4 Types of Bullying and A Way to Stop it

Type of Bullying #1: Verbal Bullying

Verbal bullying can include teasing, inappropriate comments, name calling, threats and even offensive hand gestures. Any of these acts in written form also constitute verbal bullying.

Such bullying can lead to psychological harm for students, such as lower self-esteem, anxiety or depression.

Type of Bullying #2: Social Bullying

Social bullying can include intentionally leaving someone out of activities, excluding them from lunch tables or other groups, telling other children not to be friends with someone, embarrassing someone in public and rumor-spreading.

This type of bullying can have the same psychological effects as verbal bullying but is more likely to lead to isolation and other anti-social behavior. Parents.com says this type of bullying is more common among female students.

Type of Bullying #3: Physical Bullying

Physical bullying includes hitting, kicking, spitting, pushing and stealing or breaking someone’s belongings.

Victims of this bullying may have cuts, bruises, damaged belongings or clothes, headaches or stomach aches.

Type of Bullying #4: Cyber bullying

This emerging form of bullying includes many of the same behaviors as social and verbal bullying, only they take place online. There are countless ways that students can communicate these days, but social media has made it easier to target individuals and publish threatening, hurtful or offensive information about someone.

Victims of cyber bullying will exhibit similar behaviors to victims of social or verbal bullying, but it may be joined by a dramatic change in their use of social media and other online channels.

Ways to Combat All Types of Bullying

Authority figures, including parents and teachers, can encourage students to report bullying whenever they see it, whether its directed at them or another person. Anonymous tip lines can be a great way to encourage reporting, without your child feeling as though they will be more harshly persecuted by the bully.

Giving students anti-bullying training is also a good way to stop bullying. I offer a talk that I can come to your child's school to address bullying. Its been researched and found that students given anti-bullying training make a bigger different curbing bullying than teachers or school staff members.

Adults should never tell a student to simply ignore bullying or to fight back. Even though this feels like sound advice, often times the situation can get worse if this is the action the child/student takes. Similarly, if an authority figure speaks to a bully once and forgets the matter it will likely do little to solve the problem. Consistent intervention and support is best when trying to handle matters such as chronic bullying. 

If you have concerns that need to be addressed with the school, advocate for your child/student, if you need outside support in this ask for a student advocate, call a therapist, or programs like ARC that are in the community. 

Media Bombards Us All the Time

I have heard the word "slim" and "lean" replace the word "thin" or "skinny" recently, in an effort to be more, what? In my opinion stating words the represent a body size other that what the reader is can alter the way an individual feels about their own body. These "diets" of eat as much as you want and stay slim.... well isn't that a wonder plan, just like every other diet that ever existed. All of that language and thought process still can lead anyone to a dangerous mind set where their focus is on the size of their body, not the health of their body. 

I recently even saw a yoga teach post on Facebook about the joys of "allowing herself to eat a fruit bowl", ummm excuse me? Why do we need to have these rules where we "allow" ourselves to enjoy something?! Its food, its purpose isn't to be moral, or good and bad, or off limits. Having this mentality enables the relationship we have with food have so much power over our mindset.

What happened to when we were all toddlers and we ate intuitively what and how much our body was asking for? When eating till were was satisfied was exactly what we needed, and eating fruit was a necessity not a privilege we allow ourselves. After all we do live in a country and a world where people cannot always have access to the foods they need to survive, so why are we denying ourselves from what we need, if many of us middle class Americans can eat what we need to be healthy almost everyday. 

At times I think about how other countries and people look at us, having this estranged relationship with food when we have so much access to it. So I'm just asking every individual that the next time they label a food, remember that your thoughts and feelings about that food, isn't necessary a "fact", its just what we have told ourselves about it. Start to be curious about those thoughts and feelings, and figure out what you truly believe for you start putting labels on things. 

Okay, end of rant. 

"Should I just tell myself to 'THINK POSITIVE'?"

Before I go into this post, I want to be clear that there is nothing actually "wrong" or "incorrect" about thinking positive. In fact, honestly think telling yourself positive things can help you turn around your mood, if said repeatedly and mindfully.

However "should-ing" yourself is the first red-flag that its not going to be very a very effective practice, second of all thinking positively isn't the only way to feel positive. In fact, removing judgment from our thoughts and our language can be even more beneficial in many way. The labeling of positive and negative, can get anyone into a trouble/moral dilemma and stuck in "black and white thinking.  

By having attachments to the outcomes of events and situations we are in, it can take us away from the purpose of the lesson from the event and the event in it self. Blocking us from feeling our feelings, since we may try to demand ourselves to see it "up-side". So take a deep breath and feel your feelings.

I do believe that speaking to yourself with affirmations, that speak abundance and health into our life is one of the best "positive thinking" that can be done by any individual daily. In other words, there is no way to "make it all better with a positive thought", its more about creating a mindset of abundance and to move cultivating a midset that is moving you closer to the things you want in your life.

Yogic Breath Can Health Relieve Depression

If you've ever been in a yoga class, they most likely cued you to focus on your breath, this is done not only to make sure you're getting oxygen in your body, but also to increase mindfulness. In addition, the practice of deep breathing stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), responsible for activities that occur when our body is at rest. It functions in opposite to the sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates activities associated with the flight-or-fight response. In other words, breathing deeply/using yogic breath signals your nervous system (including your BRAIN) to relax and rest.

By making the choice to voluntarily change the rate, depth, and pattern of our breathing, we can change the messages being sent from the body’s respiratory system to the brain. These messages from the respiratory system have a rapid, powerful effects on major brain centers involved in thought, emotion, and behavior.

Here are three ways to practice yogic/deep breathing to help relieve depression:

Coherent Breathing

This breath is achieved by counting to five inhaling and count to five exhaling. These five-minute rate breathing maximizes the heart rate variability (HRV), a measurement of how well the parasympathetic nervous system is working.  The higher the HRV the better because a higher HRV is associated with a healthier cardiovascular system and a stronger stress-response system.

Resistance Breathing

Resistance breathing is exactly what its name suggests: breathing that creates resistance to the flow of air.  So, simply breathe out of our nose, to create more resistance than breathing through the mouth. and Inhale deeply and slowly in this way.

Breath Moving

An example of Breath Moving is as follows:

As you breathe in, imagine you are moving your breath to the top of your head. As you breathe out, imagine you are moving your breath to the base of your spine, your perineum, your sit bones. Each time you breathe in, move the breath to the top of the head. Each time you breathe out, move the breath to the base of the spine. Breathe in this circuit for ten cycles.

Try it out for 5-10 minutes a day and record your results each day, to see if you are making any progress.

How To Create A Healthy Positive Body Image

One of the missions I have in life is to help encourage people create a healthy, positive body image. The first step to this mission, is to practice myself, the second is to educate, and finally help emotional healing to occur.

So, I've done work on myself with therapist and will continue to allow my journey and story to evolve. With this practice of self-love I continuly propel myself to be in means slowing down, eating a balanced diet and practicing yoga. Today I want to address how helpful it can be to your mental health and body image, to create and cultivate a yoga practice.

Yoga And You

Find a teacher and a space to do yoga where diversity and inclusion is celebrated. Stay focused on what makes your body feel good. There are classes where having a certain body, or "nailing" the pose isn't the point of the class, those are the classes I encourage you to find. It may take a few times, but I know they are out there.

One of the first tenants of yoga is ahimsa (nonviolence)—do no harm to yourself or others. The media often is creating unrealistic images of beauty that is harmful to you. Therefore, it’s up to you to set those images aside, love yourself and be kind to yourself. You are beautiful as you are.

In your physical asana practice, focus more on what you can do and less on trying to be perfect at it. Mainstream media will continue to post picture perfect images, but I encourage you to change the esthetic and broaden the idea of what yoga looks like. There are entire organizations calling for yoga to be more about the practice and less about the body. In addition here in Denver there are even instructors that focus on being diverse, such as big booty yoga. I encourage you to post pictures of yourself doing your poses, to help break down what others believe about body image and yoga, as well as to celebrate you just doing you!