Social Isolation Impacting High School Students

School interactions are incredibly important for adolescents and for certain young people as it acts as a coping mechanism to deal with mental health issues. The lifestyle changes on young people due to COVID-19, such as fear of infection, being away from friends and teachers, boredom, lack of personal space at home, and losses for the family financially can act as a burden and negatively impact their mental health (Kılınçel, Ş, et al., 2020). Interventions that one could do to help, is by providing high school students with education on how to deal with their mental struggles as well as to communicate with them to find what would be effective for them. One method is that we can explore the idea of loneliness and how it is framed. The feeling of loneliness is actually something that may be more of a biological adaptation. Research has shown that in the past, people used to travel in pacts and hunt in groups, if you got lost, or separated from the group, you were more likely to die, thus some believe we may have evolved a type of psychological social distress as a form of adaptation (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). The feeling of loneliness is not only limited to being by yourself, in fact even if you are surrounded by peers, or family you can still feel lonely. This feeling of being lonely can actually cause pain or can make one feel uncomfortable. Although many things have changed in society, such as technology and social conventions, our bodies and minds are almost the same as they were 50,000 years ago, meaning that we are still biologically built towards being with each other. The stress that we face with chronic (prolonged) feelings of loneliness can cause one to age faster, can make cancers deadlier, Alzheimer's disease advance faster, and can make your immune systems weaker. When loneliness becomes chronic this pain, can become self-sustaining. Some interventions to reduce the stress that can be done during the pandemic include:
-Meditation and breathing exercises
-Physical activity (allotting time for exercise)
-Educating oneself about mental health 
-Playing with pets
-Journaling
-Listening to Music
-Reading for recreation
-Drawing or painting
-Make to do lists for academic or personal work
-Increasing self care
-Staying informed about COVID-19, but taking breaks to avoid becoming overwhelmed.

                                                                     References:

Cacioppo, J. T., & Patrick, W. (2008). Loneliness: Human nature and the need for social connection. 

W W Norton & Co.

Elmer, T., Mepham, K., & Stadtfeld, C. (2020). Students under lockdown: Comparisons of 

students’ social networks and mental health before and during the COVID-19 crisis in 

switzerland. PloS One, 15(7), e0236337-e0236337. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0236337

Kılınçel, Ş., Kılınçel, O., Muratdağı, G., Aydın, A., & Usta, M. B. (2020). Factors affecting the 

anxiety levels of adolescents in home‐quarantine during COVID ‐19 pandemic in turkey. Asia-Pacific Psychiatry, , e12406-e12406. doi:10.1111/appy.12406

Son, C., Hegde, S., Smith, A., Wang, X., & Sasangohar, F. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 on 

college students’ mental health in the United states: Interview survey study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(9), e21279-e21279. doi:10.2196/21279