Protecting Your Peace

Hands On Your Health • July 15, 2026

Being a teen in 2026 can frequently feel vulnerable, chaotic, and out of control. What can you control? It may include how much you hydrate, what you choose to consume on social media, who you have relationships with, or even the color of your hair or nails. In a world when lots of things impact how we do and don’t feel about ourselves, “Protecting your Peace” has become a significant and even trendy coping mechanism. The idea of Protecting your Peace has reemerged as self-care, self-preservation, and also self-defense. Many teenagers have access to social media and technology 24/7. This accessibility is often a gateway to new thoughts, music, the latest fashion trends, and even mental health care buzzwords. Social media can often normalize big feelings, such as toxic relationships. Anxiety or Attention Deficit Disorder. It can provide a comfortable space to explore emotions and even provides a platform to remove stigma associated with mental health. Unfortunately, with the highs, there are also the risks of many lows. Social media also has the power to enable isolation and loneliness, which can increase worry, sleep disturbance, as well as other potentially dangerous symptoms. Social media should never replace mental health professionals such as a licensed clinician, school counselor, or Social Worker. Learning HOW to set boundaries is as important as understanding WHY they need to be set. This is the way we learn what our personal limits are. We can be accountable to ourselves and others and still maintain our boundaries rather than use them as excuses. Boundaries are set to help keep us both emotionally and physically safe. It is ok for your personal boundaries to evolve, change, and grow/mature as you do. It’s ok to ask yourself why we don’t want to do things or engage in certain relationships. Check in with yourself? Am I protecting my peace? Am I making excuses? Am I hurting someone else? Using the HALT model can be helpful in exploring boundaries. Am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? What behavior or actions can I shift in order to be sure I’m not going too far out of bounds? Self-care can also include caring for others. Healthy self-care practices include nurturing yourself and your relationships. In the name of self-care, it’s important to remain as compassionate and empathetic to others as we are to ourselves. Modeling healthy boundaries in your relationships will help you weed out toxicity and grow into the ones that are important to flourish. Your peace might look very different from your bestie’s, and that is totally ok! Sometimes we have to have hard conversations, but those are the ones that teach us resilience, patience, and love for ourselves and our friends, romantic partners, and family. Frequently, I ask my teen clients, if they were a plant, what would their care instructions be? Plenty of sleep? Exercise? Quality time with friends? Being outside? The sky is the limit.


These ABC’s are an easy tool to help teens (and adults) practice “Protecting your Peace”. A - Advocate! Use your voice, be ok with saying no. Make yourself and the people you care about a priority. B - Breathe! Am I ok? Are they ok? Do I need a minute? What do I need in this moment to feel safe? C - Communicate! Practice expressing your needs confidently. 

Hands On Your Health Blog

Kindness lavender flowers

A Little Kindness Goes A Long Way

By Hands On Your Health • March 3, 2024
Kindness, it is not only good for the soul, but it is easy on the budget. Did you know that the easiest and cheapest way to get a good old fashioned dopamine hit is by smiling. One of the many roles Dopamine plays is to provide pleasurable reward, motivation and mood. Both giving and receiving a big grin can impact the mind and the body in a positive way. The best thing about a smile is that it costs you nothing! Thinking about integrating a bit more joy into your day? There are lots of creative and inexpensive ways to be kind. 1.Hand write a letter or a card to someone you have been thinking about. There is joy in sending and receiving good old snail mail. 2. Pay it forward! Have a few extra dollars to spend? Buy the person in line behind you at the coffee shop a beverage or perhaps the next time you are at the grocery store purchase a small bouquet of flowers for the cashier you see regularly. There is great joy in a simple random act of kindness. 3. Pay someone a compliment, especially one that is unexpected. 4. Hold the door open for a stranger. So often we are in a hurry that we forget that small gestures have a large impact. 5. Pick up some trash in your neighborhood. The earth needs kindness too. 6. Have some extra time in your schedule? Volunteer! Investing in what you are passionate about is an investment in your community. 7. Enjoy cooking? Offer to make a meal for a friend or neighbor. The benefits are two-fold and life is what you bake of it! 8. Donate to a charity you care about. For an extra dash of kindness, make the donation in the name of a friend or loved one. 9. Read a good book, or listen to a podcast. It is important to be kind to your mind. 10. Last but not least, one of the greatest acts of kindness is to be kind to yourself. Decide what self-care looks and feels like to you and make yourself a priority.

Sunday Scaries

By Hands On Your Health • December 29, 2023
Ever get the Back to Work Blues? That anticipatory dread that keeps you up on Sunday night? According to LinkedIN Eighty percent of American professionals report experiencing some version of the Sunday Scaries, including over Ninety percent of Millennials and Gen Z’s. Not feeling very grounded or present in your busy day to day life, you may be more likely to become dis-regulated as you prepare for the upcoming week. Multi-tasking? Too much on your plate? A poor self-care routine? These are all putting our society at a greater risk of trying to pour from the proverbial empty cup. No one feels prepared to tackle the challenges of the upcoming week if there is a hole in their cup. It’s important to navigate these feelings all week long in order to avoid the anticipatory dread that starts to creep up midway through the coveted weekend. Plan ahead. Be prepared. Create a personalized Toolbox that you can use to stay grounded every day. Common elements of the Toolbox include proper sleep hygiene, hydration and nutrition. These are things we frequently have control of. If you are not sleeping for example, it becomes difficult to function cognitively, which as a result increases anxiety and as a result the now common Sunday Scaries. Stay mindful and present on Sunday. Take a walk. Movement keeps us present. Call a friend. Connection keeps us present. Take notes. A To Do list keeps us present. Whatever Self Care looks like to you is Self Care. It is difficult to be anxious about tomorrow if you are intentional about today.

ABC’s of Self Care - Why YOU Matter!

By Hands On Your Health • July 12, 2023
Sometimes it’s okay to be selfish. Really, it’s okay. In fact it’s totally necessary. Feeling drained, fatigued or just simply out of sorts? It is time to put a simple mantra of self care in place. It’s so simple I call it the ABC’S of Self Care. A. Ask yourself what you want you can do to take care of yourself. B. Breathe... It is free and when you focus on your breath you naturally focus on yourself. C. Care for your number one. That’s you! The hardest part is making it part of your daily routine. Self care is as simple and as critical as brushing your teeth every day. So, before or after you brush your teeth set aside some “me” time. Maybe it’s heading to the gym, a few minutes of mediation or drinking a cup of coffee. Be kind to yourself and I guarantee you will reap the benefits. We often lead busy lifestyles. We take care of our homes, vehicles, our relationships. Invest in yourself. Take a time out, your mind and body, which operate in tandem will thank you for keeping them aligned. And, guess who gets to determine what your self care looks like? Yourself! Want to know the benefits of self care? These are just a few to get you jumpstarted! Consider it emotional hygiene. Sleep, nutrition, exercise. They are all easy to neglect. Prevent burnout, boost your immune system and if you feel better you will be more productive and who doesn’t want to me more productive? Make figuring out what self care is best for you, part of your self care. That’s the great thing about it, it can be whatever makes you feel good. Take the time to nurture yourself and you will be better able to nurture those you surround yourself with. If nothing else, set aside some time to have fun, which is proven to reduce stress, increases the mind/body connection AND makes your mind and body feel better!  So, make some free time and repeat “Me, Me, Me.” It is time to take care of you and it’s as easy as ABC.