Managing Anxiety Throughout the Lockdown

We are now into our 6th week of 'self-isolation' due to COVID-19. In the previous blog, I gave some tips on how to maintain optimal mental health during this period. Today, I will focus specifically on anxiety.

What is Anxiety?

The NHS definition of anxiety is "a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear, that can be mild or severe."

We would have all felt some form of anxiety at stages in our lives with examples such as exam stress or university/job interviews. During these times, feeling anxious is quite normal and is our body's natural response to stressful situations.

Anxiety also features as one of the main symptoms for several conditions, including phobias and PTSD.

Symptoms of Anxiety

There are a number of symptoms associated with anxiety. Imagine you are exposed to your phobia. How would you feel?
For example - I have a fear of spiders. I am relaxing at home, and I see that there's a spider in my bedroom. What would my body's natural reaction be? I'm sure some of you may have been in this situation before.

Here are some of the things that may occur:

• increased heart rate
• rapid breathing
• restlessness
• trouble concentrating
• difficulty falling asleep

Anxiety and COVID-19

It is not uncommon for people to experience the above symptoms due to their thoughts. The main cause being stress, but we tend to call the causes 'triggers'. People have different 'triggers' that set off their anxiety. One of the main causes is negative thinking about past/present events, which if left untreated by the individual, can spiral out of control. This is why it is important to gain control of your mind by doing simple tasks (you can see those in the last section).

With all of us being forced to stay at home during the pandemic, it could lead to some symptoms of anxiety. The feeling of the unknown. Maybe watching too much media coverage about the situation and wondering when we will be allowed to visit our friends and family. Eventually, all of these things could lead to increased negative thoughts and anxiety.
However, we must begin to understand that these measures of self-isolation and social distancing are temporary. There will be a time when we can have our lives back. There will be a time when we can hang out with our friends. There will be a time when we can embrace our family members. There will be a time when we can go back to normality. That time is not now. Our actions of social distancing will help protect our loved ones who could be at a higher risk of dying.

I think this quote below from Jenni Young sums up our current situation:

Managing Anxiety During Self-Isolation

So, what can you do to manage your anxiety levels during this self-isolation period?
- Change your way of thinking. Stop telling yourself "Damn, I hate being stuck inside". Instead of this, focus on telling yourself "I finally have time to focus on myself".
- Stop obsessing over the media hype regarding COVID-19. Boring news does not sell newspapers - sensationalism does.
- Follow my tips from the previous blog post (maintaining optimal mental health).
- Find a new activity to focus your mind. It could be something as simple as cleaning the home or reading a book.

- If you start feeling that you are losing control of your anxiety - TAKE CONTROL! How? Stop what you are doing and control your breathing. Breathe in (count to 3) & breathe out (count to 3).
- Be kind to yourself. You are not weak!

Finally, my most important tip is to talk to someone. Realize that there is no need to suffer in silence. A problem shared is a problem halved. That person could be a family member, friend or teacher. Never underestimate the power of talking and sharing your problems with a trusted person.

"It will not last forever and better days are on the way."

Being Lucky - The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Today was the first day back for my Y13 Psychology students. I didn't want to overload them on their first day back, so we discussed the layout of the forthcoming year. One of the modules that they will study is criminology. We had a little discussion about it's definition and the work of criminal psychologists.

As part of the Edexcel syllabus, they must study about 'explanations of crime'. One of the explanations focuses on the self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a very interesting psychological phenomenon that occurs in everyday life. Instead of focusing on crime, we focused on the general idea of it and being lucky.
3/4 students believed in luck, whereas the remaining student believed in things happening due to their own independent efforts. I tried to suggest to the students that whilst it's OK to feel lucky, you are in control of your future (unless it is to do with winning the lottery - that we cannot control!!)

So... What is the self-fulfilling prophecy? 

"A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief that comes true because we are acting as if it is already true".

Another definition is - "a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behaviour." (Good Therapy, 2015)

There are several examples of using this in everyday life. One example I always use with the students relates to exam grades. If you study hard at home rather than playing video games - it's no surprise that you will score high grades. The same can be said for poor grades - poor attainment and attendance.

Another example would be in relationships. If a lady starts dating a man and believes that he is not 'marriage material', then she will take the relationship less seriously and try to limit the amount she invests in the relationship. Because of this lack of investment, the man may feel that she is distant and he probably won't stick around long.

Now on this concept of being lucky. 

If you have a good relationship with your partner - are you lucky?

If you score all A*s in your GCSE's - are you luck?

If you get that new job - are you lucky?

One could argue yes. However, for me, I will keep telling my students that if you believe, then you will achieve. Hard work and determination are the key ingredients that we all need for this forthcoming academic year to reach our goals. It's time to ensure all of our students develop this 'growth mindset' which drives motivation and achievement. Here is a link to Carol Dweck's synthesis of growth v fixed mindset.

Over the coming weeks, I will start to relate this to criminology for my students. Stay tuned!

Jigsaw Reading in Action

Jigsaw reading is an extremely effective activity to aid student cooperation, motivation and learning. It can be used primarily when the text may be quite challenging to understand as a whole. It is predominantly an ESL reading strategy but can be correctly implemented to other subjects. This is particularly relevant for me working in an international school where, for the majority of students, English is a second or even a third language. I discovered this strategy whilst studying for the CELTA qualification at Swansea University.

So, what is this strategy? It involves students reading a particular part of the text. This part of the text becomes their piece of the jigsaw. After reading and making notes, they will then share their findings with the other students in the class. The other student will listen, take notes and then share their findings from their part of the jigsaw. This is great for learners of all abilities and can be used as a group task or individual task depending on the number of students. Mengduo & Xiaoling (2010) report that the jigsaw technique is an effective way to promote student participation and enthusiasm as well as a useful method for language learners to accomplish learning tasks in the EFL classroom.


Implementing Jigsaw Reading Into Psychology

Today, students were looking at one of the many contemporary studies that they are required to learn for their Edexcel IAL Psychology examination. The study was conducted by Haun et al. (2014). It is quite a difficult text to understand, but jigsaw reading makes the students work as a team to understand the whole text. The main areas students should look at when understanding a study are:
Aims
Procedure
Results
Conclusion
Evaluation & Future Recommendations.

This worked great for me because I had precisely five students in my year 12 Psychology class. I gave the students 10 minutes to read over their part and make notes. Then they had to find another student to share each other's findings. This carried on until each student had visited every area that was required to be covered.
Eventually, students had a full set of notes on the study, and I asked them to read carefully over the notes, check if the information is correct, and whether they need to add or remove any other information. The full set of notes becomes the completed 'jigsaw puzzle'.
The students then report back to the teacher their findings. The teacher's role is to consolidate this information and see if there are any 'gaps' in their jigsaw.

Overall, I feel that this strategy is extremely effective for students of all abilities when reading a fairly long or complicated piece of text. It fosters peer collaboration and communication in the classroom and makes a challenging idea/topic seem less daunting.


* References provided through hyperlinks to the original document
** Links to my student's blogs are provided below

http://tashapsycheblog.blogspot.com/

http://yasminepsychologyial.blogspot.com/

https://natnichanickypsychologyial.blogspot.com/

https://isabellepsychologyial.blogspot.com/
https://veerphad.blogspot.com/

Thank you for reading.

A Real Life Example - Why Some People Decide Not to Help.

For this blog post, I thought I would focus on something that I witnessed recently and break it down with a psychological explanation. This will be useful for my Y12 students, who progress to Y13 next year when we study criminology.

So, during the Songkran break, I visited Phnom Penh in Cambodia for a few days. The country is still a little behind Thailand in developmental terms but, it is undoubtedly on the rise. New investments, new cars and high-rise buildings are now dominant, but the 'third-world' is still evident in some parts.

The topic of the blog reads 'Why Some People Decide Not to Help'. Here I will be discussing why some people decided not to help during the scenario.

The Situation
While walking down a busy street in Phnom Penh, I saw this incident which remained with me every day since I witnessed it. You may read through this and think, why didn't you help? It was around 7 PM, and the sunlight had faded. As I was walking down the street, I saw a man and a woman (who I presume were husband and wife) fighting in the street. Now, when I say fighting, I mean using their fists and kicking each other. They were in a brawl, and the man was punching the woman quite hard. The woman was also fighting back and 'gave as good as she got'. It was very distressing to see. But, what was even more worrying was the number of people watching and not doing anything! There was a crowd of around 10-15 people just standing, watching and not intervening.
Why did these people just watch? Also, Why did I not do anything? There are many reasons, including cultural and psychological.

The most straightforward explanation on a cultural level is purely due to being a foreigner. It is not my country and, if I did attempt to intervene, it would probably end badly for me. It is well-documented that if a foreigner intervenes, then numerous people would 'gang-up' on the foreigner. There were several tuk-tuk drivers and motorcycle taxi drivers watching and no doubt they would all get involved if I did.

Psychological Explanation

This is the 'bystander effect'. So, what is the bystander effect? "The bystander effect describes a phenomenon in which people are less likely to take action the larger the group is. In other words, if you were to witness someone being mugged down a dark alleyway, then you would be much more likely to intervene and help than if you were to see someone being mugged in a busy street in broad daylight."
This was developed from the Kitty Genovese murder in New York during the 1960's. She was stabbed to death outside her apartment. There were many witnesses, but nobody intervened. The psychologist's Latane and Darley reported that there is a 'diffusion of responsibility'. This means that when there are a number of people present, few of us feel the intense urge to act because we are not solely responsible for doing so. The idea here is that ‘someone else’ will say something, or ‘someone else’ will call the police. On the other hand, when we are on our own, we become the sole person capable of finding a solution, and so we feel the need to act.

So in this scenario of the man and the woman fighting on the street, while there might be a cultural explanation or 'family dispute', psychology would suggest the 'diffusion of responsibility'. That no one would get involved because of the number of people present, we would expect someone else to act first.

You can read more about the original study via this link.

There are also a number of videos on YouTube describing the bystander effect.

Psychology at IPS - An Introduction from Teacher Dom

Welcome to my first post. I will aim to write a post once a week, time permitting. I will also publish links to my Y12 Psychology blogs. My blog will feature mainly psychological concepts but I may occasionally post some personal experiences, so please follow our adventure.

This week my Y12 students had an introduction to Freud's Psychodynamic Theory. It is a theory that has caused considerable debate among academics. Freud almost 'sexualises' concepts from the early years, and I do apologise to my Y12s about this.

They have created a blog on the topic covered this week. In particular, the psychosexual stages and the case study of Little Hans. I also gave them a topic to debate about whether behaviourism or psychodynamic theory provides the best explanation of behaviour. It was interesting to read their responses, and the majority focused on behaviourism due to it's more scientific nature when compared with psychodynamic theory. However, I was also intrigued by one student who suggested that the psychodynamic theory provides a better explanation because it consists of nature AND nurture.


I have advised my students that their blogs should not be 'textbook' notes, but in fact, they are encouraged to include their own opinions/ideas where necessary to demonstrate understanding. It's mainly informal, and for their revision so I only check their blogs regarding content, structure and ideas. They may have exam questions to answer which I will give detailed verbal/written feedback so that they can fix it.
You can read their blogs below:

http://tashapsycheblog.blogspot.com/

http://yasminepsychologyial.blogspot.com/2018/03/yasmine-i.html

https://natnichanickypsychologyial.blogspot.com/

https://isabellepsychologyial.blogspot.com/

I encourage my students to become critical thinkers, and this is one way of achieving the goal. I like this quote from Steven C Reinhart - "A good teacher has changed from 'the one who explains things so well that students understand' to 'one who gets students to explain things so well that they can be understood'.
I use this concept throughout my teaching. An idea that I used with my Y7 English class is to 'explain to an alien'. I will take the role of an alien during class and ask them to explain concepts to this creature in a simple form. This encourages speaking skills and critical thinking, which is of great significance to our international students. This tip was shared with me by a tutor on my PGCE called Sara Davies. I loved this AoL strategy when it was introduced to me and will continue to use it throughout my teaching career.



I hope you follow my students blogs throughout the year as they prepare for their 'Edexcel International A-Level' in Psychology.