Teens can burn out and become exhausted. Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Why Teens Burnout
If a teen has too many responsibilities, it’s only a matter of time before they experience teen burnout. It’s important to push your teenager, but how far should you go when doing this?
Things that Cause Teens to Burnout
1. Overscheduling 2. Too many advanced classes 3. Obsessive screen time (wasting time on social media addiction) 4. Overtraining in sports
Why Do I Push My Teen?
In the bottom of their heart, your teen knows how deeply you love them. They understand that you push them to go above and beyond for a reason. You want them to be able to seize every opportunity that comes their way and do well in life. These motivations, while good-intentioned, can sometimes lead to teen burnout.
How Much is too Much?
However, teens can only handle so much before it starts to burn them out. As you know, it’s easy to start making constant commitments and keep your adolescent in lots of different extra-curricular activities. These commitments are important, but are they so important that they come at the expense of your teen feeling tired and burned out?
Teens that Burn Themselves Out
Then again, some teens put too much pressure on themselves. Mabye your child wants to take another AP class, play another sport, or join another club. In this case, it’s up to you to say no sometimes. Even though what your teen wants to get involved in are all good things, you have to help them stay balanced. This is one great way to avoid teen burnout.
Growing with Your Teen
Teenagers are still children. They are becoming adults, but they are still young. They need time to play, rest, socialize, and regroup. If we allow or require teens to be overly busy, they’ll burn out. The great thing about removing some of the demands placed on your kids is that you will have more opportunity to spend time with them. They’re about to launch into their own life. With you transitioning more and more into the role of a guide, they will feel safe to explore. Eventually they will really appreciate you for it.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
For those of you who cannot seem to focus on your homework, this is the right article for you. Here you will find five tips to have better study habits.
First of all, I understand that studying is usually boring. Why are assignments given that seem so irrelevant to the rest of your life? Unless you’re planning to be a biologist, you probably don’t care about how a frog reproduces, or how mitochondria are involved in cellular energy. You’d definitely rather come home and watch TV, play a sport, eat, nap, or really do anything else besides sit down and study.
Questions you May Have About Studying
How do I move past this hatred of my homework?
How do I motivate myself to complete assignments?
Why is it so much harder for me to study than for some kids?
5 Tips for Better Study Habits
1. Don’t Allow Yourself the Option of Not Finishing Your Homework
Don’t get half-way through your homework and put it off for later. It’s like when your mom asks you to do the dishes; she wants you to clean all of them, not leave it half-done.
2. Work intensely for a short amount of time, then take a break
It is up to you how long you think your study to free time ratio should be, but there should always be one. Here’s an example: When I was 20 years old, I had a college class that required a lot of studying. I did not enjoy it and struggled to get the work done. I finally decided to work intensely for 50 minutes with no distractions and then take a 10-minute break. For teenagers who are younger I recommend 15 minutes of intense studying with a 5-minute break, but it varies from person to person.
3. Change it up
If you are partway through an assignment and it is too tedious to complete, work on something else. As long as you’re still working, you’re still progressing towards finishing your homework. This makes for a good study habit.
4. Don’t try to be perfect
Some teenagers never start their homework because they are determined to do it perfectly, which is overwhelming. You are much better off getting a 60% on an assignment than a 0%. When you’re working on an assignment, just push through to the end even if it’s not your best work. You can always make corrections later.
5. Provide yourself with boring alternatives
For example, if you have an essay to write, give yourself the option of either working on your essay or cleaning the bathroom. When you get desperate for a break, you’ll go clean the bathroom. However, you’ll quickly tire of cleaning and prefer to get back to your essay.
Using Better Study Habits to Win
See if any of these things help you. Of course, these tips will only help if you really want to do better in school. You have to seriously commit to improving and then, and only then, will these study habits help you. However, once you do, having better study habits will help you for the rest of your life.
Muhammad Ali, a famous boxer, said, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'” Struggle through your homework and you will go on to win. Better study habits are one step in the road to success.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Too much screen time leads to exhausted teens. Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Why Teen Sleep Is Affected By Screens
Is your teenager’s sleep affected by screen time? How about your sleep? The sad fact is all of us are sleeping less. There are increasing percentages of teens who get insufficient sleep. In theory, a lot of researchers believe screens affect teen sleep.
As you’ve probably already suspected, if your teenager is on a tablet, smartphone, game console, watching TV, etc., they are not sleeping as much. Teens need roughly nine hours per night of sleep. However, the majority of teens are getting up to seven hours per night of sleep.
There are several suspected reasons for this. One obvious reason is the dopamine (a pleasurable neurotransmitter in the brain) provided by interaction with the internet, smartphones, and laptops. The other is that sleep quality is often poorer in people who spend a lot of time on screens. The brain remains very active, which disrupts the body’s natural process of winding down. In other words, there are many reasons teen sleep is affected by screens.
Indirect Ways Screens Affect Teen Sleep
One thing I know you’ve noticed is how much more sedentary our culture is than it was 20 years ago. It doesn’t take a genius to know this is because screens provide so much entertainment and distraction. What teenager wants to go walk the dog with you when watching YouTube provides so much more dopamine?
So, how does this pertain to your teenager’s sleep? There’s a decent chance your teen isn’t wearing out their body during the day. I grew up during the advent of cell phones, but before smartphones. We used to either play sports after school or go to a park. The boys usually skated or threw a football. The girls either walked around or joined them.
Basically, a tired body means better and more sleep. Screens are preventing your teenager from the physical exhaustion that leads to solid sleep. Sure, your teen might be “tired,” but it’s the kind of tiredness that comes from exasperated boredom. So yes, teens are also indirectly affecting teen sleep.
What Should You Do About It?
I empathize with you for how difficult it is today to keep a kid off screens. They factor in literally every aspect of life. Your child cannot even do homework without screens. Simultaneously, your teen’s sleep will continue to be negatively affected by screens. What do you do?
Setting Priorities With Screens for Better Health
As a therapist, I believe you must see getting enough sleep as non-negotiable. There are certain things we do to ensure good health in our teens. As a culture, we consistently underestimate the importance of sleep. When screens affect teen sleep, we are effectively allowing lowered immunity, decreased focus, reduced cell repair, increased likelihood of excessive appetite, a more stagnant body, etc.
When you consider all that it costs your teen to allow screens to affect their sleep, it becomes nearly the top priority in a day that they sleep enough. Your attitude towards sleep needs to supersede exercise, healthy eating, and all the other little ways our culture tells us to worry about health.
When you do this, you will become stronger in policing your teen’s use of screens related to sleep. You will value sleep above the competitive edge your child may gain by taking one more AP class. You will create a family culture where all of you get 1-2 more hours of sleep each night.
Basically, you will enforce a bedtime…for EVERYONE…
How Will Controlling Screens Improve Our Lives?
There are all the obvious reasons we all talk about: less drama, less intellectual “junk food” entering the brain, less influence from thoughtless soundbites, more connection among family members, and more pursuit of real-life hobbies.
Then there are the less obvious things. You yourself will find you actually have MORE time. You will have a higher energy level, which results in a better mood, better focus, and a healthier body. According to the University of Chicago, the average adult who started getting enough sleep lost 26 pounds over 3 years without even trying. So please recognize how little benefit you’re getting out of the massive effort you make to “eat clean,” or follow a strict exercise regimen when compared to the health benefits of just sleeping more.
Final Thoughts on Teen Sleep and Screens
Parents, now you have an excuse to police your children’s use of electronics. It’s truly unhealthy for your teens to use screens for more than a couple hours per day. If your adolescent sleeps about 9 hours, they will have better immunity, learn more easily, are less prone to depression, will be nicer to you, have more friends, and have more energy. Maybe this is why so many parents tell me their teens became much nicer after losing their phone for a couple days.
I’m not against electronics. I use a smart phone, I’m typing this blog on a laptop, and I watch TV sometimes. However, like all things, moderation is key. Your teens need to sleep about 9 hours per night. Do you think they could sleep more if they didn’t use their phones as much? I think so.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Test anxiety can make a person miserable. Photo Credit: nenetus via freedigitalphotos.net
Test Anxiety in Adolescents
You remember the feeling. You’re staring at an exam you studied for, but now matter how hard you think about it, you cannot remember the information. Your body tenses up. You feel panic rise. You are dealing with test anxiety.
I have several clients who do very well in school, but feel like they blank out on tests. This affects their confidence and even their relationships at school.
The worst part for many teens is that they don’t know what to do once this starts. It can get bad enough that a teen starts feeling the anxiety as soon as a test is announced. A couple of bad test-taking incidents, and your child is now phobic of test taking.
A Tool for Test Anxiety
A really simple tool for test anxiety is called “priming.” This is a phenomenon psychologists use to influence how someone does on something in the immediate future. Let’s have you try it out in order to understand how it’s done.
Steps for Priming Before A Test
Step 1: Get out a pen and paper.
Step 2: Set a timer for 60 seconds.
Step 3: For the next 60 seconds write down as many words as you can think of to describe a Harvard professor. Don’t overthink this. Just write down ANYTHING that comes to mind. If you immediately think of glasses and tweed coats, then write those down. If you think of the word, ‘smart,’ then write that down. Just let your mind free-flow.
Step 4: Attempt an intellectually difficult task such as a math problem.
What Happens When You Use Priming
The point of priming is that when we think of words and images related to what we’re about to do, we do better or worse based on how we think. Sounds obvious right? Yet, most people are not intentional when they prime.
In fact, we prime all the time. Do you ever find yourself “prepping” before you do something or talk to someone? You are priming for the task. Unfortunately, we often prime in a negative way. But for test anxiety, we can using priming in a positive way.
My Personal Example
Sometimes when I surf I am excited, energized, and eager. In these times I picture the surfing feats of highly talented professionals and slightly less highly talented friends. I am priming. In those cases, I surf pretty well.
At other times, I feel nervous and stiff. In those cases, I picture wipe-outs. I say things to myself such as, “You’ve been doing this for 3 decades and you’re still not very good.” My surfing starts out almost like having test anxiety. It’s as though I can’t even quite remember how to do it.
Back to Priming for Test Anxiety
If I had you imagined a high school drop-out instead of a Harvard professor, you would have performed worse on the task instead of better. This phenomenon has been repeated in psychological experiments many times.
It has worked well for my clients with test anxiety too. Here’s how: Instead of immediately beginning their exam in school, they take the first 60 seconds and prime with the Harvard professor example. They have told me they performed about 10% higher on their test than expected. By the way, this is exactly what we’d expect based on the research.
Priming for Athletics
Also, if you’re nervous before a sporting event, you can do a priming exercise imagining a top notch athlete. If your adolescent has a swim meet, have him or her imagine Michael Phelps. Your teen can either write down or just tell you descriptors of his abilities before his or her race. The research says your teen should go a bit faster.
Final Thoughts on Adolescent Test Anxiety
Anxiety is a hard thing. When you have test anxiety, it can make school miserable. It can bleed over into your friendships and even how you get along with your parents. It’s awful.
Instead of letting the test anxiety overwhelm and consume your teen, help them systematically tackle it. Start with priming. Try a few other techniques. If nothing is effective enough, reach out. I’m happy to chat with you about it.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Anxiety can make a teen miserable. Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Why Anxiety Help for Teens?
Anxiety is awful. You know how terrible it feels when you worry about what a friend thinks of you, or whether you’re going to get in trouble with your parents for something you did last week. Sitting, waiting, hoping for the best but dreading the worst is a really uncomfortable feeling! Sadly, some people live in this feeling of dread all the time. Anxiety help for teens is specific to the worries teens have.
Typical Teen Anxiety
Sometimes our anxieties (or worries) are realistic. For example, we know we’re terrible at Spanish, and we’re having a lot of anxiety about taking the next Spanish test. Likewise, we know we did something really foolish at the party Saturday night, and we’re dreading our return to school on Monday. This kind of anxiety is realistic and common to the whole human race.
When Anxiety Goes Too Far
For some of us though, anxiety starts to pervade our thoughts. It becomes this ugly overwhelming emotion that is hard to control. Furthermore, anxiety is often based on things that aren’t very likely. It is this point where anxiety help for teens becomes necessary.
To demonstrate, here are some examples of things I’ve heard teenagers tell me they’ve worried about, but know they shouldn’t worry about: 1) “I’m going to get cancer.” 2) “Everyone in the classroom will stare at me and think I’m an idiot if I raise my hand in class.” 3) “I’m going to fail my test.” 4) “No college will accept me.” 5) “My parents are secretly disappointed in me.” 6) “What if there’s a school shooter?” The list goes on an on. The things adolescents worry about come in all shapes and sizes.
Help for the Anxious Teen
Something I’ve found helpful in the past, and you might like too, is the acronym F.E.A.R. It stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. This is really what gives us anxiety, or fear about a situation. We think there’s evidence proving what we worry about will actually happen. It makes us feel scared and nervous. Most of the time the situation turns out just fine because the evidence we used to support our fear was actually false.
A Case Study
Here’s an example of anxiety help for a teen. I once worked with a very bright client who was terrified of giving another class presentation. He felt completely certain all the other students were judging him and secretly laughing at him. When asked to provide evidence that supports his theory, he told me that everyone was looking at him.
What this teen was facing is a great example of false evidence appearing real. Everyone was looking at him, he was right about that! Where he was wrong is the reason everyone was looking at him. They were starting at him because he was in front of the class talking. Once he realized everyone started at each presenter, and stared at the teacher when she was talking, he recognized he had fallen prey to F.E.A.R.
Of course this tool isn’t strong enough to completely overcome all your anxieties. However, it is one example of the kinds of things we think about and work on to cope with adolescent anxiety in therapy. F.E.A.R. is part of a group of help for teen anxiety interventions called CBT (cogntive-behavioral therapy). It is highly effective with adolescent anxiety disorders.
When you realize that many of the things you worry about aren’t totally true, it is a freeing moment. Help for teen anxiety is possible! Help your teen get his/her life back today.
Positive thinking improves your whole life. Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Happiness For Teens: How do today’s teens seek happiness?
Happiness for teens is elusive. If you’re reading blogs on this site, it probably means either you or someone you love deeply is struggling to find happiness. I’ve been there too. It really hurts. It can be such a struggle to find more than just fleeting enjoyment.
We look to things like a new outfit, the latest video game, a trip to a theme park, something good to eat, or especially social media. We know these things are associated with pleasure. For a few minutes, and maybe a few hours if we’re lucky, we feel happy. These things keep us coming back. Ultimately though, they wind up empty.
5 things that contribute to more lasting happiness for teens:
1. Actively demonstrating gratitude.
There are most certainly people in your life that you rely on. Whether it’s that weekly call with your mom you use to vent, or your assistant at work who schedules your meetings. If you’re a teenager, then it’s that one teacher who always actually listens, or your friend at school who sits next to you at lunch each day without fail. Try your best to visibly thank someone each day. Send a text, an email, write a note, etc. If you just do this once a day you will truly increase your happiness; you and your teen can find more happiness.
2. Control your thoughts.
It’s really easy to think nobody cares about you. You believe you’re not as smart as the next person, or that you will never amount to anything much. It’s harder to remind yourself of why these thoughts are simply untrue.
Happy people work hard to fight their negative thoughts. The first step is to recognize them. The second step is to honestly test them. The third step is to reshape them. If you think nobody cares about you, you need to test this theory. You don’t need to actively do anything, you just need to look back at the last 24 hours. Did anyone say hello to you, hug you, smile at you, give you a ride somewhere, send you a message, etc? If even one person did any of those things, then you need to reshape your thought to something more positive. You might change it to something like, ‘At least one person cares about me.’ Happy teens are more successful at fighting their negative thoughts.
3. Get in the habit of smiling.
People wait for someone to smile at them first. If you’re both doing this, nobody ends up smiling. Smile first. It might feel awkward, but you get incredible results. If you smile more, others interpret you as more friendly. They want to be around you more. You end up happier. Also, the muscles we use to smile are linked to the “happiness center” in our brain. In fact, smiling is healthy. When you smile your brain automatically feels happier. Happiness for teens is more achievable with a smile.
4. Exercise: An Important Part of Happiness for Teens.
People who do some sort of daily exercise are happier. You will have more energy. Teens who exercise regularly also have a better body image. Consistent exercise is an important ingredient for happiness in teens.
5. Prayer or meditation.
5 minutes a day is not much time. If you stop for 5 minutes and slow down your mind, you will gain hours of a better mood. Better moods equal increased productivity. Increased productivity equals a feeling of accomplishment, which is linked to happiness. Additionally, prayer accomplishes this. Plus, then you’re connecting with God and He loves you.
Most, if not all, of these tips are things you’ve heard and read before. What’s keeping you from actually putting them into practice? It probably takes 1 week of actively doing these things to increase your overall happiness. Happiness is the result of habits, not the result of luck. This means it’s something you make. As humans our natural state is one of complaint, irritation, and frustration. This can be overcome, but you have to work at it. You can do it! Use that positive thinking to tell yourself you can!
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Hello, I’m Lauren! If you notice your teen struggling, you might be feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated or concerned as a parent. Try to remember, there is hope. I want to help your adolescent feel better. My hope is for them to enjoy their life again. I want them to feel confident they can handle whatever situations arise.
