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Seize the moment

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Find a moment to talk

Beginning the conversation doesn't mean you have to dive straight into talking about mental health struggles or have an intense heart to heart. Consider instead meeting your friend where they are or extending an invitation to hang out. You can even talk about struggles you are going through to give your friend an avenue to open up. Whether it's over a bite to eat or taking a walk, a simple "what's up" is a great place to begin.

Need some ideas of how to start the conversation? Try one of these:

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Starting the Conversation - Subpage Having a Conversation

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Beginning the conversation doesn't mean you have to dive straight into talking about mental health struggles or have an intense heart to heart. Consider instead meeting your friend where they are or extending an invitation to hang out. You can even talk about struggles you are going through to give your friend an avenue to open up.

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mental health awareness app

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MoodKit is a one-of-a-kind app designed to help you apply effective strategies of professional psychology to your everyday life. With four integrated tools, MoodKit helps you to engage in mood-enhancing activities, identify and change unhealthy thinking, rate and chart mood across time, and create journal entries using custom templates designed to promote well-being.

MoodKit draws upon the principles and techniques of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), one of the most effective and scientifically-supported methods of psychotherapy. MoodKit's innovative design enables it to be used on its own or to enhance professional treatment.

Learn more about MoodKit's four core tools below.

MoodKit Activities: Take action to improve your life with mood-enhancing activities

The MoodKit Activities tool provides a wide variety of suggestions for specific steps you can take to improve your mood. The activities, along with their accompanying examples and tips, provide you with specific ways to implement psychological principles and techniques known to reduce negative feelings and enhance well-being.

MoodKit activities are organized into 5 mood-improvement categories, plus an additional special category called ThriveTips. Each activity allows you to commit to implementing it, select it as a favorite, share it with others, schedule it in your calendar, and make a Journal entry about it.

Thought Checker: Feel better by changing how you think

Thought Checker helps you to manage negative feelings related to a specific situation by identifying and modifying the thoughts that contribute to those feelings. Through repeated use, it will help you learn to change your feelings (or change the intensity of your feelings) by changing how you think.

Thought Checker walks you through a brief process of identifying situations in which you experience distress, specifying the feelings and thoughts you experienced in those situations, determining whether those thoughts represent common patterns of biased or distorted thinking, modifying such thinking, and evaluating the impact on your feelings.

Mood Tracker: Rate and chart your daily mood to monitor progress

Mood Tracker allows you to make, save, and chart daily ratings of your mood. Through its integration with the Journal tool, it also enables you to record and save any notes that you would like to attach to your mood ratings.

Mood ratings are compiled in a chart that displays the last 7-days (portrait mode) or 30-days (landscape mode) of mood ratings. Charts are fully exportable by email for archiving or for use in professional treatment. Includes chart scrolling and enhanced charts displaying individual mood ratings, daily averages, and daily ranges.

MoodKit Journal: Develop self-awareness and attitudes that promote well-being

The MoodKit Journal allows you to create, save, and export written notes about a variety of mood-related activities and observations in everyday life. This tool comes with a variety of pre-formatted templates to help you journal in specific ways known to help improve mood. You can also create your own custom templates for repeated use.

Additionally, the Journal tool provides a central place where notes and summaries produced by MoodKit's other tools can be accessed, compiled, and exported.

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MoodKit is a one-of-a-kind app designed to help you apply effective strategies of professional psychology to your everyday life. With four integrated tools, MoodKit helps you to engage in mood-enhancing activities, identify and change unhealthy thinking, rate and chart mood across time, and create journal entries using custom templates designed to promote well-being.

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for stress and anxiety

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How To Perform the 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise | Andrew Weil, M.D.

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Every day presents new challenges to the mental health and well-being of children. #WeThriveInside is bringing the Child Mind Institute's innovative telehealth, inspiring videos and online resources to families no matter where they are. Support this life-changing work. Click to help kids thrive inside.

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#WeThriveInside | Child Mind Institute is Helping Children Through COVID-19 & Beyond

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Every day presents new challenges to the mental health and well-being of children. #WeThriveInside is bringing the Child Mind Institute's innovative telehealth, inspiring videos and online resources to families no matter where they are. Support this life-changing work. Click to help kids thrive inside.

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texting line

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The Helpline Center's Text4Hope program provides crisis texting support for all high school students in the state of South Dakota. Since texting is the preferred means of communication for adolescents, offering a crisis texting program allows students to share their concerns privately with our trusted staff.

Students will typically text in to talk about a variety of issues such as suicidal thoughts, anxiety, depression, stress, concerns about a friend, relationship issues and family issues. With a simple text, individuals can connect with our professionally trained staff to receive support and resources.

The Helpline Center provides promotional materials (posters, referral cards) at no charge upon request for each high school to use with their students. Helpline Center staff also provide short presentations to the students to educate them about the texting program and suicide prevention. There is a speaking fee and travel expenses for the presentations.

If you would like a presentation or materials contact Sheri Nelson at sheri@helplinecenter.org or call 605-274-1406.

Students can text icare to 898211 to reach Helpline Center staff.
Help is available 24/7.

MENTAL HEALTH Resources
If you're interested in receiving Text4Hope materials for your high school,
or if you would like to schedule a presentation for your students,
please contact Sheri Nelson at sheri@helplinecenter.org.

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The Helpline Center's Text4Hope program provides crisis texting support for all high school students in the state of South Dakota. Since texting is the preferred means of communication for adolescents, offering a crisis texting program allows students to share their concerns privately with our trusted staff.

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Suicide prevention app

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GQ.com

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There was a moment last March when the default greeting switched all of a sudden. We all wanted to know: "How are you holding up?" Between a pandemic that continues to ravage across the country, an urgent protest movement, and a rapidly unfolding economic crisis on the eve of a crucial national election, simply trying to function in 2020 is enough to break even the seemingly strongest I'm-doing-just-great! person in your life.

The truth is, we don't really know how anyone-including our closest friends and family-is doing unless they tell us. And even that has gotten harder as we're still separated from our friends and loved ones. (A stock greeting on an email, no matter how well intentioned, probably isn't enough to break through.) All of this means it might be more important than ever to check in on one another.

"Any one of these challenges could have severe consequences for mental health, but together they are drawing attention to what is clearly a mental health crisis," says Dylan Gee, a psychology professor at Yale University. "Initial data are already showing increases in mental health difficulties, and there are likely to be longer-term consequences as well."

Even if we didn't already live in an increasingly dystopian world, everyone needs the occasional check-in-whether social media makes it appear that way or not. So we asked Gee: how do you help a friend who is obviously (or maybe not-so-obviously) going through some shit?
1. Be ready to listen.
The first step of checking in, is, well, checking in. Everyone has a preference on how they'd like to best be approached so it's important to be sensitive to that.

"Some people may respond well to a direct approach," says Gee. "Gently raising the issue and stating you're concerned also shows them that it's okay to talk with you about mental health and helps to reduce stigma."

On the flip side, other people may be slower to open up so easing into the conversation will be key.

"Spending time talking or doing something together can help create an opportunity for you to check in with them," suggests Gee. "Reach out to them, offer to spend time with them. Give them a call or set up a Zoom happy hour or a socially distanced meal or hike. Perhaps most importantly, listen. Don't invalidate or minimize what they're going through. Let them know you're there to support them, even if you're not sure what they might need right then."

2. Be careful when it comes to diagnosing.

Though it might come from a well-intentioned place, attempting to medically diagnose someone when you are not a trained professional can be potentially dangerous. (It's also what made a lot of the online chatter around Kanye feel so gross.)

"While it can be quite noticeable when someone is struggling, providing an accurate diagnosis requires professional training," says Gee. "Mental health exists on a spectrum, and whether or not someone meets criteria for a mental health diagnosis, they may benefit from seeking help."
3. Instead, provide them directly with resources.
Let your loved one know you're there for them and then point them towards professional help, especially if it seems like they might inflict self-harm.

"If you think a friend might be a danger to themselves, reach out to them directly," says Gee. "If you're really concerned, it's good to connect with their family members and friends as well to think about how you might best support the person as a group. Most importantly, ask your friend how they're doing, tell them you care, and make sure they're aware of emergency services and resources like Crisis Text Line and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline."

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How To Help A Friend Who's Going Through Some Shit, Mental-Health-Wise

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There was a moment last March when the default greeting switched all of a sudden. We all wanted to know: "How are you holding up?" Between a pandemic that continues to ravage across the country, an urgent protest movement, and a rapidly unfolding economic crisis on the eve of a crucial national election, simply trying to function in 2020 is enough to break even the seemingly strongest I'm-doing-just-great!

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Student guide to Mental Health

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Help your friends when you notice something is wrong.​ Learn how to recognize the signs and help a friend get support.

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The Hilarious World of Depression Podcast

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The Hilarious World of Depression Podcast

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A show about clinical depression...with laughs? Well, yeah. Depression

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Why We NAMI is a podcast that explores the subject of mental health, helping you stay connected, stay informed, and stay well.
You can subscribe to Why We NAMI podcast by going to any of your favorite podcasting apps or go to www.namisouthdakota.org

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How to talk about....

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This tool is meant to show the many ways you can talk about mental health with people in your life. But, everyone's experience is different. So, if you think, "wait, that's not how I feel," you're probably not alone. Use these words as inspiration, but also feel free to find your own. And, please visit our About Mental Illness page to learn more about facts and different diagnoses and symptoms.

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This tool is meant to show the many ways you can talk about mental health with people in your life. But, everyone's experience is different. So, if you think, "wait, that's not how I feel," you're probably not alone. Use these words as inspiration, but also feel free to find your own.

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No Normal series

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We are conditioned from a young age to want to be normal. So we strive towards unrealistic ideals of how we should look, feel, act, and think. The truth is, we are all different. What we like. What we do. How our brains work. And that's okay because there is no "normal."