carters senior project

 Saturday, May 15. Today I studied conflict amongst our youth and strategies to better understand the issues facing young kids today and why they react the way that they do.  In today's society, especially in the classroom, when students act out at a young age it is often because they feel as if they are not being treated as equals by the teacher or their peers.  This leads to outbreaks of various degrees, which mainly equate to the student being the issue.  It is our job to understand the motive of the students to help get to the route of the problem.  A strategy I find quiet useful is giving dignity. When speaking to someone especially younger than you in a classroom setting, neal or make them feel as if they are talking on an equal playing field, helping them feel more secure and helping you better understand their problem.

 Week 2 Reflection. By the conclusion of week two, I have finally wrapped up my project in its entirety.  What started as a  small project on a topic I knew little about, I was able to come together, relate to the topic at hand, and  learn on a personal level the importance of my work.  This week I tested running, weightlifting, golfing,  and yoga, along with many hours spent learning from my mom.  This was a tremendous experience and I  am more than excited to share my work upon my arrival back on campus.  So happy I was able to put my  work to paper and hopefully help the Proctor community.

 Saturday, May 21. Today I tried my hand at another popular activity of Golfing.  After a workshop about Ester Leutenburg's book, Teen Conflict Management, I was more than happy to get out of the classroom and into nature.  The book is a brief adage of how teens deal with their anger and frustration, what causes it, and different strategies on how to better deal with social and self conflicts.  There was a ton to learn especially being of the targeted age.  I took the course open-minded and optimistic that afternoon, unfortunately, it did not last for long.  Golf, although distracting, did not do a very good job of relieving my stress.  I was constantly infuriated by chunks and shanks.  It's a good kind of frustration that did have me stop thinking about my outside problems, but had me mentally enraged multiple times.  Although definitely better than being at home alone, golfing does not compare to some of my other activities.

 Friday, May 20. Today I participated in the third popular strategy to relieve stress for Proctor students in my survey by going to a typical social event.  Although extremely stereotypical and boring, Proctor has a point that things can be broad and basic and still work wonders to relieve stress on your mental health.  At first, I wasn't thrilled to participate because it was something I had already done but what is different now is my mindset.  I soon realized the popularity of and simplicity of just being around those friends and people you love is completely valid.  It's as easy as that, being around people is a relief.  Everyone like their alone time every once and a while, but at the end of the day being around those who lift you up is never a bad thing and only helps from there.

 Thursday, May 19. Today I tried a Proctor student favorite, weightlifting.  Although being an athlete throughout my 4 years of high school, the gym has never been a good place for me throughout my athletic career.  I mostly saw the gym as punishment or something negative prior, so for testing, I made sure to go in with an optimistic mindset.  I completed the first of my summer workouts today, and to be honest, I was a little stressed throughout.  Personally, I am usually the tallest guy in the gym, and I always feel as though people view tallness as associated with strength.  This always is in the back of my mind and sometimes makes me feel self-conscious about the amount of weight I am putting up and struggle to find confidence.  Although this is a necessary activity for me, as of now, this may be the least stress relieving activity for me yet.

 Wednesday, May 18. Today was a day of action.  I began my day by testing some long-distance running.  At 6am I headed to the Rose Bowl to complete the 3.5-mile run-around.  I popped in some earbuds and began the run.  Once concluded, I felt great.  I started the day with a small accomplishment that put me into a very productive mood for the rest of the day and refrained from thinking about a single worry for the entirety of the run.  This segwayed into the second activity of the day, controlled stretching and yoga.  I am definitely not a flexible man, but completing a class with a yoga pro made it able for me to get in a great stretch while being able to take the exercise seriously.  Once again, the entirety of the lesson had my mind completely relaxed and focused at the task at hand making me feel significantly better after completion despite my lack of knowledge and flexibility.

 Tuesday, May 17.   Today I studied the results of my survey, "Stress Relieving Activities" while meeting with my mother to better understand outlets for our youth and why they chose what they chose.  The results were as follows, the most chosen was listening to music in a close race with spending alone time.  These results shocked me.  Although I believe that music is a good stress reliever, with all the intense physical options I was surprised something so simple was picked.  I completely did not understand the alone time option.  Personally, when I am feeling at my worst, I depend on those closest to me to help lift me up, which I now see is not the case for everyone.  After meeting with my mom to discuss the survey and different strategies, she then explained to me the importance of convenience.  Music and being alone are always available and can always be depended on when other activities such as mountain biking are much more time-c...

 Monday, May 16. Today definitely did not go as planned.  I awoke to my car not being able to start, requiring a tow across LA which consumed my whole morning, and yes definitely stressed me out.  Although I was exhausted by the end of my endeavor, I knew I had more testing to be done. I decided to walk from my house to a trail I've climbed a hundred times throughout my childhood and finish the 5-mile hike I hadn't completed in years.  Definitely off from the stress of losing my truck that morning, I was not in the best of moods.  As I climbed the mountain, although my mind was still filled with worry about the future of my personal transportation, the Los Angeles skyline and seemingly endless nature helped put things into perspective.  I still thought about what was on my mind which I usually try to avoid in a stress-relieving activity, but now it seemed to be less significant. Reaching the peak completely calmed me down as I took in the beautiful environm...

 Weekly Report: This past week I have learned so much about my mental health and how important it is to take care of my mind just as much as I do my body.  I began my project thinking that mental health is  a fixed state. If I am stressed, deal with it.  If I am sad, deal with it.  After logging my hours and  doing research on my Mother’s counseling career, I now know that I am more than capable of  improving how I think about, navigate, and deal with the states of my mental health.  I then  transferred what I was learning into finding an outlet to ease my mind and give myself time to  heal from the stresses and misfortunes life throws at me.  This started with surfing and mountain  biking.  I loved participating in both activities, and now know that mountain biking is terrifying  enough to distract me from my problems.  Although soothing, surfing gave me time to think out  in the water about what was hurti...

 Friday, May 13. Today I ventured to my new activity, mountain biking.  I came into this thinking that this would not relieve me of my stress and actually worsen my mental state being that I am an atrocious mountain biker.  Heading onto the trails I was nervous and a little anxious for not having biked to this extent in several months.  I tried my best to let go of my fear and send down the trail to begin my day.  Although I was nervous and scared, other than surfing, I had no time to think of my problems facing my normal day-to-day life, which is much different than surfing where I had a lot of time to reflect on my ongoing life.  Although fearful, mountain biking was a great distraction from my stress, and so far in its own way the most useful activity I have performed yet.

 Thursday, May 12. Today I did a workshop with my mom, a school counselor.  We broke down the reasons why so many students, especially at rigorous prep school, face so many issues involving mental health.  A lot of kids are not brought up with proper training on how to deal with and maintain their mental health.  Many students are faced with the pressure of success in the classroom at a young age, many fearing of becoming a failure or falling under their parent's par.  I learned that we should help educate our youth in schools to remember that everyone is going through similar challenges and that no problem is ever too big.  We also discussed stress relief and strategy that I will further cover in my final presentation.

 Wednesday, May 11. Today I researched my first activity towards bettering my mental health along with studying another person who has made such strides in the mental health world.  Suggested by Kara Kidder, I began to research Kelly McGonigal,  A doctor, and speaker who can contribute a lot to my project.  What I liked most about McGonigal was her emphasis on stress and the human brain.  She believes that stress is toxic to the human brain and can affect not only our happiness but our long-term health as well.  Although hard to swallow, as I read more and more, all I can do is agree.  This is where my project plays in perfectly, what are things I can d that personally relieve my stress?  Today I did my first activity of surfing.  The ocean has always been a place of peace for me, so I was excited to record how I felt after doing so.  Although I expected complete stress relief, I noticed things that I had never done before.  Right n...

 Tuesday, May 10. Today I focused on studying the works of others, specifically that of Brene Brown.  Brene is a researcher who has focused her works on how the human brain works and how we interact with one another.  Reading her novel The Gifts of Imperfection, I now see the common similarities and struggles I face with the majority of my pers.  Going into this project, I always saw myself as someone who didn't really struggle with mental health.  For the most part,  I leave things in the past and focus on what is ahead.  Little did I know that managing mental health has so many more parts.  Brene talks a lot about the comparison to others.  After hearing what she has to say, I have come to realize that I compare myself to others constantly on a daily basis, which definitely contributes to the stress and anxiety I may face.  The most important thing I learned today is that I am my own person.  I am in control f myself and myself on...

 Monday, May 9 Today I dove into what maintaining mental health is and so many people struggle to do so in the modern era.  Being born in 2003, the new generation of high school kids have a completely different set of obstacles than their parents did at their age.  Instead of living the luxury of leaving drama at school and social troubles away from home, my generation is faced with social media in our hands at all times, making it virtually impossible to have a safe place from social issues that plague our youth.  My goals are to study our mental health, how to manage it, and most importantly how to improve it.  By doing so I will learn from the works of others and perform different activities seeing what works best for me to forget about the struggles of everyday life and focus on the present and not what happened in the past.