Sports
Sport is a fresh way to use your energy. Studies show that doing sports reduces stress, anxiety, depression, and suicidal behaviour. Team sports can boost your empathy, confidence, concentration, and especially your teamwork skills and social responsibility. As you exercise, your body releases the hormones dopamine, serotonin, and endorphin, which are hormones that positively affect our mood. Moreover, exercise is good for your sleep.
How to find your sport?
Ask your friends what sport they do and don’t be afraid of trying new things, you may not like a sport, but you can always try a different one.
Clubs
Being part of a club can be an incredible opportunity to meet other people who share your interests and likes. A club shows you how to: work in a group, learn new skills, communicate… And all this can be fun and relaxing, while doing something that you enjoy. Clubs improve your relationships with others. Making friends is a good way to learn things from each other. The most important thing is that you can do the activity and invest your time without feeling like you are wasting it.
Some examples of clubs:
- Scouts: it’s the perfect combination of adventure and fun.
- Reading Club: if you like reading and sharing your thoughts with other readers, this is the perfect option for you. There are many reading clubs online or in your closest library.
- Painting club: the perfect choice for creative people who want to learn new techniques and share their work with others.
Time for yourself
This is the time that you spend alone, but it still needs to be spent actively. You have a variety of activities to do instead of using your phone. If you never make time for yourself, burnout is most likely to come.
Finding time for yourself is the key to learning the importance of being ok on your own. You need to know how to accept who you are without other people. There is not always someone who will be there for you. Start with doing activities alone that fulfill you. These are the activities we advise trying to feel comfortable and not lonely when you make time for yourself….
List of things you can do alone:
- Go grab your favorite coffee
- Read (in library, home, outside)
- Draw
- Go for a walk
- Listen or make music
- Cook or bake something delicious
- Exercise
- Go to nature
- Learn new skill (language..)
Family
These are the people you spend the majority of time with. You are, who you are, thanks to them. You should work together on these relationships to be healthy.
Family activities are often overlooked. As people grow, they tend to grow away from their families, but it is a key thing to understand that they are able to provide a very healthy company. They are the people that know us for probably the longest. We can engage in many activities with our family, going on hikes, playing games, going on a vacation, or having a chat are just a few. So it is clear that sustaining a good relationship with them makes not only for a good leisure time program but can also be beneficial in other ways.
Social Media
Social Media is a way to spend time which is becoming more and more popular among teens. Spending too much time on social media mostly has a very negative effect on your mental health. Many people post just the perfect moments1 of their lives. And then we feel like we are missing something or not living our life to the fullest. We teens especially tend to believe everything we see there.
A better way to spend time online is to communicate with friends or to educate yourself on topics you are interested in.
And one last piece of advice:
Do not spend too much time on social media and check what kind of people do you follow, as it can be very toxic and not good for mental health.
Friends
Being with your friends is a good way of spending your time. There are lots of things to do with your friends, such as playing games, going out together, chatting, and more. Your friends are always there for your problems and for your accomplishments.
On the other hand, you should be careful, because you can come across toxic people, who won’t improve your mental state, they aren’t happy for you, they envy you, and might even gossip behind your back. Friends are, as St. Maximilian Kolbe said:
“God sends us friends to be our firm support in the whirlpool of struggle. In the company of friends, we will find the strength to attain our sublime ideal.”
We grow and change, so don’t be afraid of finding new friends and leaving the ones who you may have spent many years with, but they are not right for you any more.
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