Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to your third lesson now in this unit.

Where today, we're going to be looking at the impact of drugs and alcohol on our wellbeing and mental health.

Now, this unit does cover as we've mentioned before sensitive subjects therefore, it is recommended that you have with you a trusted adult in the room or that they are made aware that you are taking part in this lesson.

I am really excited that you are back here with me to look at this lesson today.

Wellbeing and mental health is, as I've mentioned before the most important thing when it comes to looking after yourself.

Making sure that your wellbeing and mental health is in the best possible place it can be.

So let's not waste any more time.

Let's get on with today's lesson.

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

So, if you haven't got that with you now, and you need to go and grab it, feel free to pause the video and when you're ready to start again, press play.

By now, your learning journey has already started because you should have taken part in the introduction quiz.

And every week you have all been absolutely amazing with us, so well done.

During the rest of today's lesson, we're going to be looking at the following areas.

Firstly, understanding our brain and how it works.

Then we'll be looking at the impact on mental health in terms of drugs and alcohol.

We'll be looking at the financial implications that comes with drugs and alcohol before finally looking at managing addiction and why that can cause a problem in terms of your wellbeing and your mental health.

At which point you will then be ready to leave this lesson to go on and complete our exit quiz which again, you've all been absolutely amazing, so well done.

Today, there are a few key words that we need to go through before we start.

I do recommend that you jot these down and you write them so that you have them alongside your other key words from previous lessons.

The first word is mental health.

Which is our emotional psychological, and social wellbeing.

This means it affects how we think, how we feel, and how we act.

When we're talking about drugs, particularly in reference to the lesson today, we refer to a medicine or other form of substance which has a psychological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body somehow.

And the final key word for today is addiction.

Now addiction is defined as not having control over doing, taking, or using something and this is the key part to the point where it could be harmful for you.

Whether that be harmful to your wellbeing and mental health, or whether that be physically harmful to you.

Today, I would like to start by asking you in a moment to pause this video and complete the current task.

Which is to create a mind map looking at drugs and alcohol.

So in the middle of your page, drugs and alcohol.

And around the outside, use as a time to write down all the things that you already know about it.

So it could be key words or facts or things that you've perhaps learned from other lessons which you think are also linked to drugs and alcohol.

When you've done that task and you're ready to start again, all you need to do is just press play.

To help you, I'm going to look at some of the answers that I put down.

Did you have any of these? You could have put the different classes of drugs, class A, class B, class C, for example.

You could have mentioned the fact that it's illegal for someone to buy you alcohol if you are under age and alongside that, put the age legal limit of which it's 18.

Its could talk about units which is the measurement of alcohol and how we measure it.

And you could have also mentioned about that some drugs are illegal and there are also legal drugs as well, as well as medications which we know are drugs in their own right that can benefit us.

And of course you may already know a little bit more about addiction but we would explore that further later on.

To begin to understand the impacts that drugs and alcohol can really have, we first need to make sure that we really understand our brains.

Which sounds a little bit odd to be talking about.

Cause you ought to be all must know about it because we all have one.

But actually to really understand why things impact us the way they do and how they do that.

We to have some grounding and understanding of actually what is going on up here.

So there are set parts to our brain.

Our brain is kind of split in half essentially, we have a right side and a left side.

On each side we have a parietal lobe.

A parietal lobe is part of our brain which processes external and sensory information, so touch, taste, temperature.

Our occipital lobe deals with aspects of kind of in the word that vision including movement.

Being able to recognise faces and depth possessions, to name a few.

So being able to see and work out I'm this far away and I need to get that, can I jump, can I do that? How far away are things? Particularly useful when you start driving for example.

We have the temporal lobe.

Now this area of the brain is largely responsible for creating and preserving both conscious and long-term memory.

And then you have the frontal lobe.

which controls your cognitive skills, such as problem solving, your judgement , your sexual behaviours to name a few.

And this is almost a little bit like the control panel of your brain.

And we'll look at the development of that a little bit later.

And then you have the cerebellum.

Which is responsible for coordinating voluntary movements while also responsible for our motor skills.

This is a really complex thing to understand.

our brains have so much happening on so many neurons which is kind of like messages being fired around, but it's not all happening in one part.

Our brain is split into all of these sections and within each of these lobes, there are more sections as well.

So, this is kind of the general area of which we're going to be looking at today.

So let's see any of you know where these parts of the brain are.

So I'm going to show you, first of all, the frontal lobe.

Which section do you think the frontal lobe belongs to? Point to the area of the brain that you think frontal lobe belongs to.

In three, in two, and one.

Point now where you think it goes.

Should we find out? Here we go.

The frontal lobe if found at the front of your brain, that sort of area around about here.

Which kind of makes sense when we kind of know that it's called frontal lobe, giving it away a little bit.

Let's look at the next one.

Can you tell me where you think the occipital lobe is? Which part of the brain do you think we would find this? And point your answer for me, in three, two, one.

Where do you think it belongs to? Should we find out if you're right? Here we go.

There we go.

The occipital lobe is at the back of our brains.

So we've got the frontal lobe and we've got the occipital lobe.

And unfortunately it's not called the backward lobe to make it easy to remember, but I'm sure you'll get there.

Make sure you're making notes as we go.

And next part we have is the temporal lobe.

Which part of the brain do you think the temporal lobe belongs to? We've only got three sections left.

Point to the part you think it belongs to, in three, two, one.

Do find out if you're right? Here we go.

Temporal lobe, not the top, trick to that is in the middle of the brain.

One of the larger paths in a way is in the right in the middle of our brain.

Some which between our frontal lobe and our occipital lobe.

Next we have a parietal lobe.

Where do you think this belongs? Do you think it's at the top or at the bottom of our brain? Have a think and point to the answer you think is correct in three, in two, and one.

Should we find out if you're right? Here we go, At the top of our brain just there, so that can mean one thing.

The cerebellum, where do we think that belongs to? I wonder where could it go or should we have a guess anyway? Let's see if you can find out in three, two, one.

I wonder where you picked.

Should we see if you're right? Here we go.

That can be found of course on that boson part of our brain, just there.

So there we have the makeup of our brain or different lobes is the cerebellum, all making up these connections and things that are fire around that our brain and all will have a really important role to play.

Can you remember what those roles were? Because now it's time to pause the video and complete a table that looks like this.

That breaks down what you know about each part of the brain with just spoke about.

Don't worry if you're not a 100% sure, we're going to recap it again afterwards.

But for now, press pause and try and fill this table with as much information as you remember and you can about each part of the brain.

And when you're ready to start again, just press play.

Welcome back.

I hope you found that okay.

What I'm going to do now is I'm going to recap what we just looked at previously with the breakdown of each part of the brain, and use this moment to add any additional notes to what you've already got if you notice something there that you didn't write down before.

The first step was the parietal lobe part of our brain, the part which processes external sensory information, touch, and taste, and temperature as an example.

The occipital lobe deals with aspects of vision, depth perception that we also spoke about, face recognition.

The temporal lobe, the area of the brain which is largely responsible for creating and preserving both conscious and long-term memory.

Conscious meaning, do you remember what conscious means? If you're conscious absolutely means that you're awake.

So you're conscious, you're aware of your surroundings, what's happening around you.

So your conscious and long-term memory.

Then we have the frontal lobe.

Which is our cognitive skills , such as problem solving, judgement , the sexual behaviours, to name a few.

I like to remember it as like the control panel of our brain.

And then finally it was the cerebellum.

Which is responsible for coordinating voluntary movement while also responsible for our motor skills.

Now, don't worry if you're struggling to understand or remember all of this information.

Which part of the brain do you think is working right now while you're trying to remember all this information? Could you point to the part of the brain you think is processing all of this right now.

Cause we're looking at our temporal lobe because we're hoping that we're going to get this into our conscious and longterm memory.

And the best way to assist with that, is to make sure you're writing this down or notes as we go through so that you can look back and refresh yourself.

So if you need to, you can pause the video now and make sure you've got down all the notes that you want to from this section.

And then when you're ready, just press play again.

Now we understand how our brain is made up in terms of all the various sections.

We're now going to look at how it develops.

And that's really both interesting but also really important to understand.

Because the part of our brains that develop first, if you like are the cerebellum and the temporal lobe.

The last part to develop is our frontal lobe.

Now, why don't you think that's interesting and it has any link to alcohol and drugs and risky behaviour? Can you have a look at your notes and check? Absolutely.

The frontal lobe is linked to our decision-making, our judgments, all of those kinds of things.

And it's the last part of our brain that develops.

So it means that often when we're going through adolescence and puberty and we're going through those changes, our brain is catching up with us in terms of the decisions that we make.

And that's why quite often we have difficulties controlling emotions during those time periods.

We have limited planning and judgement in the decisions that we do, and we're more likely to take part in risky and impulsive behaviours.

And part of that is because of that brain development.

Now on top of all of this, we've got something called dopamine.

And this is a neurotransmitter or a message that's going around our brain, our bodies and part of the messages that it sends is around, pleasure, and a sense of reward.

Now, when you're going through adolescence, and you're taking parts in things that are drugs or alcohol, they are altering the brain.

They are producing a feeling sometimes of these dopamines meaning pleasure and happiness.

And our brain can't process necessarily that this is a risky behaviour or a negative decision.

Because our development of our brain and our frontal lobe calm processes that information as well as it can when we're adults and out of adolescence and puberty stage.

So all of this is really important and plays a part when it comes to brain development because as we will see later on, the use of drugs in outcome between these stages, particularly of puberty and adolescence can have long lasting impacts.

On not just your mental health and your wellbeing, but also your development of your brain itself.

Now, that was a lot of information to take on.

So we're just going to take a moment to pause and reflect on what we've looked at so far is sound in terms of understanding our brain.

Go through your notes and make sure you thoroughly understand what each part of the brain does and why development may play a part in regards to drugs and alcohol and our wellbeing and mental health.

If you all confuse the two, the best thing to do is just to pause this video and rewind it back, and re watch what we've just explored and learn.

If you feel happy, feel free to press play and we'll carry on with the rest of today's lesson.

We're now going to look at the impact on our mental health.

And we've touched on this briefly but now we're going to explore in more depth within this chapter.

When talking about stress and our emotions, sometimes or the way of coping, so we call this a coping strategy.

Some people might turn to the use of alcohol and drugs.

Now in doing that what can sometimes happen, is it interrupts the flow of neurotransmitters in the brain.

Neurotransmitters are like our messages are being sent around going, this is good, this is positive, you feel happy here, you feel negative here.

All of those things that happen every day, the thought process, the feelings, the emotions that we all have, or these little neuro-transmitters around our brain.

It's probably a pretty crazy up there.

But the use of drugs and alcohol interrupts that flow.

It's like somebody stopping a load of traffic that's fast moving, it can't just suddenly stop.

Cause if it suddenly stops, there's going to be a potential of accidents.

And that's the same with our brain.

We constantly just stop those neurotransmitters and outcome drugs can do that.

It can give you a relaxed feeling which is why we refer to alcohol often as a depressant, because it slow things down, it relax, and that can sometimes lead to mental health, such as problems, such as depression.

So, what happens then is although we feel relaxed, these negative thoughts and feelings are then able to take over again.

So, where we're used to our brain firing all these things and everything's happening at once by taking a relax and sometimes drugs and alcohol, actually allows these negative feelings to come out and be more apparent.

And we can feel the more.

And we think about them more, which then means sometimes we might go to having more use of drugs and you get in that vicious cycle of using it as a way to cope.

I feel sad, I don't like this emotion, I'm going to have a drink, I'm going to use drugs because of that dopamine, it's making me have that sense of pleasure or it's making me feel relaxed, I like that feeling.

But when that feeling comes back and you can't cope, then we go back into this cycle.

And that's why we really need to be aware of how we can positively change our mental health when it's feeling negative and how we can positively improve our wellbeing in a healthy way.

So why do you think you are more likely to get addicted to drugs and alcohol when you're going through adolescents than adults? We've mentioned this before, so let's see if you can remember some answers that I gave.

Why do you think you are more likely to get addicted to drugs and alcohol when you're going through adolescents than adults? pause this video now and jot down some reasons as to why this might be.

Welcome back.

You thought the Monster's? Amazing.

Well, we know that brain development plays a massive part.

And what part of the brain in particular, can you remember? Absolutely.

Your frontal lobe.

The part of the brain that deals with your judgments, decisions, all of those things, it's not fully developed.

And by taking the use of drugs and alcohol you can really damage that development and potentially slow it down quite considerably.

If you keep drinking, you'll need to drink more next time to get the same feeling.

Is that true? Or is it false? what'd you think, true or false? Point now to the answer that you think is correct, in three, two, one.

What do you think? Absolutely.

Cause we know the answer is true.

You can build up a tolerance as well to alcohol which means, over time you will need to drink more to get that same feeling.

As we looked at with that cycle, the feelings come back, so drink again that you might have to drink even more to be able to get to that same state, because you can build a tolerance of it.

And this can lead to addiction and dependency.

And dependency is referring to the fact that it feels like you can't cope or you are unable to cope without using drugs or alcohol as a means to control and depress those emotions.

Can you point to which part of the brain that you think is most impacted when we drink alcohol? So when we're under the influence of alcohol, which part of our brain do you think can be most impacted on? Point now to what you think is the correct answer, in three, in two, and in one.

Absolutely, the frontal lobe.

So not only does this impact its development, but if we're taking alcohol as the example here, if we're using alcohol, then are already part of operating that isn't fully developed and then we're going to add alcohol in it which is going to play with the neurotransmitters and play with the messages that are happening in our brain, to a part of our brain that is already not fully developed.

And that's going to really impact it particularly as we know this is what looks at are risky decisions and our risk taking and our judgement.

So it's going to become either more clouded and even more unsure than it already was before, because it wasn't the developed.

So we're almost giving it further problems by putting more and more things in it that shouldn't be there.

So that development is going to get slowed even further.

We're now going to look at individual drug examples and the impact on mental health.

Now, smoking cannabis or weed as it's sometimes known as its street name, can make you feel more anxious and you can experience what's called a drug induced psychosis.

Now this means that you may envision things that aren't there, or you may feel things that aren't there, whatever it might be.

it's a psychosis, is not necessarily real but your brain makes you think that it's real.

New Psychoactive Substances or NPS.

This can really impact in your brains and your development and your mental health and wellbeing.

It can cause confusion and panic.

Can fire up and play with those neurotransmitters to create erratic behaviour that can be harmful to both yourself and potentially others around you.

The drug ecstasy, as an example, can cause memory loss.

Remember we looked at the parts of the brain that impact that.

So, although we've talked a lot about the frontal lobe, it isn't just the frontal lobe.

Section of your brain that can be impacted by the use of drugs and alcohol.

And it can create a sense of confusion and anxiousness.

And the final example we're going to look at is LSD which can actually make worse and or trigger which remember we looked at at worded off less than trigger.

It can cause all trigger mental health problems. So the use of drugs can really pile with the chemicals that are in your brains.

And we have our natural chemicals that are always there that help us to function in our day-to-day lives, but by the introduction of drugs as well, it can create a real negative chemical reaction essentially happening in our brains.

This next section is going to look at financial implications.

So we've looked at our brain development, we've looked at how alcohol and drugs can have long-term and short-term impacts that are negative on our brains, and our wellbeing, and mental health, but what about the financial implications? How do you think money links drugs, alcohol, and your mental health? How does money link drugs, alcohol, and your mental health? I want you to pause this video now, and write down some thoughts and ideas about an answer to this question.

And when you're ready, just press play again.

Did you manage to make it some ideas? Amazing.

So we're going to look at this similar to how we looked at there for example, when we looked at the idea of dependency and addiction, because it's very similar in terms of this circle spiral factor that's really hard to get out of.

You see, someone might start using alcohol and drugs.

Someone then becomes addicted or dependent that feeding that we explore the chemistry, your chemicals, your brain, there's like a can't cope without the introduction of drugs and alcohol.

Which then means you then have to buy more to be able to subdued and to control your emotions and your thoughts and feelings.

Which ultimately will start to cause financial difficulties because you're having to use a lot of income to pay for all of this.

So therefore, your money is going and that's going to cause a lot of stress.

Can you remember what's meant by the word stress? Can you write down for me what we mean by the word stress.

We've looked at this in a previous lesson.

So can you define for me the word stress.

Let's have a look at what we mean by the word stress.

The word stress means a reaction caused by a situation or event or being placed under pressure.

So, the stress or that being caused here, the situation causing this, is the idea that we don't then have the needs that we need financially to cope in terms of outgoings for foods or for to supporting other people that we might have in our household, or all of those things that we have, our bills, our rent, our electricity, whatever it might be.

And it becomes that vicious cycle because suddenly you have the negative feelings or you were using potentially drugs and alcohol as a way to control your emotions, and then your emotions are then going to get worse, so you buy more and then actually you don't then have money so you've got additional stresses.

And again, as we've looked at on other lessons these things built up and up and up.

It becomes that vicious cycle when it looks at financial implications and the stress that that can cause.

We're going to look now at managing addiction.

Because it's really important that we not only understand the problems that can occur to our development, to our mental health, to our wellbeing, but actually how we can combat that.

And how we can support both ourselves and others around us with managing that addiction if it occurs for them.

Let's look at an example.

This is Chelsea.

So Chelsea started drinking alcohol at the weekend occasionally with friends in the park illegally.

So she's underage.

Chelsea had found recently though that she is now drinking more regularly.

So whereas it was becoming occasional, it's now becoming a regular thing.

And she thinks it's helping her to feel calm and less stressed, which is why she's taking part.

What advice would you give to Chelsea? So pause this video now and think about what advice you would give to Chelsea.

And when you've got some things written down, and some thoughts and ideas, press play again and we'll look at them.

Welcome back.

Now, it's time for us to look at another question.

The next question I want you to write down your answers to is this, how else could she manage her stress? Now these might be need to the answer that you just gave to the previous question.

And if it is, try and think of additional ways that she could manage the stress.

So the advice we want to give Chelsea is related to, she's drinking alcohol, how could she cope, and how else could she manage that stress, and why might it be a negative thing? When you've got some thoughts and ideas, press play again, but until then, press pause.

We're not going to look at some support and advice for Chelsea.

If I've got any ideas down that you haven't gotten your book or a piece of paper, make sure you write them down too.

The first ones to look at.

She could talk to a teacher about how she feeling.

We know that many mental health problems and wellbeing can be relieved in some form, through talking, or through letting our feelings in these positive ways.

We've explored that in every lesson so far, the idea that talking to those around us about our feelings and our thoughts can really benefit us.

We can direct her to services such as Childline, the confidential support, sometimes we may not want to approach those who are near us, even if they're trusted adults or friends.

So services exist such as Childline that you can contact via 0800 1111, and they're there to support you and guide through and point you in the right direction of where you can go for further support.

We can offer to help Chelsea and do study sessions together.

Sometimes just being that practical support and going actually do you know, I understand this part of the test.

Why don't I help you with this and maybe you can help me with this part? Being that supportive friend and being there and actually looking at why Chelsea is doing this behaviour.

What's the link between her actions and her behaviour? We know she's struggling with school and feeling stressed about exams, so she's acting out by taking the alcohol.

So let's combat that behaviour.

We also have creating a self a timetable to help manage her schoolwork.

When we get ourselves into a mindset where we feel it's difficult and we can't move forward or find a way to cope, we're often in facing it.

We might try to avoid it.

When actually, if we break it down we may find a way that we can manage our time that supports us both with our social time with friends and supporting those around us and actually also looking after our schoolwork and make sure we're giving ourselves a time so that we don't feel stressed or overwhelmed by the content.

And then also taking up a new hobby.

Running.

The link to the outdoors and getting fresh air and then dove into the brain, all of that, It's really important for our wellbeing.

Well, what I'll let you now to do, is to pause this video and go back to the mind map that you created at the start of today's lesson.

And around the outside try and add more things that you've now done that you didn't know before.

It might be key words or facts or information or maybe even parts of the brain that link to drugs and alcohol particularly around development as a hint.

And when you're ready, and you've put as much down on that mind map as you can, just press play again.

So I decided to do the same and add more information to my mind map.

So if I've got anything that you suddenly think, Oh I didn't have that.

Well, make sure you put it down.

So your mind maps would probably be even bigger than mine.

Here's some things I put, dopamine, which we talked about.

How different drugs can cause various mental health problems and the examples, we looked at four if you can remember.

The impact of substance on adolescent brains in the development.

And also different parts of the brain and the idea of addiction and dependency.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

And I think you work extremely hard.

We've explored so much from brain development to how alcohol and drugs can impact both our mental state in terms of our mental health and wellbeing and also in our vitamins through the adolescence and puberty stages.

Now there are lots of places you can go to for support, and we've explored that as well.

You can find more information as well by the drinker website.

And if you need to, well, that you can always come back to this lesson and re watch sections and support yourself that way if you want to find out more information or recap anything at all.

It's been an absolute pleasure and I can't wait to carry on this learning with you into lesson four very soon Until then, goodbye.