WELLBEING

Accessing Wellbeing: 

Students can access wellbeing via an online booking form for Wellbeing and health related matters.

 Student Wellbeing Check In Request Form 

Parents/ Carers can access supports from Wellbeing for their young person via the Administration Office. 

SURFSUP WITH THE WELLBEING TEAM

Welcome back to Term 2

The Wellbeing team hopes you enjoyed a restful break and caught up with friends and family and enjoyed the celebration of Easter. The team enjoyed the break and have returned feeling fresh and rejuvenated. We hope students can feel some new energy as we start the term with lovely sunshine and Autumn calmness. 

This newsletter we will explore the challenges of anxiety and stress. 

We will also revisit a health concerns around vaping over the next few newsletters. 

Stress – How to Manage Your Anxiety and Stress

The feelings of anxiety are a normal way to feel from time to time and anxiety can present in many ways for different people. How we manage anxiety can vary also depending on the day, what is going on around us and the people and resources that are there to help us. 

There is a great difference between feeling stressed every now and then and experiencing ongoing anxiety. If the anxiety is starting to take a toll and you're looking for ways to deal with it, consider talking to a mental health professional. It is important to learn how to deal with stress and anxiety so that it can be managed in a way that is best for you. 

The following resource from Reach Out has some great tips and resources for helping with stress and anxiety. These techniques can be really helpful if you experience anxiety every now and then or feel unexpectedly anxious.

How to manage your anxiety and stress | Anxiety | ReachOut Australias.

Talk to someone you trust about how you're feeling

Finding the right person to talk too about how you are feeling can really help and support you through a time of feeling stressed or anxious. Make sure you trust the person, work out what you want to say to them, and then just go for it. If you’re finding it tricky, we’ve got four more steps for talking to someone you trust here.

If you want to talk to someone anonymously, check out the ReachOut Online Community or book a free, text-based chat with a peer worker using ReachOut PeerChat

Long-term strategies for dealing with stress and anxiety

If you experience anxiety more frequently, or have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, quick coping methods can still help when you’re in a bind but they shouldn’t be the only thing you use. It’s important to find treatment that works for you to manage your day-to-day life. It can be helpful to have a chat to your doctor or mental health professional to figure out a plan.

Other ways to cope with ongoing stress and anxiety may include keeping a ‘thought diary’ with ways you challenge negative thinking. 

It is really important that you can identify your triggers – recognising what causes your anxiety can help you to better understand and face what’s going on. Some common triggers are:

• alcohol, caffeine or drugs
• a stressful work, home or school environment
• driving or travelling
• withdrawal or side-effects from certain medications
• phobias
• health issues or concerns
• erratic eating patterns – if you skip a meal, your blood sugar may drop, which can lead to feeling jittery and anxious.

Helpful last tips and tricks 

• Put relaxation and self-care into your routine

A fully packed schedule would make a lot of people feel stressed. Make sure you take time out each day for at least one thing you enjoy doing – whether it’s spending time on a hobby, watching a Netflix episode, or chatting with a friend. It can also help if you schedule the activity into your day, so that you don’t feel guilty about not doing something else. Read our guide to relaxation for more ideas.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to things when you need to.

• Move more, eat well, sleep

It’s pretty well-known that exercise lowers stress, reduces anxiety and improves mood. And the good news is: you don’t need to run a marathon to get the benefits. It takes just 30 minutes of exercise a day to make a difference. We’ve got some tips on how to exercise when you're not motivated.

Diet and sleep are also really important for your wellbeing. A healthy diet will make you feel healthier and stronger and better able to handle stress, while enough sleep positively affects your mood and stress levels.

• Face your fears

If you always avoid situations that make you anxious, this might be stopping you from doing things you want or need to do. It sounds weird, but facing the things that make you anxious can reduce your anxiety.

Begin with small steps – think of them as ‘acts of bravery’ – to test whether the situation is as bad as you expected and to learn to manage your fears. It’s best to do this with the help of a professional (such as a counsellor or psychologist), though, so that it doesn’t get too full-on for you. Get more information about treatments for anxiety here.

What can I do now?

• Learn more about anxiety.
• Read more about getting professional help.
• Do you want to chat with a peer worker? Book a free, text-based session with ReachOut PeerChat here.

Further reading 

Anxiety - Beyond Blue

How to deal with anxiety (lifeline.org.au)

E-Cigarettes – what they are and what they are not!

The increase in the use of E- Cigarettes amongst young people has become a frightening reality of the current climate in which we live in.  We now have a better understanding of the health impacts of inhaling vapor for e-liquids used in e-cigarettes however to fully comprehend the long term effects on our young people and the impacts on their health and wellbeing are yet to be really understood. 

E-liquids - keep them locked away - YouTube

Over the next few Newsletter’s we will be exploring what they are, why they have become so popular in young people and what discussions you can have with your young person around the risks of E- Cigarettes. We will also give some strategies that you can share with your young person on how to say “no”. 

What are e-cigarettes 

Electronic cigarettes – or e-cigarettes – simulate the act of smoking through a battery operated devise that works by heating liquid into an aerosol, which you then inhale into your lungs. 

The aerosol is often called ‘vapour’, and inhaling it from an e-cigarette is known as ‘vaping’. When smoking an e-cigarette, the user inhales and exhales the vapour, which can look similar to cigarette smoke.

The liquid used in e-cigarettes contains a complex mixture of chemicals.  It may or may not contain nicotine.

In Victoria, it is illegal to sell, possess or use liquid containing nicotine in an e-cigarette. Liquid which does not contain nicotine can be legally sold, possessed and used in Victoria (as long as it does not contain any other illegal ingredients).

But be aware that the liquid might not be labelled properly. Even though it is illegal to sell liquid containing nicotine in Victoria, there is no guarantee that liquid labelled as ‘non-nicotine’ (or that does not list nicotine as an ingredient) will not contain nicotine. Incorrect labelling is dangerous and illegal, but it does happen.

In all states in Australia, tests of e-liquid samples collected by Department of Health in 2013 showed that 70 per cent of samples contained high levels of nicotine, even though the label did not list nicotine as an ingredient. 

Why are they so attractive to young people? 

Liquid used in e-cigarettes comes in a range of flavours, such as fruit, chocolate and confectionary flavours.  This is the attraction for young people.

E-cigarettes are often shaped and coloured to look like cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos. They can also come in other shapes and colours, and can look like other everyday items such as pens or memory sticks. 

They can also be known as e-cigars, e-pipes, electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), alternative nicotine delivery systems (ANDS), e-shishas, e-hookas, hookah-pens, vape-pipes and e-cigs. They can be disposable, or reusable.

E-cigarettes have gained in popularity in Australia and worldwide over the past few years, primarily among existing smokers. In Australia, around 14% of 12 to 17-year-olds have ever tried an e-cigarette, with around 32% of these students having used one in the past month. Students who had vaped most commonly reported getting the last e-cigarette they had used from friends (63%), siblings (8%) or parents (7%). Around 12% of students reported buying an e-cigarette themselves Vaping in Australia - Alcohol and Drug Foundation (adf.org.au)

E-cigarettes have been around since the 1930’s, when The ‘modern day’ cigarette was created in Beijing by Hon Lik, a pharmacist, inventor and smoker. Lik, who at one point was smoking up to three packs of cigarettes a day, says he was motivated to invent a different device after his own father, also a smoker, died of lung cancer. E-cigarettes were invented and are now marketed to be ‘healthier’ than cigarettes but their full health impacts are not yet known.

The products you can buy in Australia are made up of many parts, which can come from all over the world. So it’s difficult to assess the safety and quality of every facet of the products. 

What we do know is that products that involve delivering chemicals to the lung are usually only approved after an extensive safety and efficacy evaluation. As mentioned above, e-cigarettes have not been tested and approved as safe or effective by the TGA. This means that the safety of e-cigarettes cannot be guaranteed.

This quick video explores the importance of keeping e-cigarettes locked away from young people  E-liquids - keep them locked away - YouTube

As Always stay kind and reach out if you need too.

Michelle, Mel, Shelley, Jasmine and Rachel                          

Batforce School Family Partnerships 2023

Mate Space / Headspace

Headspace Geelong has been hosting Mate Space sessions in Torquay.

These male only sessions are held inside the Youth Centre at KMCC and runs from 4pm-6pm.