Lesson video

Hello and welcome to your first lesson in the mental wellbeing: impact of our actions on mental health unit.

Today lesson we'll be exploring everyday stress triggers we can try to control.

We will be exploring a sensitive topic today and therefore we recommend that you check with a trusted adult before starting or do the lesson with a trusted adult nearby.

I'm Mr. Clarke, and I'm going to be your teacher today and I'm really glad that you've decided to join me today in learning about such an important topic.

So should we get started? Let's go.

To be able to fully participate in today's lesson, you're going to need an exercise book or a piece of paper and a pen.

So if you need to go and quickly find that before we start, just pause this video now and when you're ready, press play again.

By now, you've already started your learning journey for today.

And that's because you should have completed the intro quiz.

I look forward to seeing how you all did later on.

During the rest of today's lesson, we'll be exploring everyday triggers, looking at our use of timekeeping and organisation before finally delving into money worries you may feel, and how best to avoid arguments.

This will then give you what you need to be ready to take the exit quiz, which I already know you are going to get 100% at.

So let's do this.

I got some new key words to explore today.

So you might like to write these down because they are going to be used throughout today's lesson and also within the unit.

First is stress, and this can be defined as a reaction caused by a situation, an event, or being placed under pressure.

Now we're going to explore what some of those situations might be later up.

Sometimes instead of using caused by, we might use this word called triggers or you might heard it as triggered, which uses simply means to cause a particular action, process, or situation to happen.

So a trigger is what starts that particular situation or in our case stress to happen.

And then finally, today we also have the word budgeting which is the process of creating a plan to help you spend money.

Understanding now what the key words are for today, I would now like you to consider what things in our everyday life can cause us stress.

This might include being overtired from lack of sleep or maybe a particular topic or a subject that when we think about makes us feel stress such as think about our future.

Write these down as a mind map and then when you are finished, click play to start the lesson again.

This is Joseph.

And today we'll be exploring his mind to find out what he is feeling and the ways we might be able to support him.

Joseph also, just like you, wrote down what his feelings and responses were at this current moment in his everyday life.

So as you see them come up on the screen, think about can you relate to any of the thoughts and feelings that Joseph is currently experiencing? Maybe some of them are similar to what you wrote down.

Make sure you keep your mind map because we're going to come back to that as well at the end of the lesson.

So you're going to need it.

Looking at everyday stress triggers, it's important to remind ourselves that stress triggers are different for everybody.

And this lesson would explore just a few of those stress triggers.

We couldn't possibly cover everything in one lesson.

So we're just going to cover a few of them but know that everybody is different, and that's okay.

When we talk about emotions or about stress or anything like that, we need to remember some things because it can be extremely difficult for us to be open and aware and talk about how we might be feeling in that moment.

So it's important to understand that emotions are neither good, nor bad.

They just exist.

And we have them and they can make a feel and do certain things, but we're going to learn how we might control them when perhaps they might be negative or make us feel and do things that we don't want to.

Because you always have control and you are the one who can decide how to react even if that may feel hard and tough at times, okay? But you are always in control.

And although it's not always easy, you should try to make connections between your behaviour, your thoughts and your feelings to be able to support you.

And this is something in particular, we're going to explore a lot over this whole unit.

Why do I feel this way when I do this? Or when I do this, I feel and think like this.

And that's what we're going to draw a lot of relationship with, is how all those things kind of interconnect with each other.

We asked Joseph to tell us about some of his faults and stresses he was having.

And you've seen what his responses were and here they are again.

And you've looked at now and some of them perhaps are similar to yours.

But what we now need to do is think about actually, how can we support Joseph? What could he do that might help him with any of these following feelings and thoughts? So I want you to pause this video now and look at what Joseph wrote down, and see if you could give them any actions or tips that he could do to support him with these feelings.

Maybe he might need to write them down as an example.

You decide what you think is best.

Pause this video now.

And when you've got some ideas jotted down, just press play again.

Welcome back.

And now let's look at some things that Joseph might decide to do to support him.

Spending more time outside and being active.

We know that being outside is really great for our wellbeing and mental health.

Releasing endorphins in our brains and helping us.

We'll look more as well about the brain and the chemistry and the science behind all of that and our emotions in a future lesson in this unit too.

Joseph might decide to talk to people around him about how he's feeling.

It might be a teacher, a friend, someone at home, a trusted adult.

Whoever it is, somebody that he feels he can open up to and explain how he's feeling.

Joseph also might decide to write your feelings down, and there's a lot of power as I'm sure we've already discovered today when we wrote what we're thinking and feeling.

It can help to get it out.

Sometimes we can't do that verbally, and sometimes it's best to write it down, whichever way works for you.

And finally, to create a timetable.

Making sure we are using the best of our time, making sure we are really using every minute to our advantage and doing what we need to in a day.

And also that we're getting enough sleep which is often a thing that we forget about.

So that's what we're going to look at now.

We're going to look at something called timekeeping and why timekeeping is important.

I'm going to show you now a weekly timetable from Zoya.

This is Zoya's every day week from Monday to Wednesday we're looking at, in particular.

We can see when she's woke up, all the way through to when she's gone to bed, which sometimes can be quite late.

We can also see in between some of the bits and bobs that she does from her gymnastics to her job doing the paper round as well.

So now I want you to do the same.

I want you to create your own timetable, your own weekly timetable, just like we saw with Zoya.

Use that as an example and try to create your own and think about from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, what do you do in your day? Some of it might be the same time and the same thing every time, other things might be different.

So pause this video now and complete this task.

And when you feel ready, press play again.

Hopefully now you've got your timetable all together and you're ready to go because now we're going to look at the next part.

We've got our time out and we've worked out what we do in a day and in a week and how we use our time.

Let's think about actually, if we're getting the best from our day and really organising what we do, and including all the things we need to.

So I'm going to ask you some questions now about Zoya's timetable.

And to help you, I've left up the day Monday there that you can use as the reference.

The first question I'm going to ask you is, Zoya finds it hard to wake up.

Why do you think this might be? Jot some answers down on the piece of paper or your book beside you about why you think Zoya might find it hard to wake up and what might be the reason? Another question I want you to think about an answer as you're writing this is, is Zoya making enough time for herself? If you were to look and think about what her weekly schedule looks like and feels like for somebody, is there enough time for Zoya to spend time to look after her own wellbeing and her own mental health? Or is it packed full that there's no time to do anything? And finally, Zoya is actually falling behind in school because she can't concentrate.

What advice might you give her that might support her and help her? Have a think now about these three questions and jot down some ideas.

If you need to, pause this video now and then when you're ready, press play again.

Well, it's now your turn.

Guess who's go.

So we want you now to look over your timetable that you created and think about how are you organising your time and are you getting the best out of your time? So look back over it and ask yourself the same questions that we've just asked Zoya and think about things like, have you put exercise or going outdoors as part of your daily routine? Are you planning in your study or homework time or actually is it not planned in it, it just happens randomly? Are you getting around nine hours sleep? That's often the one that we forget and it's the thing we have to do.

So look back now and compare your time table thinking about those things.

As you do that, pause this video and when you're ready, press play again.

Having a little bit of time looking at the stresses linked to organisation and what we feel about our future and going on in our mind, something people often have triggers stress can be around the use of money and worries or concerns for it.

We're not going to explore a little bit more about why money might trigger problems in terms of stress and also how we can put things in place to stop that stress from even occurring.

Zoya and her friends want to plan a load of days out for summer holidays.

And she really wants to go but she's worried that she can't afford it.

Now before we can look at helping Zoya with this stress, what do you think about the income and the expenditure? So income is the money coming in and expenditure is what she might be spending out.

So the question is, what income and expenditure do you think she might have? Can you remember what income, what job maybe, Zoya had? Can you remember? If you remember say it out loud for me.

So the income Zoya had was as a paper-round.

So she's making money there.

But expenditure can be what she wants to do now, which is spend for the summer holidays.

Perhaps though she might ask herself, well, actually, why don't I just borrow money from a friend? What do you think Zoya needs to think about before she goes and borrows money from a friend? Can you tell me what you think? Zoya needs to think about whether she can afford to pay it back.

Because otherwise, what's going to happen is the money will come in and it will be from a friend, and it's borrowed, and it's great, and she can go and spend it all.

But then the expenditure comes and the money's gone.

And then suddenly Zoya has nothing but she still has to pay somebody back for that money.

And that's how lots of people can build up what's called a debt.

When you're borrowing money or take money that you don't have, but eventually you'll have to pay back.

And that can be a real stress trigger for many people.

So if we were to help Zoya by saving and budgeting, if Zoya saved just 10 pounds a week from her paper-round, how much would she have approximately saved after six months? What do you think? 180, 200, 260 or 360 pounds.

Let's hear your answer and point to one you think is correct in three, two, one.

Let's see.

Of course, 260 pounds, which is a massive amount.

Exactly what Zoya would need to be able to go and enjoy herself and spend time with her friends with all these amazing summer holidays that she had planned.

Another session we're going to look at is around manners and how we actually avoid arguments.

Often we can put things in place to avoid some everyday stress.

And one of those ways is through manners to avoid those arguments.

As we all know, arguments between whether they're friends or family or school, whatever it might be, any form of argument can create a lot of negative emotions and feelings and really impact our mental health and wellbeing.

Joseph has found himself in an argument with Zoya because she feels Joseph is always showing off about his achievements.

What do we then think are some things either of them could maybe do to deescalate the situation and stop the argument? The key word there is deescalate.

We don't want to escalate.

Which means if we were to escalate like going up an elevator or escalators going up, that means it's going to increase and increase and increase and increase and increase and there's no stopping it.

It's got to maybe reach a point where it gets really negative and horrible for everybody not just involved, but also then around them.

So to deescalate, it means we want to bring it down and stop it from going any further.

What are some suggestions of what they could do? Pause now and think about what could Joseph and Zoya do to deescalate this situation? Try and write down at least three to five different ideas.

And when you've got those, press play and we'll see what I came up with as well.

You got your answers? Great.

Let's have a look at some, shall we, then that I had and if you didn't get the ones that I've got, but you've got others, that's great.

But also write down the ones that I have so you've got even more so you can remember them for next time.

Number one is to apologise to each other.

We all make mistakes and sometimes a simple sorry that you really mean, can make a massive difference.

Wait until both of you are calm before talking.

If you're both angry and you're competing with each other like that, nothing's going to happen.

You're just going to hit that brick wall because none of you are in the right frame of mind to have that conversation.

And to most importantly, listen.

You need to make sure you take time away before sometimes engaging in that conversation.

And that's fine to say that actually now's not the time, let's come back to this when we're both more calm.

Listening to each other without interrupting or judgement.

You can't be talking over each other because that's going to escalate the situation even more because people don't feel listened to.

And try and walk away from the situation before it escalates.

Sometimes that's really hard to do when you're caught in the situation and you want to be there but actually it's the best thing to do a lot of the time.

Use I-message.

Now that doesn't mean some kind of text message.

An I-message is saying how you feel and how you want to be trusted.

Don't make it personal.

When this happened, I feel we need to be able to do this, or I want this.

Don't make it about them, don't make it that you did this and you said this.

Actually make it about how you feel, okay? And sometimes we need someone to step in to mediate a conversation.

And that's fine as well to actually go, we need somebody else.

Somebody that's impartial, that isn't on either of our sides that can help us move forward because we want to.

And admitting that is a really strong thing to do.

How many of those did you have and maybe had some others as well? Today we've talked about strategies to help handle daily stresses.

They've include timetables, ways you might handle financial stress or conflict resolution.

And looking back at the mind map that you wrote right at the start of today's lesson, write down the strategies that you will now use to help manage any of the stresses or worries that you put down at the start.

Think back to the advice we gave Joseph to manage some of his faults.

And maybe some of those such as going outdoors would also benefit you as well.

Pause this video now.

And when you finish, press play again.

Well done on an amazing job today.

You've worked super hard on a whole array of different activities.

And we've covered so much.

The most important thing to remember and take away from today is that whenever you feel stressed or something is triggering you or making you feel uncomfortable, then to speak out and reach support, because you are never on your own.

And there will always be somebody there to listen and support you in whatever you need.

I really look forward to seeing you now taking part in the exit quiz and seeing you for lesson two coming up very soon.