Mind Matters Returns September 25th!

It’s time to continue the conversation. FCMoD is proud to announce the return of the groundbreaking exhibition Mental Health: Mind Matters this fall!

Mark your calendars to visit Mental Health: Mind Matters, slated to open September 25, 2021 and run through January 2, 2022. This thought-provoking special exhibition provides informative and hopeful experiences to help open the door to greater understanding, conversations and empathy toward the challenges of mental health.

Presented in English, Spanish and French, visitors of all ages will explore hands-on experiences that bring you closer to the facts, feelings and issues surrounding this topic that touches so many of our lives.

When you visit Mental Health: Mind Matters, you can peer into mini dioramas of important moments in mental health history. Play a quiz show to test your knowledge of common misperceptions about mental illnesses. Hear what it’s like to experience psychosis and feel what it’s like to be unable to ignore your surroundings. Watch heartfelt videos where individuals talk about their personal experiences living with mental illnesses. Write down your worries and destroy them in the Worry Shredder. Pick up a family and group conversation guide to continue the conversation with your closest networks. Visit the resource center to learn about local resources and services in Northern Colorado to share with someone you know or better your own mental health.

Stay tuned as the exhibit nears for more information about programs and workshops to help continue the conversation beyond Mental Health: Mind Matters.

Interested in supporting this exhibit and other special exhibitions? Contact FCMoD’s development team at mallison@fcmod.org for ways to support the museum.

Mental Health: Mind Matters was produced for North America by the Science Museum of Minnesota in collaboration Heureka, The Finnish Science Centre and advised by National Alliance on Mental Illness.

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“Music Therapy! What’s that?!”

Tune In For Music Therapy

Clap along if you feel like you know what MT’s do. Someday, people will know what a music therapist actually does. Scratch that! TODAY is the day!

According to the American Music Therapy Association, music therapy is defined as the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program. Music therapy, an established health profession, uses music to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs in an individual and group setting. Music therapy can be used across the lifespan of those with varying diagnoses. In short, music therapists use music to help individuals work on non-musical goals. (Image: Northwestern University, 2018)

Oh, Oh It’s Magic…

There is a difference between music AS therapy and music IN therapy. Music AS therapy is a broad use of music to appeal to a wide range of behaviors, emotions, and well-being. Music used AS therapy is not directed at a specific outcome, and it is frequently used by those who consider themselves music therapists but have not been formally trained. Music IN therapy is music used to achieve a specific goal or set of goals. Music IN therapy consists of different techniques based on the best evidence available. Those that use music IN therapy are highly trained both in music and in therapeutic techniques. Until the middle of the 20th century most music therapy practice followed the music AS therapy model. It has only been in the past 60 or 70 years ago that we see more attention paid to music IN therapy.

(Ali Blackwood Illustration)

Follow the yellow brick road….for a degree in music therapy

         (Image: AMTA website)

Music therapists that receive a bachelor’s degree or higher, have to complete an approved program at a university or college, including a clinical internship of 1200 hours. Then they are allowed to become credentialed (Music Therapist-Board Certified) through the Certification Board of Music Therapists. Music therapists not only study music, but they also study psychology and medicine. The music therapy field is an evidence-based profession with a foundation in research. Music therapists don’t simply play songs for people or play music in the background. Music therapists complete a full assessment to determine individuals’ strengths and weaknesses, develop non-musical goals and objectives, create a treatment plan that can help with the transfer of skills to their daily lives, and continue to evaluate the needs and progress of each client through the entirety of the therapeutic process.

Where, oh where can you find an MT? At 35+ settings!

  • Medical facilities
    • General hospital settings
    • Hospice
    • Oncology
    • Physical Rehabilitation
    • Home health agencies
    • Out-patient clinics
    • Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities
    • Partial hospitalization
    • Children’s hospitals or units
  • Geriatric facilities
    • Adult day care
    • Assisted living
    • Geriatric facilities (not nursing)
    • Geriatric psychiatric units
    • Nursing homes
  • Developmental centers
    • Group homes
    • Intermediate care facilities
    • Community day treatment programs
    • State institutions
  • Educational facilities
    • Children’s day care/preschool settings
    • Early intervention programs
    • Schools (K-12)
  • Mental health settings
    • Child and adolescent treatment centers
    • Psychiatric hospitals
    • Community mental health centers
    • Substance abuse programs
    • Forensic facilities
    • Inpatient psychiatric units
  • Private practice settings
    • Music therapy clinics
    • Clients’ homes
    • Providing contract services in any facilities previously listed
  • Other settings
    • Diagnosis-specific support groups
    • Wellness and prevention programs
    • Work in music retailer setting

Benefits of music therapy…let me count the ways…

Music therapists can work with individuals who have a variety of needs that could include medical, learning and academic, mental health, rehabilitation, developmental, communication, or wellness. The populations in which music therapists work with range from premature infants to older adults. There are numerous ways music therapy has been found to address the needs of those in an individual or group setting. The areas include, but are not limited to:

  1. Labor and Delivery – relaxation; support of birthing process
  2. Premature Infants – improved feeding behavior and weight gain
  3. Neurological Disorders & Brain Injury – protocols that activate neurological responses in support of cognitive, motor, communication, and social objectives
  4. Chronic Illness & Oncology – music + coping techniques to assist with pain management and stress reduction
  5. Mental Health – provided opportunities to explore and process therapeutic issues
  6. Medical and Surgical Tests/Procedures – reduce anxiety and improve treatment response
  7. Healthy aging & Optimum Performance – provide music programs based on theories of personal growth, awareness, and learning
  8. Developmental Disabilities & Autism Spectrum – teach cognitive, motor, social, communication, and daily living skills
  9. Substance Abuse and Addictive Disorders – use introspective techniques such as songwriting and lyric analysis to aid clients’ transition from denial to determination in recovery process
  10. Physical Disabilities and Sensory Impairments – music incorporated into rehabilitative treatment to allow frustration to yield to fulfillment
  11. Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia – access individuals’ past to trigger short- and long-term memory, decrease agitation, and enhance reality orientation
  12. Hospice and Bereavement – help guide individual and/or loved ones in life’s processes

                                                               

              (Image: Kora Leith Blog)

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Mindful Mondays: Do Animals Feel Emotion?

Written by Willow Sedam, Animal Husbandry Staff

Mindful Mondays: Do Animals Feel Emotion?

Throughout history, humans have been asking questions about the natural world. But there’s one we keep coming back to with endless curiosity: do animals feel?

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras was an early ponderer of this very question. A vegetarian, Pythagoras believed that animals and humans had the same souls, and should be treated equally. He was even known for going into markets and purchasing live animals, only to set them free. But Pythagoras’s ideas were controversial – the later philosopher Aristotle created his own theory, a ranked view of nature that put humans at the top and the lesser, “irrational” animals below them. For Aristotle, and many thinkers who followed in his footsteps, the idea of animals having souls or feeling pain, let alone emotion, was a strange one.

 

But is it really that odd to imagine that animals might feel emotions like we do?

 

After all, it’s not hard to find instances of animal behavior that appear to be driven by emotion. Take your dog to the vet or start up the vacuum cleaner around him, and you’ll see a response that looks a lot like anxiety, fear, or even anger. If animals appear to feel negative emotions, couldn’t they feel positive ones as well? Might they feel a similarly wide range of emotions to ours?

Elephants and whales have both been observed behaving unusually around dead herd members, guarding the bodies of fallen friends for days, or carrying deceased calves with them for miles. And great apes have even been able to communicate their own emotions to researchers. Koko, a gorilla who had been taught sign language, responded “Bad, sad, bad, frown, cry, frown, sad, trouble” when learning her adopted kitten had died.

Koko with her kitten, photo from the Los Angeles Times

 

It’s no surprise that these animals – some of the smartest in the world – would be able to feel; but it’s not just the big-brained mammals like us who display signs of emotion.

 

Parrots and crows are exceptionally bright birds, and their intelligence seems to extend to the complexity of their emotional lives as well. Crows have been known to form bonds with humans who feed them, and grudges against those they don’t like. They will even bring gifts to humans they like, and teach other crows to attack those they don’t. And parrots can get so bored in captivity that, without anything to occupy their clever brains, they will develop compulsive behaviors similar to neurosis in humans, such as plucking out their own feathers.

Some fish have even been observed to exhibit individual personalities. In a study where new and possibly dangerous things were introduced to a school of fish, some fish would approach aggressively, some curiously, and some would simply hide. Each new item saw the same fish approaching in the same manor – the aggressive one continued to act aggressively, the shy one continued to act shy. Each fish had their own unique temperament!

And let’s not forget invertebrates – those animals without a backbone like insects, worms, and squids. You might not think them very smart or emotionally deep, but you would be doing them a great disservice. Octopuses are renowned for their intelligence, despite their short and solitary lifestyle. Captive octopuses enjoy playing with humans – and will attack ones they don’t like. They’re smart enough to get bored, and smart enough to escape their tanks looking for something more interesting. That’s a lot of complexity for an animal so closely related to slugs.

 

So, problem solved: animals do feel, and they feel quite a lot! …Right?

 

Unfortunately, the scientific jury is still out in this case. While there are plenty of behaviors that we observe in animals that might look like what we think of as emotions, we can’t exactly ask a lizard how it’s feeling. So, we rely on assumptions – assumptions that could be wrong.

The biggest problem we face when trying to answer these questions about animal emotions is called anthropomorphism, the action of projecting human traits onto animals, plants, or even inanimate objects. It’s a bit like seeing faces in clouds – they’re not really there, but we’re so used to looking for them that we conjure them up anyway. While an action or expression might mean one thing to a human, it could mean something completely different to another animal. While humans smile when happy, chimpanzees bare their teeth as a threat display. And while a dog wagging its tail may be excited or happy, a cat wagging its tail is definitely not. It’s easy to misread these behaviors and displays, and easier still to project a human idea of an emotion onto an animal who may experience the world in a vastly different way from us.

 

But just as it is important not to project our own emotions onto animals and their behavior, it’s important, too, to not assume that animals are mindless or emotionless drones. It’s tempting to think that animals experience less than we do – that they don’t feel pain, sorrow, or joy. But nature has proven time and time again that intelligence and emotion come in all shapes and sizes. And hey, it doesn’t hurt to be kind – to your human and non-human neighbors.

 

To stay informed on the latest Mental Health: Mind Matters programs and experiences, visit the Mind Matters webpage and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Don’t forget to tag us in your experiences when you visit the museum to help us #MakeItOk. 

We look forward to welcoming you to FCMoD to experience this amazing exhibit!  

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Mindful Mondays: Animal Enrichment

Written by Willow Sedam, Animal Husbandry Staff

Mindful Mondays: Animal Enrichment

Just like us, animals can get bored. Have you ever been bored stuck inside on a rainy day? Imagine if you lived your entire life in your house –  many animals kept in captivity in zoos, aquariums, and even our own homes do spend their whole lives in one place. And without proper enrichment, animals can get bored quickly!

 

So, what is enrichment?

Behavioral, or environmental, enrichment, is anything that makes an animal’s life more interesting! It could be training a dog to sit and stay, or giving an octopus a complex puzzle to solve. It can be rearranging an animal’s cage for a change of scenery, or introducing new and exciting sounds or scents to them.

 

At the museum, we have our own animals – from black-footed ferrets to tree frogs – who all need enrichment. But enrichment comes in all different shapes and sizes!

Our colony of domesticated fancy rats are smart, omnivorous foragers, and need lots to do to keep their brains working. One day, they might get a new toy or a hiding place like a tunnel or wicker ball in their enclosure. The next, they might get peanuts hidden inside of cardboard tubes that they have to sniff out and chew open to get to. One of the keys to enrichment is variability – if an animal gets the same kind of enrichment at the same time every day or week, the novelty can wear off. Switching up enrichment styles and schedules is as important as the enrichment itself!

 

But enrichment isn’t one size fits all. Every animal is different, and so are the things we give them to keep them interested and excited.

 

The museum’s ornate box turtle, Tara, isn’t very good at sniffing out treats or chewing open cardboard boxes, so her enrichment takes a different form. She gets walks – inside the museum when the weather is cold, and out in the big backyard when it’s warmer. She loves her walks, and spends her outdoors time digging, hunting ants, and finding rocks to carry around in her beak. And even Tara likes treats – though instead of peanuts, she gets mealworms, which she chases down and gobbles up! To figure out what kind of enrichment an animal needs, we have to think about what our animals would be doing in the wild; Tara is actually a Colorado native, so spending time foraging in the Big Backyard is the perfect enrichment activity for her.

But what happens when animals don’t get the enrichment they need? Like us, bored animals can become frustrated, restless, or even depressed. They can get lethargic and low-energy, pick fights with other animals in the same cage, or pace the same path over and over again. Enrichment is important for animals of all shapes and sizes, from lions and tigers to little turtles like Tara.

 

Want to try giving your pet enrichment? There are lots of different ways to, and you might already be doing it without realizing! Training your dog to sit and stay, or playing catch-the-string with your cat are some easy ways to get your pet’s mind and body active. You could also introduce your pets to new (pet-safe) foods, or interesting and novel scents. Or, rearrange their cage, move their bed, and hide their toys in new places around the house. You can even make your own puzzle feeder: take a shallow box, cut holes of various sizes in the top, and sprinkle in some treats. See how your pet thinks through the problem to get to its prize – does it fish the treats out with a paw, shake the box until they fall out, or tear it open to get to the food?

There are tons of different fun enrichment projects you and your pet can work on together – so next time you’re feeling bored, consider designing a new toy for your furry (or slimy, scaly, or feathered) friend. You just might discover that it’s just as enriching for you as it is for them!

 

 

To stay informed on the latest Mental Health: Mind Matters programs and experiences, visit the Mind Matters webpage and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Don’t forget to tag us in your experiences when you visit the museum to help us #MakeItOk. 

We look forward to welcoming you to FCMoD to experience this amazing exhibit!  

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Mindful Mondays: DIY Fidget

Mindful Mondays: DIY Fidget

A fidget is an object that can be fiddled with to expend some energy and help the brain focus on the task at hand! Make your own to help you remain calm in stressful situations, or to help you focus when doing homework or another task!

Supplies:

  • Craft stick or popsicle stick 
  • Chenille stem (any color)
  • 6-8 pony beads
  • Painters tape or washi tape

Instructions:

  1. String the beads on to the chenille stem.
  2. Lay the stem on the craft stick and bend the ends of the stem around the ends of the stick.
  3. Use a piece of tape to attached the chenille stem to the craft stick. Make sure your tape covers the ends of the chenille stem so they don’t poke anyone!
  4. Keep your fidget handy, and use it to keep calm or maintain focus!

 

Each mind matters. Taking care of our mental health is important to all of us – everywhere and always. Learn more by visiting FCMoD’s special exhibition Mental Health: Mind Matters, open through January 10th.

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Mindful Mondays: Understanding and Expressing Emotions

Mindful Mondays: Understanding and Expressing Emotions

This activity is recommended for ages 3-7.

Happiness, fear, frustration… let’s get to know our emotions! Make your own paper plate emotion face and see how our faces help convey how we are feeling.

Supplies:

  • Paper plate 
  • Construction paper, all colors
  • 6 brass fasteners
  • Scissors 

Instructions:

  1. Take a paper plate to use as your face. Use the crayons to color the plate however you like!
  2. Using construction paper, cut out eyes, eyebrows, a nose and a mouth for your face. If you need a guide, use a pencil to draw the shapes before you cut them out.
  3. Use 6 brass fasteners to attach the facial features to your plate.
  4. Try it out! Move the facial features to create different emotions. Ask another per-son to guess what the face is expressing, or challenge another person to create that expression.

 

Each mind matters. Taking care of our mental health is important to all of us – everywhere and always. Learn more by visiting FCMoD’s special exhibition Mental Health: Mind Matters, open through January 10th.

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Mindful Mondays: Changing Minds

Post written by Brian Ferrans, Manager with Behavioral Health Strategy and Implementation Community Impact Team Health District of Northern Larimer County

Mindful Mondays: Changing Minds

Let’s talk about addiction. Addiction doesn’t discriminate. One in 10 of our neighbors lives with drug and/or alcohol addiction in Larimer County. It’s not a choice — it’s a disease that changes the brain, and it can happen to anyone. Understanding how substances re-wire our brains is essential in helping us to get rid of negative stigma and stereotypes about those experiencing an addiction, which can encourage more people to seek out treatment. Watch our 5-minute video to learn more about how addiction changes the brain.

https://youtu.be/TAzgw599Gyg

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Mindful Mondays: The Best Life-Saving “Drug” I Found

Written by Carl Nassar, President of Heart Centered Counseling

Mindful Mondays: The Best Life-Saving “Drug” I Found

Therapy saved my life. That wouldn’t come as a surprise to you if video footage of my childhood was available for you to view.

The screen would zoom in on a boy whose constant companion was loneliness. A boy whose imaginary friend Bucky tried valiantly, but without success, to fill the relational void. You’d discover a boy attending a religious elementary school promoting the fear of God over the love of God, and a fear of the world rather than a love for it.

In therapy, I came to understand how my past was shaping my future (Freud called it “the transference of everyday life,” and Berne labeled it “replaying your life script”). I learned how my scared-ness was trampling over my vitality (Perlz called it the “dilemma of secondary Gestalts”). I learned what it looked like to open my heart, first to my own pain, as something to go through (and not around), and then to the world, as a way to lean in (instead of leaning out).

I loved therapy. It helped me to reclaim my excitement and energy for life. It also gave me my voice. That love grew into a professional desire to become a therapist myself. I wanted to help good people realize that they no longer needed to simply get by in this life, but rather to discover and learn to thrive. I wanted to help others work through the traumas (of childhood and later life) to become the people they’re meant to be—to find their voice in the world and to use it to express all of who they are, in its endless unfolding.

After 20 years in the field, I’m more convinced than ever that the popular song from 1965 speaks a profound truth, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love…” and, while not in the song, I might add a line about therapy being a beautiful way to discover that love within ourselves.

I’m more convinced now than ever that each of us can become the hope we long to see in the world. I believe this so much that I created a video series called “What if a Therapist Reported the News?” It’s my way of helping people break free from the paralysis of waiting for the news to change, and instead encouraging each one of us to find the courage—in how we live our everyday lives—to take the small steps that allow us to create the news we’re waiting for.

As we come to the end of our time together in this blog post, I want to share my gratitude for you…not only for taking the time to read this, but for each small act of courage—each small step toward kindness—you show in your everyday life. Because one final lesson therapy taught me was that each us matter far more than we image, and each small act adds up to create a new world, even if we don’t see its dawning quite yet.

Carl Nassar is known differently to different people. To some, he’s a professional counselor offering a safe space to reclaim hope and tenderness. To others he’s the president of Heart Centered Counseling, supporting a team of 250 providers that together provide access to a counseling and psychiatric care throughout Colorado (www.heartcenteredcounselors.com). And to those who find his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW3MmwKez76a51rQRp17qwQ/), Carl offers a thoughtful and inspiring answer to the question What if a Therapist Reported the News?

 

To stay informed on the latest Mental Health: Mind Matters programs and experiences, visit the Mind Matters webpage and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Don’t forget to tag us in your experiences when you visit the museum to help us #MakeItOk. 

We look forward to welcoming you to FCMoD to experience this amazing exhibit!  

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Mindful Mondays: Local Mental Health Resources

Mindful Mondays: Local Mental Health Resources

The Mental Health: Mind Matters special exhibition opens the door to greater understanding, conversations, and empathy toward the challenges of mental health. It’s just one way our community can come together to reduce the stigma and #MakeItOK to talk about mental health.  

It’s okay to ask for help. There are many resources available here in our community to support you or anyone you know who might be struggling with their mental health. 

Experiencing a mental health crisis? 24/7/365 support is available through Colorado Crisis Services: Call1-800-493-TALK (8255) or text HOME to 741741. 

FCMoD is grateful to be working directly with these community partners on programming and community outreach: 

Alliance for Suicide Prevention – We prevent suicide in Larimer County through training and education, providing outreach, and offering support. 

Colorado State University – Child Trauma and Resilience Assessment Center – The Child Trauma and Resilience Assessment Center provides resilience-based trauma assessments and offers recommendations that focus on helping youth and families recognize, understand, and value their own strengths in responding to and healing from trauma. 

Early Childhood Council of Larimer County – Leap Coalition – Strengthening and connecting our systems so that all young children in Larimer County, Colorado will be supported in their social development and emotional wellbeing in a culturally responsive manner. 

Foundations Counseling – Foundations Counseling provides a proven, collaborative approach to counseling in Fort Collins, Loveland, and Windsor, Colorado. We offer caring, expert assistance in an environment built around personal respect and dignity. Throughout Northern Colorado our experienced therapists rely on time-tested and proven techniques to help you find your way.  

Health District of Northern Larimer County – The Health District of Northern Larimer County is a public agency that has been meeting local healthcare needs since 1960. Today, we provided residents of northern Larimer County with dental, mental health and preventive health services. The Connections program offers answers, offers and support to individuals and families looking for help with mental health or substance abuse concerns. CAYAC (Child, Adolescent, and Young Adult Connections) is a service of Connections that helps young people (up to age 24) with the early identification, assessment/testing, and treatment of mental health and substance abuse concerns. Connections also offers regular classes and trainings to the public, often at no cost. 

Lifestance Health – Lifestance Health (formerly Heart Centered Counseling) provides caring support for the people of Colorado. We counsel people to get them through the hard times, through the broken hearts, and through the painful emotions. We are a growing team of 300+ counselors who provide a comprehensive therapy practice. 

Larimer County Behavioral Health Services – Through a publicly approved .25% Sales and Use tax, Behavioral Health Services responsibly invests in community-driven work to increase access to behavioral health services and improves outcomes for all Larimer County residents. 

Music Minds Matter – We are committed to supporting the brain health and mental wellness of music communities everywhere. 

Poudre School District – Counseling Department – School counselors are vital members of every school’s education team. Currently, 80 professional school counselors serve students in 39 schools in Poudre School District, assisting kindergarten-12th grade students in academic success, college and career readiness, and social/emotional development. 

SummitStone Health Partners – For more than 60 years, SummitStone Health Partners has been transforming lives through recovery, renewal and respect by providing unsurpassed behavioral health prevention, intervention and treatment services in Larimer County. SummitStone provides more than 50 services dedicated to treating mental health and addiction disorders for people of all ages. 

Additional community resources highlighted within the exhibit or during programming: 

Carl Nassar, President of Heart Centered Counseling, reports on“What if a therapist reported the news?” 

Support for people experiencing homelessness is available through Homeward Alliance and the Murphy Center for Hope  

Healing and support for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color is being convened by the BIPOC Alliance 

CSU Center for Mindfulness 

Colorado Spirit COVID-19 Support Program – Larimer County

Colorado Spirit COVID-19 Support Program – Weld County

North Range Behavioral Health – At North Range Behavioral Health, we believe that everyone deserves high-quality treatment that leads to recovery. North Range Behavioral Health provides compassionate, comprehensive care for people who face mental health and addiction challenges. This organization is located in Weld County, and is also a provider of Colorado Crisis Services.

QPR Gatekeeper Training – The QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) mission is to reduce suicidal behaviors and save lives by providing innovative, practical and proven suicide prevention training. You can find local trainings on the website – SummitStone Health Partners provides monthly trainings that are also posted on the FCMoD calendar!

Colorado-National Collaborative for Suicide Prevention

Recordings of FCMoD’s Discovery Live mental health expert panels and events are available on YouTube 

We will continue adding resources to this post as they are shared by our community partners.

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Mindful Mondays: The Feelings Volcano

Mindful Mondays: The Feelings Volcano

This activity is recommended for ages 5-11.

Have you ever been overwhelmed by a strong emotion? Maybe you were angry with a friend for taking your favorite book, or frustrated that you couldn’t figure out that math problem? We all have strong feelings sometimes, and that’s okay! Try this is a twist on the classic baking soda-and-vinegar volcano experiment, and explore why it’s important to express and regulate our emotions in healthy ways!

Supplies:

  • Empty plastic bottle or 8 oz cup 
  • Measuring cup 
  • Funnel 
  • 1 tbsp baking soda 
  • Distilled white vinegar 
  • Food coloring (if desired) 

Instructions:

  1. To get ready: Place the baking soda in the empty plastic bottle or 8 oz cup using the funnel. 
  2. Think about a time when you were overwhelmed by a strong emotion (feeling sad, embarrassed, mad, nervous, etc.). Talk with your grown up about what happened. What happened to make you feel this way? What did you do about it?
  3. Pour a little bit of vinegar into the measuring cup. (Add food coloring if desired). This vinegar represents the feelings you had in your story. Now, let’s say that instead of expressing your feelings and doing something to manage them, you let them keep building and building and building up inside of you!
  4. Add more vinegar “feelings” to the cup until it reaches the ½ cup mark. What do you think will happen when you act on your feelings by adding the vinegar to the baking soda?
  5. Pour the vinegar into the baking soda. What happened? All of those sour feelings came out!
  6. Time for another experiment! What if instead of letting those sour feelings build up, you did something to manage them? Maybe you talked to your grown up about how you were feeling, or maybe you took some long, deep breaths! When you take steps to manage them, your feelings aren’t so sour anymore – they’re more like water than vinegar! What do you think will happen if you add water to baking soda?
  7. Pour the water into the baking soda. What happened? This time, we didn’t let our emotions get the best of us!
  8. There’s nothing wrong with having feelings! They’re part of being human. But it’s important that we learn how to express and manage our feelings so that we can control them instead of them controlling us. Work with your grown up to make a list of ways you can express and manage your emotions in hard situations, when you sense a feelings volcano brewing! Some ideas you might include: 
  • Take 10 slow, deep breaths. 
  • Draw or write about your feelings. 
  • Talk about your feelings with a friend, family member, or teacher. 
  • Dance to your favorite song.  
  • Stretch your body. 
  • Hang your strategies up somewhere to reference throughout the year! 

 

Each mind matters. Taking care of our mental health is important to all of us – everywhere and always. Learn more by visiting FCMoD’s special exhibition Mental Health: Mind Matters, open through January 10th.

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