhelmed, but connecting with others can accelerate the healing process by normalizing a shared experience and decreasing isolation.

Practice Deep Breathing Exercises

Take time out of the day to practice calming exercises such as deep breathing. Controlling our breath allows our nervous system to regulate and emerge from a fight, flight, or freeze reaction. A simple exercise can be to inhale slowly through your nose and comfortably fill your lungs all the way down to your stomach. Exhale slowly through your mouth and comfortably empty your lungs. You can repeat this five times slowly and as many times a day as needed.

Develop a Structured Routine

Try to develop a structured routine to help with decision-making. This new routine may differ vastly from your previous routine based on new values post-life-altering situations.

Focus on Getting Adequate Sleep

If possible, try to get to sleep at the same time daily. Don’t drink caffeinated beverages in the evening, reduce alcohol consumption, increase daytime exercises, relax before bedtime, and limit naps to 15 minutes, not after 4 p.m. Giving your body and mind adequate time to rest will help fuel positive processing skills and emotional responses the following day.

Limit or Eliminate Alcohol Consumption

Substance use can lead to problems with sleep, relationships, jobs, and physical health.

Know When to Ask for Additional Help

If stress reactions persist over four to six weeks or worsen and impair functioning, it’s a sign to ask for additional help from a community counselor or therapist. It’s important to note that crisis intervention is not therapy. Therapy can help make a diagnosis and can be a long-term commitment with one identified provider with treatment-specific goals.

Acknowledging the Emotional Effects of a Crisis

Whether you were directly involved in the crisis or not, it is normal to experience waves of emotions after a life-altering event. Often, the structure, schedule, and routine in your life have been destroyed, and you are unsure where to start. It’s OK to feel powerlessness, overwhelmed, and even angry. At that moment, it may feel embarrassing or burdensome to ask for help. You are not alone. Know that there are people that can and want to help and getting help early is critical to being one step closer to recovery.

Additional Resources

• The Disaster Distress Helpline: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distress-helpline
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://988lifeline.org/
• Red Cross Disaster Relief: https://www.redcross.org/about-us/our-work/disaster-relief.html
• FEMA assistance after a Disaster: https://www.fema.gov/assistance
• FEMA disaster preparedness: https://www.ready.gov/

According to Gallup®, 70% of the population is struggling or suffering, and 70% of employees are not engaging at work. Investing in wellbeing at work is critical to the success of your employees and organization.

The impact of wellbeing extends far beyond how employees feel — it affects the number of sick days they take, their job performance, burnout levels, retention rates and the organization’s bottom line.

We will dive into these issues in this blog post, and you can learn by listening to the webinar recording: “eMbrace the link between employee engagement and wellbeing.”  Click here to access the recording.

Organizations should care about wellbeing

Contrary to what many believe, wellbeing is not just about being happy or physically fit. Wellbeing encompasses all aspects of our lives:  how our lives are going, feeling good about our thoughts life experiences and what is important to us.

Poor wellbeing affects employees and organizations:

• 75% of medical costs accrued are due to largely preventable conditions.
• $20 million of additional lost opportunity for every 10,000 workers due to struggling or suffering employees.
• $322 billion of turnover and lost productivity costs globally due to employee burnout.

 In contrast, employees with high wellbeing are more resilient during widespread or personal tough times, less likely to have unplanned days out of the office and more engaged than those with low wellbeing.

Traditional EAPs are not enough

Traditional Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) fall short because they average about 5% engagement and focus mainly on distressed employees. Low utilization and a reactive model leave a large gap to fill to meet the wellbeing needs of all employees. Organizations need a proactive program that benefits all employees.

Learn more in the webinar recording.

Building a thriving culture of wellbeing

Leaders that bring engagement and wellbeing together create a high-performance environment where the two inform and build on one another. Magellan Healthcare and Gallup® collaborated to create eMbrace, a fully integrated, evidence-based solution delivering improved employee wellbeing and engagement across six key areas of their lives: Emotional, Career, Social, Financial, Physical and Community.

Through eMbrace, employees and organizations can measure their wellbeing and discover where they are suffering, struggling, and thriving. Employees receive a personalized plan that guides them to services and resources to help them improve their total wellbeing and lead thriving lives.

Resources:

• https://www.gallup.com/workplace/215924/well-being.aspx
• https://www.gallup.com/workplace/320297/invest-employees-wellbeing-afford-not.aspx
• https://www.gallup.com/workplace/358082/struggling-suffering-employees-twice-likely-leave.aspx

The destruction left by Hurricane Ian back in September serves as a reminder that times of crisis can often occur quickly with little or no warning. During these events, parents may be coping with children who feel increased worry and anxiousness. Parents and professionals can help by providing guidance on how to develop an at-home safety plan for times of crisis. Supplying children with the knowledge of what to do if an emergency occurs can reduce feelings of anxiety and provide them with a better sense of control in an uncontrollable situation. Below is guidance that our Military and Family Life counselors share with parents.

Emergency Plan Directions

• Designate a general meeting place. Establish an agreed-upon safe place to meet if a parent will be unable to pick the child up from school or will not be at home. This could be a neighbor’s house or community meeting space. Children should be reassured that the adult they are with is aware of the plan, and the parent will meet them at the arranged meeting location.
• Create an emergency backpack. The backpack should have items the child may need in the event of a crisis, specifically, items necessary if an adult was unavailable at the time of the crisis.
• Compile a list of all emergency phone numbers. These numbers should be programmed into a child’s phone, if they have one, written down at home, and placed in the emergency backpack.
• Create a social media plan. Social media sites can be very effective in times of crisis. Discuss what social media site(s) will be used for family communication and information if cell service is down.
• Develop plans for the natural disasters most likely to occur in your area. These plans could include backup locations to go in case the family must leave their home, such as a relative’s house, a community shelter, or another designated safe place.

For even more tips on preparing an emergency plan, refer to the “Make a plan” section of  Ready.gov.

Crisis Conversation Tips for Parents

In addition to creating an emergency plan for their home, parents will also need to discuss crises and other traumatic events, such as natural disasters, with their children. It can be difficult to know how to approach those topics or what to say that will be helpful. Below are tips for engaging in these conversations (Psychology Today, 7.26.22).

• Keep words and language child-friendly and age appropriate.
• Initiate the conversation in a calm manner.
• Leave time for the child to ask questions and remain silent during their questions or requests for clarification.
• Ask if they have any worries about a particular situation.
• For even more tips on preparing an emergency plan, refer to the “Make a plan” section of ready.gov.

Creating an emergency plan and having open communication about this topic can benefit both the child and adult and may reduce feelings of anxiety in the child.

Tips for parents and professionals

To be sure, Covid-19 changed a lot of things. One of which was doubling the average amount of screen time for American adolescents[1].

• Pre Pandemic: 3.8 hour per day
• Current: 7.70 hours per day

It is important that parents, teachers, counselors, and others who live and work with children and youth become familiar with the ever-changing digital landscape to provide timely guidance and support. The following information and downloadable tip sheet will give you a good foundation to get started.

Influence and Information

To understand the degree of influence of digital media on children, we must first understand the speed and scope of peer-to-peer information sharing in the digital age. Due to use of algorithms built to share information on a global scale instantly, it is often difficult to immediately curb the spread of misinformation and propaganda on the platforms. Algorithms are digital code built to recognize engaging content and then deliver that content to audiences to generate higher views. The algorithm does not distinguish positive or negative types of viral content. As content can be seen by adolescents and parents or professionals in the same general time frame, this provides the ability to prepare an appropriate response.

What it means to “Go Viral”

When a piece of content becomes widely shared, is referenced in other content, and begins to influence the social structure of its intended audience, the content is considered to have “gone viral.”

To give you an idea of how quickly content can reach worldwide audiences, here are the viral rates for Tiktok:

• > 500 views in the first .25/hr
• > 10k views in the first 4/hr
• > 250k views in the first 24/hr
• > 1 million views in the 48/hr

Empowering Viral Content[2]

Not all viral content is bad. Some viral content empowers adolescents to be the change they wish to see in the world. It’s important to understand that viral content can be positive and widely influential. Positive examples of viral content include:

• Student-led peaceful protests—In the spring of this year, high school students from Boston, Chicago, and other cities across the Northeast organized peaceful walkouts to protest the unsafe in person learning conditions amidst rising regional Covid cases. These students passionately demonstrated for the safety of their teachers and classmates to demand access to virtual learning. This was an excellent example of our youth being the young leaders of tomorrow.
• Neighborhood cleanups—Throughout 2020 lockdowns, a viral trend showcased individuals standing in front of an area with litter and trash visible. Dancing along with a selected audio, the creator would stitch a transition using choreography to a new scene where the area had been cleaned and the garbage bagged. These videos slowly became more dramatic over the summer as creators became more competitive, however the end goal was always environmental cleanup.
• “Show Your Talent” Challenge—The “Show Your Talent” challenge of 2021 featured an original creator issuing a challenge to others to “Show Your Talent”. This video garnered significant positive feedback and resulted in people of all ages showing talents.

Destructive Viral Content[3]

Viral content can also be destructive and damaging, influencing individuals to engage in behaviors that result in the loss of life, property, or safety. Examples include:

• “Silhouette” Challenge—The “Silhouette” challenge involves individuals dancing provocatively, often using a filter to showcase a millisecond long video of the individual either nude or barely clothed, viewed through a lens such a “Heat Filter”. This portrays a lewd image under the guise of it being safe due to the filter. However, these videos can be downloaded and the filter removed through the use of apps, allowing that content to be recirculated showing the real, unfiltered video.
• “Morning-after-pill” Challenge—The “Morning-after-pill” Challenge resulted from adolescents opening the plastic device used for a pregnancy test. Inside this plastic device is a silica tablet, meant to absorb moisture and maintain the validity of the test. Adolescents mistakenly thought this tablet was a free Plan B pill and ingested the tablet. This misinformation spread quickly, resulting in such a negative impact that manufacturers of the pregnancy tests released public statements educating the public about the silica tablets.
• “Devious Lick” Challenge—The “Devious Lick” Challenge started as individuals being dared to lick disgusting surfaces, such as the bottom of a sneaker, a toilet seat, or the bathroom door handle. However, this trend quickly escalated to damage of property, with multiple schools reporting damage. Damage included sinks being torn from walls, toilets broken, mirrors broken, and soap dispensers stolen.
• “Who Want Smoke” Challenge—The “Who Want Smoke” challenge hit our local schools the hardest. In November of 2021, a viral trend began using a specific audio on TikTok referencing gun violence. The image provided is taken from the viral video showing Clarksville students coming around a corner pretending to be holding a firearm aimed at the camera. Over 50 students were suspended for participating in this trend.

These types of viral content provide misinformation which can be harmful or dangerous.

Benefits to Consider

It is critical to practice the language of the digital age on a daily basis. Linguistics is evolving at an unprecedented rate. This may create opportunities to connect with children and adolescents that were not previously available. Other benefits include:

For the Professional:

• Becoming more familiar with ever-changing digital landscape
• Understanding the evolving linguistics of the digital age child
• Faster and stronger rapport building

For the Child/Adolescent:

• Providing opportunity for discussion on current trends and topics
• Creating an environment for authentic growth and self-reflection
• Establishing a sense of trust and safety

Due to using this best practice, Magellan Federal counselors at Fort Campbell were aware of the “Who Want Smoke” trend prior to its arrival to local schools. This allowed the opportunity to have preemptive support for adolescents. Through this support, adolescents were able to have authentic conversations about the trend, its meaning, and how it could impact them.

Sites to Search

To stay on top of digital trends, we recommend actively searching the following media channels:

• Local news source
• Facebook
• Other social media platforms
• Tiktok
• Reddit
• Twitter
• Instagram

Pro Tip: Ask the adolescents where they spend their time online. Populations will differ by region and age group. It never hurts to ask!

Article originally published on MFed Inform. Visit to download free tip sheet.

[1]   Nagata JM, Cortez CA, Cattle CJ, et al. Screen Time Use Among US Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings From the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. JAMA Pediatr. 2022;176(1):94–96. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.4334

[2]   Alfonseca, Kiara. Jan 14 2022. Students walk out over COVID-19 in-person learning conditions in schools. https://abcnews.go.com/US/students-walk-covid-19-person-learning-conditions-schools/story?id=82265171

[3]   Quinlan, Keely. Nov 23, 2021. Over 50 students suspended for viral TikTok video at West Creek High in Clarksville. https://clarksvillenow.com/local/over-50-students-suspended-for-viral-tiktok-video-at-west-creek-high-in-clarksville/

Millions of people are affected by mental health conditions each year. Unfortunately, more than half of them either delay seeking treatment or do not get help at all due to the associated stigma. Stigma causes people to feel ashamed, be concerned about being treated differently, or fear the loss of their livelihood due to something that is out of their control.

Mental health stigma is among the factors contributing to Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) being less likely than White people to receive treatment.[1] In 2020, 5.7% of Asian Americans, 9.4% of Black people or African Americans, and 10.7% of Hispanic or Latinx people received mental health services, compared to 21% of White people.[2]

What you can do

With compassion and support, people can recover and lead happier, healthier lives. Treatment is available and recovery is possible. But overcoming stigma is a critical first step in the process.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) offers some suggestions about what we can do as individuals to help reduce the stigma of mental illness:

1. Talk openly about mental health—and discuss it no differently than physical health.
2. Show compassion for those with mental health challenges.
3. Be conscious of language—remind people that words matter.
4. Educate yourself and others—respond to misperceptions or negative comments by sharing facts and experiences.
5. Encourage equality between physical and mental illness—draw comparisons to how they would treat someone with cancer or diabetes.
6. Be honest about treatment—normalize mental health treatment, just like other healthcare treatment.
7. Let the media know when they are presenting stories of mental illness in a stigmatizing way.

Additional mental health support and resources for BIPOC

On July 20 Magellan Healthcare hosted a webinar, “Navigating mental healthcare: Unique challenges faced by the BIPOC community,” for BIPOC Mental Health Awareness Month. Watch a recording of the webinar as we explore different roles in behavioral healthcare and overcoming stigma to help BIPOC feel more knowledgeable and comfortable about reaching out for help: https://www.magellanhealthcare.com/event/navigating-mental-healthcare/.

Visit Magellanhealthcare.com/BIPOC-MH for more information and resources covering racism, stigma and more for BIPOC mental health.

[1] “Mental Health Disparities: Diverse Populations” American Psychiatric Association

[2] 2020 SAMHSA National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Adult Mental Health Tables

A theme for September’s Recovery Month is “Recovery is for Everyone.” It sounds nice, but is it really true? We’re all impacted by mental health and substance use conditions in some way, whether we live with them or know someone who does. But with 74 million adults and 5 million adolescents in America living with a mental health or substance use condition,[1] is recovery really for everyone?

Where do you stand?

Do you think recovery is possible for a person given a diagnosis of schizophrenia? Is recovery possible for someone in active heroin addiction?

If you think recovery is possible for them, do you expect recovery for them?

Think about it for a minute.

Recovery for me

I am a person in recovery. At the beginning of my journey, I was a teenager with a bright future ahead of me who had been given a mental health diagnosis. It was easy for others to hold hope for me because my accomplishments were a recent memory. Recovery was possible and expected for me.

Today, I have a successful career, an advanced education, a home, and a deep connection to my community. It’s easy for people to expect recovery for me because I’ve proven it’s possible.

But in the middle of my story is endless years of pain and despair. My teenage accomplishments quickly became overshadowed by more diagnoses, hospitalizations, failed medication trials, and a disability determination. The longer my struggles continued the harder it was for me and the people around me to believe my recovery was possible. An expectation of recovery was replaced with low expectations of my abilities, personal responsibility, and chances for a meaningful life.

The irony is that these low expectations quickly became more distressing for me than any symptom I was experiencing. It was the lack of expectation for recovery in my life that brought the soul-crushing despair that nearly ended my life.

Measuring down

My experience is not isolated. It is common to determine someone’s ability to recover based on internal and external factors and then act accordingly. These factors may include a person’s income, education history, employment, housing, support system, family culture, ethnicity, and geography; the number of times they have been in rehab or failed medication trials; and the number of diagnoses, type of diagnoses, drugs used and number of physical health comorbidities. The list could be endless.

Now let’s go back to the scenarios above and add a few more details:

Do you expect recovery for the man you pass at the bus stop who is experiencing homelessness, who hears voices and who has no education?

What about the woman you see at the park who uses street drugs, whose kids are in foster care and who is unemployed. Do you expect recovery for her?

Recovery for everyone in action

Expecting recovery for everyone requires an unwavering commitment to the belief that recovery is possible for every person, no matter their diagnosis, treatment history, or current and past circumstances. The next step after believing recovery is possible is taking action on that belief through communicating with hopeful, empowering language, encouraging risk-taking in the pursuit of recovery, and focusing on strengths versus perceived deficits.

At the systems level, expecting recovery for everyone means:

• Providing equitable recovery opportunities through services and supports, including beyond traditional treatment delivery systems
• Outreaching to engage Black, Brown, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities
• Transforming practices and environments to reflect recovery-oriented principles

If we all believed that recovery was for everyone, it would radically change our communities and service delivery systems for the better. It would send a message of hope and save lives during a time when suicide rates in the U.S. have increased 30% from 2000 to 2020.[2]

Imagine what would change if we believed recovery was for everyone.

Join the conversation

We are pleased to host a free webinar, “What I would tell my younger self: Conversations about hope, recovery and the “S” word,” on Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at 3:00 p.m. ET. Register today to hear our presenters share the advice they would give to their younger selves to better navigate mental health and substance use challenges, and engage in the conversation!

Visit MagellanHealthcare.com/Recovery for resources to use and share this Recovery Month and beyond.

[1] Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health

[2] National Institute of Mental Health, “Suicide” information