Mental health impacted my academic performance and personal life by shutting me off from the world. It can be hard to learn and interact with others when you are drowning in your own thoughts. I experienced this firsthand when Covid hit. I was transitioning from middle school to high school at the time, so with the addition of a global pandemic, it is easy to say that the beginning of my high school career was difficult. Freshman year took place at home on my computer without my friends, teachers, or other students. I was alone dealing with this life altering event trying to get an education, while watching the world be put on pause. It was difficult to stay focused on my academics when my mind was filled with all the terrible things I saw on the news, and this caused my grades to decline. It was also hard to stay connected with my friends because of my mental health. That was until my friends reached out to me and allowed me to open up about what I was feeling, which helped me to get all of these awful things out of my head. It was by clearing my mind and improving my mental health that I was able to put my grades back up and strengthen my personal relationships. After experiencing this decline in my mental health, I wanted to take steps that would ensure that my mental health was a priority. One step that I take to better my mental health is having open conversations with those in my life. I find it important to engage with those around me by having these deep conversations that way I can ensure not only that my mental health is doing well, but those around me are doing well too. I also find these conversations important because they allow me to normalize talking to others about mental health issues, which in turn can destigmatize mental health for those in my life. Another step that I take to prioritize mental health is by creating a supportive environment. I find this to be especially important because the environment that you are apart of can greatly affect your mental health in both positive and negative ways. However, by ensuring that there is a supportive environment, you are able to help others feel safe and supported. The last step that I take to prioritize mental health is staying connected to those I care about. It can be so easy now-a-days to get distracted and not interact with those around you. However, I find socialization to be an important part of life that can make my day just that little bit better.

Mental health is important to me as a student because the immense impact that it has on a person's life can be most easily observed through one’s academics. This is because it can be exceedingly hard to learn when there is so much going on in your mind. I experienced this firsthand when Covid hit. I was transitioning from middle school to high school at the time, so with the addition of a global pandemic, it is easy to say that the beginning of my high school career was difficult. Freshman year took place at home on my computer without my friends, teachers, or other students. I was alone dealing with this life altering event trying to get an education, while watching the world be put on pause. It was difficult to stay focused on my academics when my mind was filled with all the terrible things I saw on the news, and this caused my grades to decline. That was until I started talking to people about what I was feeling and was able to get all of these awful things out of my head. It was by clearing my mind and improving my mental health that I was able to put my grades back up to how they were before the pandemic. After experiencing this decline in my mental health, I wanted to find ways to advocate for mental health in my community. One way that I found was to have open conversations with those in my life. It was by encouraging people to have these conversations that I was able to normalize talking to others about mental health issues, which in turn destigmatized mental health for those in my life. Another way that I found to advocate for mental health is by creating a supportive environment. This is an important part of advocating for mental health because in order to help someone with their mental health, you have to make sure they feel safe and supported. The final thing which helped advocate for mental health was increasing awareness in my community. My high school started doing an event called mental health awareness week where the school would send out emails talking about tips on how to help yourself and others with their mental health and would give resources to allow people to further improve their mental health. All of these ideas are effective ways to advocate for mental health individual, but by using them together, they can help the expand mental health awareness and allow people to better understand themselves and what they are feeling, which can only benefit people’s mental health.