How to make an anxiety self-care kit for teens, kids and college students
Transcript:
Hi I’m Deborah Gray.
And I’m Lawrence Gager.
My son. Um, my sleepy son.
Shut up.
Anyway, we are going to talk today about making a self-care kit, a to go self-care kit for anxiety.
Um, and I also wanted to talk a little bit about anxiety and, um, you know, its part in this channel.
The rebranding.
Well, so when I started this channel, um, and it’s, it’s the same with my website Wing of Madness, I focused on depression because that’s my experience and I’m not really comfortable, I haven’t been really comfortable, um, writing about or talking about anything that’s not in my experience because I feel like I should know it personally.
Um, but because Lawrence has anxiety and also because I started realizing that it’s such, you know, such a problem for so many people, um, it seems like it’s as much as depression at this point, then I felt that it was important to address anxiety as much as depression.
So, um, we are going to do a self, self-care kit for – it’s also called a comfort box, and a lot of other things – for depression. But I want to keep them separate because the depression one is, is very, it is, is very different in what you put in and basically what its purpose is.
Um, so, uh, you are going to talk about how we chose some of these things.
Well, thinking about this stuff we focused on, like, the idea is a lot for, like, people that go to school, cause, like, we thought about stuff that isn’t going to be, like, you know bring in a whole laptop so you can just sit on it –
Or you, or you might be in a school where you’re not allowed to have your phone.
Exactly.
So it’s like college students and elementary students and teenagers.
Okay, you went from schools to age groups.
Well, no, I just wanted to clarify. Stop. I just wanted to clarify that this is really –
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I mean it’s –
For anybody.
Yeah. I mean when you’re an adult and you’re working, well, if you’re working in your little cube, you have a little more freedom, generally.
Yeah. You worked in a cubicle for a long while.
Well, I still work in a cubicle. Except now I don’t – I have half walls instead of full walls, so I have no privacy.
Good point.
Anyways, go ahead.
Yeah. And another, like, I guess as a disclaimer, the stuff we have in this is not what you have to put in it. It’s just what we think, what we thought of.
There are some ideas.
Ideas. Ideas. Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Not required. We’re not saying this is a to-go kit, if you put anything else in it you’re wrong.
Right. And actually what you need to do is you need to experiment. You need to experiment and see what helps you when you’re having an anxiety attack or close to an anxiety attack that you want to stave off, um, you have to find what helps for you. These are just suggestions based on some principles which, which come down to, um, grounding you with – using your senses. Um, so, that’s, that’s one set of principles. Then obviously, the other idea is these things that calm you. Um, so you know if, if these – if none of these works for you, still, take away the idea of making a kit for yourself, something that you can keep in your backpack, um, and, and have with you when you need it.
Yeah.
OK, so on to the items. Now, the other thing is that I just wanted to make a point that – all these things should cost very, very little money. You should not have to spend much on this at all.
Um, pretty much almost, or at least half of the things, I got from the dollar store, and, um, the others, I made sure that they were pretty low cost. And if, and several of the things you can make yourself. Um, well, at least two, two, maybe three. Depends on how crafty you are.
So anyway one of the first things that was really popular – and I told you that could shake this up – is a glitter jar.
So this is a portable version. Obviously –
You shake it.
Well, what you do is – there are different ways to do this – but basically for a lot of people just watching the glitter settle is calming. But then there are other exercises that you can do with watching the glitter settle. There was one really good article. It sounded like it was by a therapist. But anyway, that I’m going to link to in the description.
And this was, very simply, I got the bottle at Daiso which is a Japanese dollar store.
An import –
Well, it’s a dollar, like a dollar store. It’s like a dollar store, except everything in there is Japanese. But basically, I’m sure your local dollar store would have these things.
So I got the bottle. It’s, um, you put in it, um, either distilled water or water you’ve boiled so that stuff doesn’t get nasty in there and then you put in some glitter glue, um, like this. This is, um –
A six pack.
Yeah. Well, anyway. This, um, I don’t remember how much this cost but you can probably get just one bottle if you want.
At Michael’s or Joann’s or Hobby Lobby.
Joann’s is God tier when it comes to craft supplies.
Actually. Michaels has more as far as crafts because Joann’s has a lot of space with fabric.
Good point.
But anyway. But yes we like Joann’s. The Michael’s near us is really far away. So, um –
It’s not near us then.
Right. So it’s not near us but it’s driving distance anyway. So you, so what you do basically is – and I’ll link to a video that talks about this – um, basically you put in the water first, or some water first because obviously, you don’t want the glue to stick to the bottom. You put in the glitter glue. And since most of them are jars and I was using this, I kind of had to estimate. But anyway. So you put it in and then you can put glitter – extra dry glitter in if you want. I put in, so I put in blue glitter glue. Then I put it in, like, iridescent glitter, so –
Iridescent things are cool.
Yeah. So it looks a little cloudy. That’s the only thing I’m not sure why it looks cloudy.
Because it’s settling.
No, but it was cloudy before.
Oh, it’s probably the glue or maybe…
It’s I think it’s clear. But anyway, um, so the other thing you want to do, um, if you make one for you know your backpack is get a little glue gun. Um, and, uh, I mean you could probably just use regular glue, but the hot glue will work better, and just hot glue around this, just to make sure that none of it leaks into, into your stuff.
Or you could just duct tape it like with FlexTape.
Alexa, stop.
Why did our –
Because you said “FLEX.”
I said, “FlexTape.”
Okay, well, anyway, you yelled it, that’s why. Anyway, um, so what, I put all this stuff in here which I think I didn’t need to do. So what I did then is I got I got this at the dollar store and I already had fuzzy fabric. I mean this is the – one of the things – that really –
She does a lot of, like, knitting sewing and crafts and stuff.
Yeah. Yup. Well I made a comfort box for someone for Christmas and so I bought this, this fuzzy – it’s hard to see I’m sure – but it’s this really fuzzy nice soft fabric with a little bit of glitter on it, but it costs very little. I mean I got this at, I think I got a Joann’s. It cost very little, I think I got like half a yard.
Joann’s is the superstore
Did you lose your ring again?
No, that’s, that’s the other one.
He lost the – okay. Um, anyway, so, and then what I did is I hot glued – you can see in the back probably, maybe, I hot glued the fabric on there. So that’s just something – I mean, I don’t know if this works for everyone, but for me, when I feel something nice and fuzzy that’s for me that’s very calming.
So, um, and then we have these little guys. There’s yours that you wanted. And I got these on eBay I got like 30 of them for a few bucks.
Thirty?
Yeah, well, they don’t cost much.
Wait, you got 30? You have ten times more than this.
Yeah but they’re not all of them are cute. Not all of them are.
Show me.
You can look at them later. Remember when we used to get stuff from Oriental Trading for your – I used to get favors from Oriental Trading Company for your birthday parties?
What?
I know. Remember those little erasers that were really popular?
Oh, my God, the ones that like came apart, the ones that were like little pandas. Oh my God.
Not just little pandas. Remember there were like desserts, things to eat.
Yeah, and primary school was lit when those came around everybody was like trading theirs.
Yeah, every year I was like, “Okay what is the popular thing? Because it changes so quickly – to get for party favors. Yes. Anyway. Did I give books one year? Yeah. That – when we did your Minecraft party at the climbing gym.
You don’t mention that.
OK, well –
That’s a, that’s a –
That was a long time ago.
That’s an event that should be lost in the sands of time.
This was a long time ago and I made a Minecraft cake, okay. Which, which, given my limited cake decorating schools I thought came out pretty – skills – I thought came out pretty well.
It did. And then last year you made a Homestuck cake.
I did. That wasn’t, that that was not a lot of effort.
No, but what – to my Homestuck fans –
Yes, Homestuck. Anyway, these things –
You need to read it.
I will. I’ll read it because you know I have so much free time. Um –
It’s only about eight thousand pages.
I started to – it was like a game. wasn’t it?
Wait, you started reading – Oh my God –
We’re digressing.
Oh, my God!
We’re digressing.
What have I done?
I did, I did, because you said I should read it.
Oh right, I forgot.
And then I got confused because it was like a game.
I’ll explain it to you later, Mother.
Anyway so, um, so these are very cute. I love the little unicorn and they’re smushy which is another sensory thing. And, it’s just –
And look at this lad with his stomach.
You’re going to screw up the focus. It won’t be able to – you can’t get too close.
Damn.
So, cute, very cute little cat. Anyway.
This cat is a lad.
You can’t stop smushing them, they’re just so cute.
Look at this boy. Look at this lad.
Little unicorn, just so cute.
This, this lad is amazing.
You can’t put it too far. It’ll get it out of focus.
Anyway. Now we have something else that’s that Lawrence – I got these in the, in the thing yesterday. Lawrence –
In the mail.
George’s father. My husband George. I mean George’s -Lawrence father George – my husband – liked these too. And Lawrence now has lost a couple of them.
I lost one.
Well, we know one is in the sofa somewhere. It’s okay, honey.
It’s gone.
Yeah. We’ll find it later. Anyway, these are – scoot back a little. These are, uh, now I forget – acupressure rings. Okay, so that’s what they look like. They’re really weird looking and I cannot tell you why- this was, so this is one of the things recommended for an anxiety care, self-care kit. I don’t know why, but all I can tell you is we really liked them.
So I think the basic concept of them is like, so, they’re –
Not too close.
Shush. Um, so they’re basically little metal rings which can be stretched, I mean, if –
Well, don’t stretch it too much.
– you have fat fingers, they.
It’s supposed to be tight, though.
If you have large fingers they like, expand and if you put them on –
You roll them up and down.
Yeah. Yeah they, um, they roll basically.
Yeah. And then it hits these acupressure points. You also can use them. I tried this. Now, of course, I can’t do it. You have a lot of acupressure points on your hands. It’s actually amazing. I was just telling Lawrence yesterday, my sister told me – now I can’t do it of course – that when you have a headache, like, you press this and it does – your headache goes away. The only problem is that your hand starts to hurt. But still it helps.
I genuinely have chronic headaches so this was actually probably a good idea for me.
Well, which could actually be from your anxiety.
Well then.
Too loud. Anyway so these, I didn’t, I think they come five, I looked on, I got these on Amazon.
Five of them for how much?
Like, twelve dollars?
That’s expensive.
Well yeah, but I don’t think you can make these, okay?
That’s probably the most expensive thing in the kit.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, maybe the book. But anyway. And it really isn’t, well the book is not really –
Part of it?
Yeah. Anyway. Um, so we don’t know why these feel really good.
Absolute lad.
OK. We don’t know why. But they feel good.
So it’s, um –
I’m actually going to, like, in the day that I’ve had them, I’m going to bring one to school because it’s actually –
Oh, but listen –
The warning –
Yeah.
Do not leave them on the same finger –
No.
For a long time in the same place, as your circulation –
I looked down, I looked down and my finger was purple.
Also, also good fidget toy for like, ADHD.
Yeah.
It gives you something to do with your hands.
Yeah. Anyway, so, uh, acupressure rings – really nice. And again, this is a sensory thing. Um, so, you – look, it already settled.
Gee you’re not doing it well enough you do this.
No, you know what it may have been? It may have been the powder from the iridescent glitter that made it cloudy. I don’t think it was cloudy before that. Anyway. But what does it matter?
Whatever.
As soon as you see it clear, you’re going to be, you know, futzing anyway. So. Okay, and the other thing besides the smushies…okay, so now, now this is, this is a – do you like lavender?
Sort of.
So this is called – I got this on Etsy. There are a ton of people who make these mixtures. You could do this yourself if you wanted to. Or, um, you could get, um, lavender is very common. some people don’t like the smell of it though, like my husband, my husband doesn’t. So some people just don’t like it. So I –
Are you just going to keep sniffing it the entire time?
So I love, well, I actually love this one. So, uh, I lost my train of thought.
Essential oils.
Anyway. So, um, so this is good. Again this is your senses but aromatherapy is really good for calming you down. So this one is called “Frazzled,” but again it’s just a mixture that someone made, I got it on Etsy. It’s um, clary sage, orange, geranium and lavender essential oils with a, what’s called a fixed oil, coconut oil. I have an extremely sensitive sense of smell. And unfortunately for the, for the bad stuff as well as the good. So I have stuff at my desk I always have stuff with me just in case there’s a bad smell that really is making my stomach upset. So, essential oils, very good, you should be able to find them a lot of different places. And then we have – now this I bought, but again, you can make it. The only thing that’s confusing is I saw different – this is called, well it’s called putty.
Thinking.
Thinking putty. But it’s, that’s, I think that’s a brand name.
One disclaimer. Make sure it doesn’t get everywhere or else –
It doesn’t but it can, what it can do, is it can get gunk stuck in it. So you don’t want –
Don’t, don’t, don’t put your head in it or else there’s going to be a lot of hair in there.
Don’t put your head in it?
I mean like don’t, don’t, don’t do this and just like smash it into your skull because then you’re going to get a lot of –
Well, and the other thing is – this is like Aaron, Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty. This wasn’t cheap but what I do like is the little tins. And this is also something you can get at the dollar store.
How much was it?
I, it was like 12 bucks for three or something?
Don’t put it in – that’s a waste of time.
Well I didn’t have time to make any. And the other thing was I found different recipes and like one of them was corn starch and body lotion, so –
What the Christ?
OK well the other ones were like flour, and flour and water and stuff. So I don’t know. I mean I think it’s something you have to experiment with and um – it is kind of mesmerizing a little. But anyway. The tins you can get probably at your dollar store, you can make up a batch of stuff. Obviously things like flour, corn starch, body lotion you probably have in your own house but this is again something sensory. It’s something you can push and as with as with a lot of the things that you use when you’re having an anxiety attack is it distracts you, for one thing and it’s a little mesmerizing.
Anyway. So those are-
Focus, mom, focus.
Yes I know. See but that’s what it’s for. So there are those. And then I also got this case to remind myself – I got this at the, at the Japanese dollar store too.
Daiso.
Daiso.
D-A-I-S-O. Good store.
Because I just wanted to show you can have one that’s a little less girly in case you don’t want one that’s girly
How is that girly?
This one is a little girly.
All right, maybe the little writing on the back but like –
Yeah. Okay, well anyway, I mean there are a lot of different things you could use. You can, you can use –
“Keep a simple life to let nature take her course.”
Yeah that’s like, that, it’s written in cursive. You may call it girly or whatever but, nice, nice bag. I like polka dots.
I like polka dots too.
Let’s say you didn’t want to do the fur thing. You could probably fit most of the things in here. Might be a little tight. But anyway, the reason I also got this is because a couple other things you want to have in your self-care kit are, are things that are printed out, okay? So things – literal instructions for you on how, for instance, to do the three minute breathing meditation and there are other exercises you can do to calm yourself down because the thing is if you’re getting close to an anxiety attack it’ll help if you have this stuff actually written down.
So that’s one thing that this is really good for. Keep the papers from getting crappy and also you can fit in, you could fit in the putty and, um –
You could pretty much fit in everything.
You could pretty much fit in everything as long as you don’t want to put the fabric in. So that one’s good.
I mean, you could – could you hot glue that?
Could I what?
Hot glue that.
Oh, you could. But then you won’t have enough room for stuff, probably. So if you could get one that was a little thicker than this. And then –
Thick?
This one is is better, will probably be better for the depression self-care kit than the anxiety one but, but it does have some good mindfulness activities that are good for anxiety.
So this is not a bad idea to carry it around with you again. It’s small, pretty unobtrusive, you know, not something that you’re probably going to get in trouble for taking it out –
Probably.
Probably. When you’re in school.
Um, yeah. Well, these are really cute.
They really are.
They are really cute.
They can probably get dirty pretty easily.
Um –
There’s a little bit on them already.
Yeah, maybe. You could probably rinse them off.
What kind of – how? How would you rinse them off?
Rinse them off with water.
Just normal water?
Yeah, yeah, sure why not?
I thought they would have a special care procedure.
These are, these are made of chemicals. These things will outlive all of us. Trust me they will. So. So, um, so, um, I think this –
This absolute lad of a cat is going to outlive me by like a hundred years.
Well it may. Um, anyway so those were our ideas.
Again, this is something to, to experiment with, find some ideas of your own.
You know, we ain’t entirely like – our ideas aren’t going to be like, completely helpful to you. They aren’t going to be like –
Well, uh –
No, that’s the wrong way to put it. They aren’t going to be, totally just, definitely be the exact things you need.
Right.
Yes, that’s the way to put it.
Yeah, the chances of this being your perfect self care to go kit are –
Unlikely.
Unlikely. Yeah but so, um. But I’m putting a lot of information in the description because again, this – not only because it’s pretty individualized, what’s going to work for you, so you need a lot of different ideas but also because the more information the better. So, um…I know it’s hard to keep your hands off them.
Anyway, so that’s that’s all for now on this topic I think. Um, and that kind of wraps up our mini, um, like mini little series on self care and mindfulness.
We’ll obviously be doing more later. But, um, I think probably next week we’re going to be doing a video on – either one or the other – how to find a good psychiatrist or how to find a good therapist if you’re a teen or a kid, because it’s, it’s harder than when you’re adult because you also have to get your your parents to be onboard and to listen to your opinion.
Anyway. So if you like this video and you thought it was helpful please give it like and please comment on any ideas that you have about things that you would put in your self-care to go kit. And subscribe if you want to see more videos on depression and anxiety especially for teens and, um, that’s all.
Thanks for watching.
Subscribe. Hit that MF Like.
So I wanted to talk also a little bit more about what people are peddling as far as self care on Instagram and YouTube. When I went to look for some more information about what to put in an anxiety self-care kit I found so many different articles that were basically one line, you know, they’d say “10 things you can put in your self care kit for anxiety.” It had like just write one line and then it would be linked to a product on Amazon, which they’re getting paid for.
I have no problem with people getting paid for affiliate links. What bothered me is that most of these hadn’t put any thought into this. And some of the items were absolutely ridiculous. One was a mug with an affirmation on it. I mean that’s just like, to me –
Stupid.
Yeah. That’s just scraping the bottom of the barrel. How much thought has been put into that?
Literally none. They just want to sell product so they can get some money.
Yeah I mean there were some other people had done well thought out articles with good information and it sounded like they actually really understood this – understood anxiety and they had affiliate links.
That’s totally different. But also it’s just like this whole self-care thing on Instagram where it’s #selfcarefacemask or you know $30 lip gloss because “you deserve it.” That’s not self care as we talked about before. Well that’s indulgence. There’s nothing wrong with indulgence but chances are it won’t do anything for you if you’re having an anxiety attack.