Anxiety – The drain on teenager’s happiness and well- being, here are some practical tips!

Anxiety – The drain on teenager’s happiness and well- being, here are some practical tips!

I recently read that anxiety is experienced when there is a fear of a particular outcome and you feel you will be unable to cope with that outcome. This is true in part I suppose for adults experiencing intermittent anxiety, but for teenagers I have worked with, the feeling is different. For teenager’s suffering with anxiety it is a baseline feeling, it infuses every waking hour (sleeping is an escape).

It is the feeling that your lungs are never really full when you take that deep breath.  

It is the feeling of never being fully relaxed when out and about and you just want the time to pass to be home and to lie on your bedroom floor.

It is the dread of somebody starting to tell you a funny story that you can’t concentrate on because your heart is beating out of your chest and it’s enough to think about coping and nothing is funny anyway.  

It is the thing that makes everything hard work, miserable, it makes you avoid things you used to enjoy and you resent it for that and it makes you angry, but that makes you anxious again.

There are some practical things that you can do to dampen down that anxious state. I’m not going to talk about grounding and breathing techniques (both probably need an adult to introduce and guide you through these coping strategies)

Instead I am going to talk about activities that make your front brain (prefrontal cortex) come ‘online’ and take the strength away from the amygdala (emotional brain) which is the part of the brain that is activating the fight or flight response and is pumping huge amounts of adrenalin into your body that is going unused. We will talk about this unused adrenalin later on.

Sleep is one of the most important resources when managing anxiety, lack of sleep can severely impact the way we feel and our ability to manage ‘well enough’ when we start to feel anxious. Ideally you are looking to get to sleep by 11.30 and sleep till 7.30… I know what you’re going to say, ‘I can’t get to sleep because of anxiety’ and we will also get to that in a minute.

So, things that get the pre-frontal cortex on line have to be neutral enough in emotion (don’t get the amygdala going) but interesting enough to engage you cognitively, keep you interested without rousing emotion. Such as

§  You tube:  bird watching, birds nesting, springwatch, Osprey videos, Blue Planet programme

§  A popular one that works well is an episode of The Simpsons, totally unrelated to real life, funny and off the wall. Doesn’t take itself too seriously and gives a break from serious stuff for a while. Trust me it works!

§  Radio 4 extra, you can choose a topic that slightly interests you, yes, I know radio 4 is boring and for old folk but it’s good for the early hours when you can’t get back to sleep for a while.

§  You tube: Search ‘the most satisfying video ever’ mix ups of things being created or destructed in a clever slow-motion way.

§  Wind in the willows on audiobook

Lastly, when we are anxious are bodies are readied for action by the fight or flight response which pumps our bodies with adrenalin that we don’t discharge. Exercise is a way to rid the body of that adrenalin, settling down the response systems, allowing us to feel less jittery and calmer. Please remember that is needs to be the kind of exercise that gets you out of breath and a bit sweaty.

And a note for girls, keep the dates of your menstrual cycle on a calendar or diary, anxiety peaks around 5 days before your period and if you do this you will know the reason for the panicky anxious feeling.

If you have found this blog useful, please subscribe by entering your email address and also share it with friends.