Welcome to Sheeper Assisted. I'm your host Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Sheeper Assisted is the teen mental health podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode I'll bring you authentic, accessible and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental Wellness
you can expect. Evidence based teen approved resources, coping skills including lots of DBT insights and education, and each piece of content you consume. She Persisted offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living. So let's dive in this week on She Persisted.
Really the advice that I want to give any students and anyone that's navigating back to school because it's very anxious and avoidance prone time, especially if you're in college is when you feel that feeling of like, I'd rather not I'd like to avoid this is uncomfortable. Go towards that thing. And maybe you don't go towards it today, but tomorrow you start working yourself up towards it because it's one of the best things you can do for your academic and personal
well-being. Hello, hello you guys, and welcome back to Sheep Persisted. I'm so excited to hear today. Happy back to school. We're doing a really fun DBT edition of back to school tips and tricks and advice and all the things I just came from my introduction to developmental
Psychology class. We're very much in the back to school mode and I'm going to share with you guys all my pieces of advice from a DBT lens on how you can optimize this school year, set a good foundation for your mental health, and have this be a sustainable semester. I have my giant book of DBT from McClain. This is my Bible, and we are going to go through a number of
things in this episode. But I want to start with setting goals and intentions for the school year and what I'm doing this year and how I'm approaching this semester because I think it's a very normal and natural time of the year to want to make shifts and changes and improve on what you've done in the past. I always do my planners by school years, not calendar years because that's kind of like how the cycle runs for me, if that makes sense.
And so whenever I'm thinking of like big goals and shifts to be made, I do kind of mark those by school year rather than like January 1st. So the first thing is that we cannot make a shift or a change if we don't first have an awareness of the issue or of the behavior of the emotion or whatever it is. Everything stems from that awareness and being mindful of what maybe isn't as effective as it could be. And so for me, the most effective way to do that is to track things.
And everyone's different. Use a system that works for you, but I'm going to tell you how I track things and then how I reflect on setting my goals based on that data, if you will. So I've been tracking since middle school. I did my first bullet journal in 8th grade. It was really bad, but it's part of the process. And I've always found tracking to be very therapeutic. And then it's kind of a creative outlet to like make these spreads and fill in the colors and check things off.
It's also really reinforcing for me when it comes to navigating tasks and goals and behaviors to have something that I'm I'm checking off and working towards. Some people are just very intrinsically motivated and they get so much joy out of doing the thing. For me, a lot of the times I like to check things off and work through my list like that is very reinforcing for me. So again, awareness. What works for you? What gives you that little spike of dopamine and gets you
motivated to do the next thing? So I've been doing bullet journal since middle school. I also did diary cards really intensively in 8th grade and freshman year of high school as part of treatment. And I carried a lot of those things in the diary card into my bullet journal and what I
tracked today. And if you're not familiar with diary cards from DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy, which is a lot of the skills we're pulling from in this episode, and DBT uses diary cards for a number of reasons. The 1st is that when you get to a therapy session and your therapist is like, how did the week go? We don't answer that very well. Sometimes we're like, oh, I had the specific thing that I want to address.
But when you think about how was I feeling Tuesday last week in the afternoon, most of us probably can't describe that. And so checking in on a daily basis about how you're feeling and not just like, was today a good or a bad day, but like if you're struggling with urges, if you're struggling with certain types of thoughts, if you're struggling with certain behaviors, are you feeling angry? Are you feeling lonely? Are you feeling happy?
Are you feeling hopeful? That nuance isn't something that we remember. And a little fun tip in fact, here that I learned in a recent episode that you guys are going to love, it's all about depression and the way we think about depression and all these kinds of things. But when we are depressed, our ability to remember and recollect times when we felt happy is extremely diminished.
Similarly, once we've recovered, our ability to remember times that we were depressed is also really diminished and impacted. So our ability to remember things is really impacted by our current mood. So having some way of objectively measuring this is really important because our brains are just not good at measuring and remembering things. Just that's a fact. And so diarrhea cards are really in depth, they're very
extensive. You're tracking the skills you're using, the emotions you're having, the urges, the behaviors, all these things. I definitely do a more simple route. I lean really heavily on my tasks and not from like a productivity, everything has to get done because every single day I'm like migrating 6 tasks
to the next day. But it's a helpful way for me to understand how busy my week is and also where I'm putting in things like spending time with friends or getting movement in or study blocks, things like that. Another thing that I like to track in my bullet journal is working out and so I'll do an annual tracker. I saw this on Kelsey Knight's Instagram and basically like you have a box for each day of the year you fill one in when you've
done a workout. So far, I think I have zero boxes colored in for the school year. So definitely we are taking a flexible approach to this tracking and the behaviors as a whole. And then every couple months, depending on how invested I am in tracking or if I really feel like I need that awareness. And for a long time it was every single month. I do have a tracker and the things on that really vary, but for example, wake up by a certain time, get in bed by a
certain time. Did I socialized that day? Did I spend time with friends outside of just like seeing them at class? Did I get my steps in? Did I read, Did I listen to a podcast? Did I use my skills? This is my favorite thing to add on your habit tracker because it's a freebie. We always use some kind of skills. Add that in there, give you that freebie, give yourself that reinforcement. Start building that momentum. I always add that to my habit trackers.
So I pick behaviors that are contributing to my Wellness as a whole and are objective markers. So like if my goal is to get more consistent and better sleep, I'm not going to put slept well. I'm going to put got in bed by 11:00 PM, got out of bed by 9:00 AM or whatever it is. Similarly, if your goal is to exercise more, you're not going to be like was athletic. You're going to say, did I get this many steps? Did I work out this many times
per week? And it can be a really low and easy goal and a very flexible goal, But you just want to have something where you can check off yes or no. Otherwise, it's really ambiguous whether you're making progress on these goals. So that's the habit tracker. And if that's the way you're measuring these things on a daily basis and you're reflecting on them as a whole at the end of the week, at the end of the month.
Another thing that I like to do at the beginning of the school year is ask myself where I want to be. It can be kind of hard to be like, what specific goal do I want to set for the next week or what specific goal am I focusing on? But I'm like, if I could wave a magic wand and have all these behaviors or habits established the start of next semester, what would those be?
And so, so more like reading more often, being more consistent with how I spread out my workload rather than procrastinating and doing it all in one day, building a more consistent study block. So again, I can work ahead on that workload versus being stressed and procrastinating, having a more consistent sleep schedule. Always a battle, have not won that war yet. And so if those are the things that I want to happen, then I will set that intention or goal again in a really measurable yes
or no specific way. And then my last tip that I'll give you here from Grit Lab, I'm taking Angela Duckworth's class this semester at Penn. It's phenomenal. We will definitely be doing a recap of all the things I've learned. But one of the things that she taught us is that the way that we think about our goals has a real impact on how we're motivated.
And so when you talk to highly successful individuals and athletes and these really high performers, a lot of them aren't focusing on a specific goal like I'm going to win a gold medal. The journey for them is what motivates them, and so their goal is to train for the Olympics, not win a gold medal. But it's not always effective to motivate yourself by thinking about the journey and not the destination.
Because if you haven't achieved the goal yet and you're not an athlete who's trying to like better and better and better themselves, but your goal is to, for example, join new clubs this year, or make new friends or get a certain score on a test. Whatever it is, if you haven't achieved that yet, it's more motivating to focus on the destination and not the journey. So think about where you are. Have you had a lot of wins? Have you achieved a lot of those goals?
In that case, what you should be doing is using the journey as your motivator. And if it's not, if you're like, I have not achieved anything, I'm just feeling like I need to get some things under my belt and then maybe I can focus on the journey. Your goal is going to be the destination and that's going to be more motivating. So that's our little tidbit and thoughts on goals and intentions
and tracking. The next thing we're going to talk about is from the DBT emotion regulation module, because I think regulating our emotions is like one of the most important things in life, especially so that we can show up as students and effectively in our relationships and in the way we interact with ourselves. And so the ABC skill is one of my absolute favorite skills, stands for accumulate positives,
build mastery, cope ahead. And what I actually want to start here with is coping ahead because I think it's the most relevant to the start of the school year. But we're also going to talk about building mastery and accumulating positives because there are two of my favorites. And also really, really essential with school.
So coping ahead is the idea that you basically plan for your worst case scenario outcome and your more realistic outcome so that when you enter a new or daunting or scary or emotional situation, you know what to expect and you're not caught off guard. And so if you're a little type A, you're a little anxiety prone like me, this is a got to end. And so maybe you're coping ahead for the first day of class, Maybe you're coping ahead for your first exam.
Maybe you're coping ahead for making new friends at your new school, whatever it is. Basically what we do with Copa Head is you're going to describe in detail what the situation would be that raises an intense emotion or causes you to avoid or make a decision that maybe isn't the most effective. So if what you're clipping ahead for is the first day of school and meeting new people and introducing yourself, you would describe what is likely to happen.
So maybe you get to school, you go to your first couple of classes, you're worried that you maybe won't talk to anyone. You're worried that maybe instead of going to lunch and trying to introduce yourself or meet some new people, make some new friends instead. You avoid or withdraw or you don't interact with people. You're on your phone, whatever it is. So you're going to describe the situation that's likely to cause those emotions and behaviors to pop up. You also want to check the facts
here. So what is realistically likely to happen? A catastrophizing version of this would be like, if I don't talk to anyone on the first day, I will never ever make friends for the rest of my life. That's just not accurate. Statistically, objectively, it's not true. But I also sometimes like doing a cope ahead for the worst situations.
Like if you're worried about walking to class on the first day and you're like, what if I fall down and drop all my things and then I like frack my head open or like something crazy? Sometimes I do like to do a cope ahead with those and be like, OK, if I fall down the stairs in front of everyone, is my life going to be over? Am I never going to talk to anyone ever again? Am I going to be a social outcast? No, that's not going to happen. People will probably be concerned.
Maybe people will not react as nicely as they could. Maybe you'll feel embarrassed and ashamed. You'll have more anxiety next time you're entering that situation. But will life go on and will you continue to overcome that experience and thrive in spite of it? Probably yes. And so I do, you sometimes like to do a cope head for a worst case scenario because it shows yourself that even if this worst possible thing happens, I can still overcome it.
I can still thrive. And I have these skills that would allow me to navigate that. So we're describing the situation. We do want to check the facts because we don't always want to be expecting and planning for these worst case scenarios because it's not going to happen. It's not likely to happen, and it's not effective for us to stress and plan and feel overwhelmed about something that's not going to happen. It's like suffering twice, right?
You suffer once when you're thinking about something and then the second time when it does happen. And in this case scenario, you're suffering in the case that it might happen and then it won't happen. So you're not suffering for any reason whatsoever. So check the facts if it's being ineffective, but also if you're the kind of person that's like, OK, devil's advocate, what if this happens? Really this is not going to change the trajectory of my life.
If that's helpful for you, I like doing that. You can try that as well. You also want to be really clear about the emotions or behaviors that might impact your ability to be effective in this situation. And get really clear here because you might be like, it's uncomfortable. I hate it. I don't like it was a negative experience. But if you were to say, I feel ashamed, I'm worried about being rejected, I feel lonely, I feel anxious, I feel scared.
I feel sad that people aren't talking to me. Get really clear about what those emotions are and what the possible threat is, right? Like, we feel uncomfortable because there's no one to talk to. But if the root of that is probably like, I don't want to be rejected and I want to feel safe and like I'm loved and have a sense of belonging and I don't want to be rejected from my
group. So write down the core of that and think about it. It takes a lot of the power away from that emotion rather than just letting it sit in the unknown covered by like secondary emotions. And after that, you're going to decide what coping skills you would use in that situation. And if this is a really big fear or anxiety that you're navigating, definitely write this out. Give yourself a list, put it in your notes app, put it as your screensaver.
Do what you got to do so you have these skills top of hand. If you're more just like mentally doing this exercise so that you know that if this happens, you at least have thought about it before. Just have more broad ideas of what skills you're going to use. Are you going to ask for help? Are you going to go to the counselor's office? Are you going to talk to a friend? Are you going to do some deep breathing?
Are you going to run your hands under cold water, especially your wrist to activate the vagus nerve? Are you going to listen to your favorite song? Are you going to look at photos of things that make you feel positive emotions? Think about those skills that you're going to pull from in the moment to be able to overcome
that distress. And what's really key here also is not just those distraction tolerating distress skills, but also doing the opposite of what you're feeling and going back into the situation that makes you uncomfortable, doing some exposure therapy to the things that make you anxious. And we're going to talk about that. That is just as important as having the plan for how to navigate that intense emotion, but also to reenter the situation and feel like you're in a position to thrive.
And then you're going to do the maybe you like this part, maybe you don't. I think it's 5050 for people. You're going to imagine the situation as vividly as possible. So if your fear is that you're going to walk in the class and trip and fall and it's going to be a whole thing and then your life is over, blah, blah, blah, blah, you're going to literally remember that. So like I'm remembering my first period Spanish class in high school and like I opened the door.
I'm probably coming in late and I drop all my things and I'm picturing people's faces that were in that class and how people would respond. The teacher would probably be like, Oh my gosh, what happened? Maybe some people are giggling and laughing. Then I would get up and I would go to my seat and maybe some people are looking at me over their shoulders and I would probably be avoiding eye contact. And then the teacher would start the lesson and I would be feeling ashamed.
I'm probably like blushing and overwhelmed and I'm having all these thoughts of like, what are these people thinking? And so you're going through that in vivid intensity. How are people reacting? What are people saying? How am I feeling? How are my emotions showing up? And then we think about the skills. So what skills would you use? And I would probably do some deep breathing and I would tell myself in my head, this is a really intense and emotional situation.
And 10 minutes from now, people aren't going to be thinking about the fact that I just faced by that. People are going to be thinking about the Spanish test next week. And I am going to maybe count things around me. 5 things. I can see four things I can hear three things I can touch two things I can smell one thing I can taste. What are those things I'm going to do to calm the emotions? And then what am I going to do to avoid future anxiety building about this?
I'm going to get up at some point in class and maybe like go to the bathroom. I'm practicing walking in the class and it will be OK. I'm not going to avoid going to class the next day. I'm not going to get there 45 minutes early so no one sees me walk and get to my desk, etcetera. It's like, how are you going to re enter that situation and overcome that anxiety?
And then because this probably will be a little bit intense and emotional and you'll have some level of anxiety thinking about the situation that might make you anxious or sad or if you're full or whatever it is. We use our coping skills, we do some deep breathing, we accumulate positive events, etcetera. So that's the copahead skill. I think it's really, really relevant and important and crucial for school and it should be second nature.
A lot of us don't do this, but it's really beneficial and important. Building mastery is the next thing we're going to talk about, which is again, part of the ABC skill. And mastery is such an interesting concept. I want to do a podcast episode in depth on this because basically, like the key to life and self esteem and feeling OK is mastery. And we've talked before in the podcast about Martin Seligman's research. He is a positive psychologist.
He's like the father of positive psychology. I took his class last semester. I'll link an episode I did about positive psychology skills you can use or findings you can use to improve your life. But one of the things he talked about was that the opposite of mastery is learned helplessness. And learned helplessness is the idea that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter what you say or think or do or any of those things, you can't change your situation.
And so you feel helpless. And even if you are in fact able to change your situation and overcome it and get out of it and navigate that challenge, you've taught yourself that no matter what you do, nothing's going to change. So you just give up. And the opposite of that is mastery. And mastery is a really, really important thing because it gives us a sense of competence and
independence and self esteem. And when you look at like what people need to feel good and thrive, it's that feeling of like, I can do this, I'm OK, I'm a human, I have autonomy. Autonomy, mastery are really, really, really important for us. And that's like self determination theory as well. It's as a human, we have that innate need to feel a sense of mastery and competence. And so this is how DBT addresses
that. And so if you were looking to boost your self esteem, build your confidence, feel like you have a more active role in your life, this is the skill for you. And every single one of us, regardless of who you are, needs to be building more mastery because we'll have such a net
positive on your life. So basically from the DB TS perspective, building mastery means doing at least one thing every day to build a sense of accomplishment, plan for success, not failure, do something difficult but possible. We don't want to be like, I'm going to build mastery by running a marathon and then tomorrow you run a marathon and fail obviously because you didn't train for it. We do things that are possible
but challenging. And this is also where we get into a lot of things in psychology, like how we focus optimally is being a little bit anxious and aroused, but not super calm and not super overwhelmed. We do our best and we get into flow state, which is when you're just so focused and engaged in a task that time flies by and you don't focus on what's happening around you. And all of a sudden it's been 3 hours.
That happens to me in the podcast and I have 10 minutes and I'm supposed to get on a meeting. It's definitely not going to happen. I get in flow state. I just talk and yap and all of a sudden it's been 2 hours. But with flow state, we're doing something that's challenging, but it's not so difficult that we are overwhelmed and frustrated. We also have this like happy medium challenging, not too
easy, not too hard. With boredom, we feel bored when we're doing a task that's too easy, like if you're just pressing a button all day. We also feel bored when a task is way too hard and challenging. For me, my earth system science class. It's boring because I don't understand anything that's happening. So there's this happy medium in psychology and how our brain
works. And so that's really important when we think about building mastery is, yes, it's important to get better at things, but we do that slowly by putting ourselves in the outside of our comfort zone, but not like on the other side of the world. And then the next step from DBT is that we gradually increase the difficulty over time. Again, we want to stay in that challenging zone. And as we get better, we have to make things harder. And then lastly, we look for a challenge.
So if the task is too easy, try something a little harder next time. This again is based on that psychology research. So building mastery is so important, so crucial. I think I didn't even remotely understand the importance of building mastery when I did DBT the first time. But after all the class I've taken at Penn and all the research I've read and the more theories you learn about, you're like, mastery is everything. I'm going to give you some fun ways that I build mastery in my
life. And you'll see that it doesn't have to be school related, but school does give us a sense of mastery, which is one of the reasons why it's important for us to go to high school and maybe go to college or whatever. Your next step is get a job at some point because it not only you're following the trajectory of life and society and eventually you're making money so you can support yourself, but it also fills this really innate psychological need.
So some things I do for building mastery, I try and get better and improve it. My makeup routine last year, I was like, I don't really like what I'm doing with my makeup routine. I feel like I've been doing the same thing since high school. I watched more videos, I adjust my techniques. I swapped out my products. Similarly, I have been trying a new way of doing my hair.
You cannot tell if you're watching this on YouTube because my hair is up in a bun because I came from class and I'm sweating from the lights of recording this podcast. But I'm trying my sister's hair technique, which I'll give you a quick little summary of because it's actually really good. I have really thin, fine hair. It gets oily in one day and it's kind of straight, like if I sleep on it it'll maybe have some slight waves because I'm smashing it.
But generally I have like pretty thin, fine straight hair and I'm only showing this because it's game changing. And if you have the same kind of hair type, you'll want to try this. And what my sister does, she has the same type of hair as she blow dries her hair every time she showers and then she applies dry shampoo immediately. Her hair looked so much better than mine. Mine was really slacky in comparison. And so I've been trying this recently.
So whenever I shower, I blow dry my hair again. I have thin fine hair so it takes like 5 minutes. It's not a long thing. I just rough dry it and then I apply dry shampoo. And most of the time I do that at night and then I sleep on it. I wake up in the morning, it's like smooth and straight and has more volume and I'm loving it. So I'm building mastery over the skill of doing my hair. It's simple. Maybe it's more like that's
dumb, that's stupid. But this feeling of being able to get better at something and see improvement really is important for that confidence and self esteem. Other things that bring me that sense of mastery, the podcast, obviously getting better at interviewing and researching guests and creating this platform and video editing and social media. Like all of these pieces of the podcast have brought me probably the greatest sense of mastery and self esteem and confidence in my life.
And so that has been huge as an ongoing project. I love doing diamond painting. There's not much skill involved with this. You pick up the little diamonds and stick them in the shape of a picture. And so that's another example of doing something. We were getting better at it over time and that's like another fun little hobby. Hobbies are very important. We're going to touch on that in a second when we talk about accumulating positives. I really like flower arranging.
I arranged some flowers from Trader Joe's last week. I learned that skill one time. I did a class with my grandmother, my great aunt, my mom, and my sisters during COVID and we learned like the basics of arranging flowers and getting better at doing that is a really fun skill for me. Bullet journaling, organizing things, getting better at these systems. That brings me a sense of
competence in mastery. We also get a sense of mastery when we learn new coping skills and get better at coping with life. Like all these things that we're improving and getting better with are going towards that sense of mastery. And then a big one, of course, is school, like learning new things in classes, doing well on tests, moving through the hierarchy of freshman year to sophomore to junior to senior in college or applications, getting a job, an internship, whatever it is.
These also build that sense of mastery. And luckily that's just kind of built into society. But it's also important to do this outside of those because those can also bring stress or maybe impact your well-being negatively. So that's building mastery. We're going to touch on accumulating positives. The best DVTS actually, I cannot pick. That's like asking me to choose a favorite child or a favorite podcast episode. But accumulating positives is
probably the most fun DBT skill. Accumulating positives is the idea that we are planning. We are being intentional. Obviously, things happen in the moment, but we are being intentional and planning these moments for two reasons. 1 is that it gives us something to look forward to. We are not getting into that headspace up. I literally have nothing going for me. I hate everything. There's nothing to look forward to. We have these moments of things
we've planned. So for me, it's like I wake up, I get my coffee in the morning, I enjoy my walk to class, I'm reading a good book that I can't that way to curl up with at night and read that book. Right now I'm reading the woman by Kristen Hannah. She wrote the Nightingale. I love that book so much. Like top five books I've ever read. And so I saw this on like the Kindle top charts and it's good. It's a little heavy, it's a
little darker. It's about the Vietnam War and a woman that goes after her brother enlists and she's a nurse and it's definitely like a little dark. So far I am not super far in, but I'm really liking it. Kristen Hannah is a phenomenal author. I would start with the Nightingale though. The Nightingale so, so, so good. You guys should all read that, but it is historical fiction, so also, if that's not your genre, totally get it. But it's a great book.
Anywho, back to what we're trying to talk about here, which is accumulating positives. For me, a random accumulating positive is also just my room. I try to make my room, my dorm, a happy place. I have these fun little pillows. I have lots of photos hung up. I put my flowers that I arranged in here like these things that make me smile and feel happy and feel like a sense of home and security.
I think this comes from being in the troubled teen industry, but I really, really value that sense of consistency and security and having my own place and feeling settled and stable and not like I'm living out of a suitcase. Having a show that you're looking forward to or enjoying? I plan times to catch up on shows that I'm watching with my friends. So my friend and I are going to start Big Little Lies, which also I just read Big Little
Lies, the book that was so good. My aunt recommended it, such a good read. We're going to watch the show and I will report back. We also just watched Presumed Innocent great loved that it's on Apple TV. And so these things that you're looking forward to and enjoy.
If there's one piece of advice I can give you here, yes, these little parts of your routine that bring you joy and pour in and are kind of easy to implement, but the biggest ROI you'll get with your mental health is anything related to your relationships. So if you're planning to accumulate positives and you're like, I am feeling low energy, I don't have a lot of free time optimized for those
relationships. Statistically, the easiest way to boost your mood that will last the longest is by doing an act of kindness for someone else. And that is something that's probably not going to happen in a planned way, But you could plan to volunteer. You could plan to help someone out with their homework or meet with them. Even if you're an introvert. We not only feel really refueled and fulfilled by those interactions, but they have a really strong and lasting impact
on our well-being. The statistically happiest people spend more time in their relationships. They have more relationships and they have more filling relationships. They have stronger and more relationships within their network. So the accumulating positives, like if there's one that you're going to plan for this week, have it be relationship based, but you can have fun with this. Put them on your schedule, keep things out in your room that kind of jog your memory.
And this does have an impact on well-being, even if it's like fun and silly little things that you're accumulating. This is also like the dopamine menu if you've seen on TikTok or Instagram, people are like, this is my dopamine menu. Love a dopamine menu. This is accumulating positive. DBT is have this in the book for ages. And if you follow downtown behavioral Wellness, love her. She came on the podcast. She also talked about this, where this is the DBT scale in action.
We'd love to see it. But accumulating positives is really important and really key for that sense of I have good things for going for me. I have things I'm looking forward to and also in the moment it boosts your well-being, but the benefits are really threefold. And the final part of that is when we reflect on our life.
And so when we're not being intentional about accumulating these positive moments, maybe some just happen and you see a cute dog on your way to class or you end up having a good conversation with a friend. But we can't guarantee those things will happen. And so when we've planned these moments and we've accumulated them, then when we look back on our day, our week, our month, our life, we can't say I have nothing going for me. Everything sucks. I can't think of any positive moments.
So we can look at this list, look, these photos we've taken, however you're documenting this and say, I have done all these incredible, amazing things this week and these things make me happy and these things matter. My last coping skill that I'm going to give you is exposure and exposure therapy, which is kind of a hot topic on social media, but we love exposure. It's very important for your mental health. And I wanted to talk about this because college especially is
optimized for avoidance. If you want to avoid something, it is so easy. Most classes don't take attendance. You can get away with not fully doing your assignments. You don't have to see anyone. You don't have to have a single meal with anyone else throughout your entire college experience if you didn't want to.
It's not as structured at high school, but all of those things like going to class to have a sense of structure, spending time with friends, eating meals with people, doing your assignments are really important not only for your academic success, but your personal Wellness as well. And so when we're avoiding things, the way that we overcome that is exposure and exposure therapy.
And so the idea behind exposure therapy is that when we have an emotion with a negative valence, maybe it's fear, maybe it's anxiety, maybe a shame, anger might be a reason that you're avoiding something. But when we're avoiding something, especially from an anxiety perspective, the worst thing that we can do is avoid because the emotion amplifies, becomes harder to re enter that situation and you're just making things 1000 times worse for yourself.
So anytime you feel that voidance of like, I'd rather not do that thing and of course it's like run a marathon, I'd rather not That's OK. I give you permission to avoid. But these small things that are coming from an emotional route and that you want to avoid because it's uncomfortable, like talking to someone new or introducing yourself or asking for help, go towards those things because it will have
enough positive on your life. And so when we do exposure therapy, if you have a big thing that you're avoiding, like say you're avoiding making friends, say you're avoiding introducing yourself to a teacher, say you have a ton of anxiety about your final, you're going to make an exposure hierarchy. So you're going to make a list of things that it get increasingly a little bit more scary until you get to that big
goal. So if you are doing exposure therapy to prepare yourself for your final exam, the first step would be like going to lecture when they talk about what to expect for the final exam. And then being like, there's two exams this semester and one final. These are the chapters that are going to be covered and these are the dates that's probably going to give you a little bit of anxiety, but you're going to be OK.
You're going to do deep breathing, you're going to get through it. You're going to write down the notes and you are going to get through that situation. Maybe the next thing is going to office hours and asking your TA, Hey, I was just wondering like what we can expect as far as difficulty. Are you going to give us review questions? Is there going to be a review
session? And kind of exposing yourself mentally to what to expect now as you get closer to the date, you're going to do things like doing practice questions. Maybe you're going to sit in the room where the exam is going to take place. Maybe you're going to mentally imagine yourself taking this test and you're going to work yourself up to this thing that makes you really anxious. And so you could do a more structured exposure hierarchy
like that. But really the advice that I want to give any students and anyone that's navigating back to school because it's very anxious and avoidance your own time, especially if you're in college, is when you feel that feeling of like, I'd rather not, I'd like to avoid this is uncomfortable.
Go towards that thing. And maybe you don't go towards it today, but tomorrow you start working yourself up towards it because it's one of the best things you can do again for your academic and personal well-being. So those are my skills. We did a little how to plan and motivate and track your semester so you actually have that awareness to make positive changes.
And we did some ABC. So accumulating positives, building mastery and cope ahead through really important skills for well-being, especially as a student. I really hope you guys enjoyed this. Oh my God, we didn't even talk about the fact that it's episode 200. Hello. That was why we were doing this episode is that I asked you guys on Instagram what you wanted to see for episode 200 and you said back to school advice. So here we are.
We did back to school advice, but I was so caught up in this that I didn't even get to accumulate this positive of 200 episodes. I cannot believe it. It feels like not does not feel like yesterday since I started the podcast because this has been so much time and so much work. I'm so proud of it. But thank you guys for listening and tuning in. And if you made it to 200, I'm so incredibly grateful and I hope this was helpful. That's always the goal.
But this is a fun little milestone to celebrate and accumulate as a positive. We built some mastery along the way, I hope. And yeah, this is episode 200. I'll see you again at 300. Just kidding. I'll see you at 201, but I'm so glad that we made it this far. It really hoped you guys liked this episode and that it was jam packed with value and just thank you. Thank you for 200 episodes. I'm so excited. I can't even believe I forgot to talk about that.
This is the thing guys, is that I record episodes like 10 in advance, except for the solos. And so a lot of the times I forget where we are with numbers, but this is 200. So celebrate amazing. I'm so happy. I hope you're happy. I hope you enjoyed this episode and with that revelation, I'll see you next week. And of course, my last always have to say share with offender family member. I want to hear your thoughts on this episode, if you liked it, if you didn't, if you have any
more questions. So definitely don't hesitate to reach out. And I hope you guys all have the best back to school season and you're going to do great this semester or trimester or quarter or whatever your system you're on. And I'm here for you guys and you got this.