I’m going to say something conversional now, I will get
comments and dislikes. People may question whether I know my stuff, but the
simple fact is, in my opinion, mindfulness is not an effective enough
therapeutic intervention for children and adolescents. The therapeutic benefit
of mindfulness is hard to dispute…for adults. It is great for the people that
have practised it and managed to maintain it in everyday life, but I see a lot
of young people that say it’s hard to get used to and doesn’t work.
It doesn’t help that mindfulness has been sold as a
‘treatment’ for anxiety, you’re going to become the non-anxious and chilled
person you see on travel adverts. The truth is that you will be able to ‘manage’
your anxiety with this practice.
Mindfulness is being in the present moment, paying
attention with the senses to the present thing we are experiencing. It is
calming and restorative, but it takes practice and feels very opposite to the
churning bodily responses we have when experiencing anxiety.
I was doubtful
that this intervention was the right one for children and teenagers before I
heard reports from my clients that they didn’t find it effective. I was
absolutely certain that school was not the place to expect young minds to adopt
it on mass. What I am saying is that it will be effective if it can be successfully
practised, of course young people will benefit. However it is a hard thing for
children and adolescents to grasp.
A report by the Campbell Collaboration which can be read
here https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mindfulness-lessons-can-harmchildren-6n82276vs
Suggests that
Children and adolescents
may not be developmentally ready for the complex cognitive tasks, focus and
level of awareness that mindfulness-based interventions require,” it added.
The analysis, by four
academics, reviewed 61 studies of mindfulness in North America, Asia and
Europe. It concluded: “We know little about the costs and adverse effects of
school-based mindfulness interventions. The costs of implementing these
programmes may not be justified and there are some indications that
mindfulness-based interventions may have some adverse effects on children and
youth — however, these have not been adequately examined.”
The article below argues the case for not using mindfulness with
traumatised clients, which begs the question… how is it possible for school
staff to detect and understand which ones of their pupils have experienced
developmental trauma? In simple terms, they can’t know with any certainty.
So, I thought it may be worth discussing in this blog the
very concrete things we could do to help reduce our anxiety intensity level, before
we try and adopt the harder things mentioned in last weeks blog.
Ask your
teenager to read and follow these things to take the edge off their anxiety. These
are the first things I address with my teenage clients when they are suffering
with increasing anxiety.
Sleep – I have written about this
in an individual blog here, take a read, the statistics are unsettling https://helenharveycounselling.blogspot.com/2017/08/lets-talk-about-sleep-teenagers-and.html
The essence of the blog is that lack of sleep contributes
to poor mental health in a big way, it increases our feeling of sadness and
anxiety.
Researchers have found that the relationship between sleep problems
and anxiety is bidirectional. This means that sleep problems can cause anxiety,
and anxiety can disrupt your sleep. … Treating sleep problems without taking
steps to manage anxiety and reduce stress is unlikely to have any real impact.
So how can teenagers get better sleep?
People report watching ASMR (Autonomous sensory meridian
response) helps to regulate the nervous system and prepares them for sleep.
Teenagers either really love it or really don't like it. It may be worth a try.
- · Bath 1 hour before bed
- · Read Harry Potter or similar book that your teenager used to love, but is now “not cool”. Could be read for half an hour, this brings comfort.
- · Watching horrible histories is a popular one with my clients, it is light hearted and easy viewing.
- · Last digital interaction an hour and a half before planned sleep time
- · No phones, tablets, ticking clocks or tv in the bedroom
- · No performing difficult mental work before bedtime
- · No watching the news (more on this later)
· If
your teenager naps at the weekend NO MORE THAN 40 mins (anything more is
disrupting your sleep pattern)
· If
they experience waking in the night, then they can listen on audiobook (no
phones… so needs to be cd Walkman) something like Wind in the Willows or Danny
the Champion of the World. Simple stories that involve nature with nature
sounds.
· You
can let your teenager catch up on sleep during the weekend morning, but only 2
hours more than normal school waking time
Being less informed – Tune out to the daily news.
Do you need to know how it feels to smell burning flesh from
a volcano disaster in Indonesia, told you by an outside broadcast reporter in
great detail from sky news…no!
You can
empathise with it, just by knowing about it. Nothing they will report will prepare you in case it happens to you.
Its sensationalist and high drama and it is now piped out 24 hours a day… do
your anxiety a favour and tell yourself and other people that you don’t tune
into the news.
Most people who experience anxiety have an exaggerated threat appraisal and the news reinforces and contributes to this.
Exercise- I nearly dare not
mention this one, as people suffering with anxiety get tired of hearing about
exercise and endorphins, but it is about more than endorphins, it is about
expelling the excess adrenalin being dumped into your body by the fight or
flight response you get with anxiety. Teenagers can get exercise in all sorts
of ways.
· Biking
to friends
· Walking
to the shop to get you some milk
· Hoovering
the car (a bribe will be required from parents)
· Teaching
younger siblings to play cricket, rounders, pogo stick (a bribe will be
required from parents)
· Going
on the scooter
· A
walk to go geocaching (it a worldwide treasure hunt that is internet
interactive which you can get on your phone for coordinates)
Put simply… do less exercise and your mood will decline, your
anxiety will rise,you will feel less in the mood to exercise and more like a
jittery sparrow who jumps when the phone rings.
It is
interesting to note that outdoor swimming helps with anxiety as immersing
ourselves in cold water more than four times acclimatises our stress response in
different situations and seems to make our anxiety symptoms more manageable. It
also tires the body naturally which aids sleep. I can personally vouch for
this. I swim all year round outdoors and it manages my mood and contributes to
my wellbeing. Work on these this week and then we will
address the self-talk on next weeks blog.
If you have found this blog informative, please subscribe,
like and share the original post on Facebook.
The above things are some of the content of a first
session, that is absolutely important to discuss before we work on negative
self-talk, mistaken beliefs etc.
Comments
Post a Comment