Rekindling Connections: Nostalgia, Mental Health, and a Re-Mind Vision for 2024
The holiday season is a throwback of memories from years past. Each year, as I decorate my Christmas tree, a flood of childhood memories surface. The run-up to a highly anticipated Christmas Eve spent with my cousins singing Christmas carols to a horribly out-of-tune piano played by my aunt in my Grandparents’ basement. The culmination of that special night was capped off with a soft singing of “Silent Night”. The purpose of the song was to queue up Santa sleighbells that rung while dive-bombing the house just outside the basement windows, scattering 87 kids under the age of 18 to every exit to catch a glimpse of the sled in the sky.
We were all there. Present and unplugged. Connected and hopeful.
I feel fortunate that my experience was positive. Not all people have a fondness for their adolescence and the societal pressures today show that people are struggling even greater. In 2023, the US had an unprecedented amount of emphasis on mental health. Mainstream media, social media, and corporate wellness programs are all abuzz about quiet-quitting, burnout, and mental health days. All of these have become commonplace and spread among all social classes with a sharp increase among teens. An increase of which was highlighted in the Surgeon General advisory, Protecting Youth Mental Health.
In that advisory, the guidance outlined 10 steps for parents and caregivers to “take action” in two main areas of children’s lives: their environment and relationships.
Be the best role model you can be for young people by taking care of your own mental and physical health.
Help children and youth develop strong, safe, and stable relationships with you and other supportive adults.
Encourage children and youth to build healthy social relationships with peers.
Do your best to provide children and youth with a supportive, stable, and predictable home and neighborhood environment.
Try to minimize negative influences and behaviors in young people’s lives.
Ensure children and youth have regular check-ups with a pediatrician, family doctor, or other health care professional.
Look out for warning signs of distress and seek help when needed.
Minimize children’s access to means of self-harm, including firearms and prescription medications.
Be attentive to how children and youth spend time online.
Be a voice for mental health in your community.
Do you remember a time in your life when you sat quietly with your own thoughts? Maybe as a child staring out the window on a road trip where your mind wandered. You daydreamed. You just thought in silence. People controlled their environment.
How often do you visit people you care about without TV, phone, watch, Alexa, or some other device interrupting the human-connection experience?
As I review these 10 items and think about the environment and relationships it takes me back. A time when devices, tailored self-reinforcing scrolling, and AI did not account for the main sources of what informed people’s lives. People interacting with people in healthy and safe environments. In the coming 2024 year Aspire Medical will announce major changes with our business to intentionally “Re-Mind’ people about the importance of connection. People supported and informed by close relationships in safe environments.
Happy Holidays!
surgeon-general-youth-mental-health-advisory.pdf (hhs.gov)