A relaxing morning reduces anxiety all day. Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Living anxiety-free means actively making choices to have less stress. Everything about our lives is fast, and intense. We’re always trying to get ahead. We want the best grades for our teenagers so they can get into the best schools. We push them into a lot of extracurricular activities because we feel we have to. We work long hours and take short vacations. We start our mornings off all wrong.
How we start our day is one of the key factors to reducing anxiety. However, it is one that doesn’t get much attention. We don’t realize a slower start to the morning is key. We tend to fill our minds with a bunch of useless, negative junk while reciting our to-do list, and then hope to have a good day.
One thing a lot of people do is watch the news in the morning. It is rare to find a news program that discusses progress and positive events in tandem with the negative. Sometimes even the good things that happen are still spun in a negative way. It’s all meant to to increase the viewer’s anxiety so they’ll keep watching.
It is really important to realize that most of what is reported on is out of your control. Try and focus on what you can do something about, and leave the rest alone. Replace some of the news with looking outside at the beauty God has created, and take a minute to say thank you. Then you might remember that you live in an amazing place and are generally blessed.
Start your day with something positive and encouraging. Take time to read your bible, pray, call a friend, slowly enjoy your cup of coffee, or anything else that gives you a sense of calm. It has been said that your first ten minutes are a huge predictor of what kind of day you will have. If you begin your day with anxiety, then you are much more likely to feel anxious the whole day. Be very intentional about starting your day with something that leaves you feeling positive and energized. Help your teenagers do this as well. Make your teenager a good breakfast, have them sit down to eat, and be very pleasant if you sit with them. Do not talk to them about classes, a test they need to take, or anything else on their to-do list. Keep it light and positive.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
According to research, girls who play sports make better life-choices. Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Teen girls who play organized sports get into a lot less trouble. According to a large body of research (http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Not_Just_Another/) conducted in the last ten years, girls who play sports have substantially lower rates of risky behavior. Girls involved in athletics are less likely to try drugs or alcohol, have fewer sexual partners, and become sexually active later. There are increases in positive behaviors as well. Girls who play sports have higher GPAs, and higher rates of graduation. They have a more positive body image and higher self-esteem.
Athletics provide a sense of structure, accountability, and a group of friends. Exercise is very good for the mind and body, and it decreases rates of depression. Girls who play on their high school sports teams have a sense of belonging to the school. They tend to have more school pride, which leads to an increase in caring about their community.
Playing sports also reduces overall anxiety. There are instances where anxiety arises because of the pressure in sports, but for the most part it is helpful for the anxious teenager. Getting exercise, going outside, being with friends, and focusing on something intensely all helps lower anxiety. Besides that, sports are fun!
If your daughter has been struggling with self-esteem or is tempted by risky behavior, consider signing her up for a sport. It can make a huge difference. It gives you both something to talk about too. If you’re discussing the most recent track meet, you’re communicating. For many parents, communicating with their teenager is difficult. Sports provide an avenue for relationship.
Be careful not to put too much pressure on your child when they are playing their sport. There are very few high school athletes good enough to compete at the collegiate level. There are very few collegiate level athletes good enough to compete at the professional level. It is okay if your 13 year old daughter isn’t on the top team. It is much more important that she is having fun and making friends. Your top priority needs to be her character development, not her athletic career.
The bottom line is, getting her involved in a sport is good for her mental health, physical health, and social health.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Hypervigilance is a common symptom after a trumatic event. Credit: freedigitalphotos.net/Graphics Mouse
I’ve been a therapist for a decade now. I’ve worked with teens in private practice for that entire duration. I’ve heard a lot of different stories, many of which involve trauma. I’ve noticed with trauma there is a natural tendency to incorrectly predict its effects on teens. Some parents overreact, and others are so overwhelmed that they downplay the significance of the traumatic event. For parents it’s a very helpless feeling when something horrific has happened to your child.
In 1926 a sweet baby girl was born to a young mother who was divorced with very few financial prospects in life. While this girl’s early life was pleasant and full of love from her mother, eventually things began to unravel. Her mother did not have enough money to care for her and she was placed into foster care. Finally her mother was able to get her back, but when the young girl was 7.5 years old, her mother had a psychotic break from reality. Her mother ended up diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. What was a young girl with no father and now no mother to do in the 1930’s? She was moved through foster cares and orphanages where she either felt alone and abandoned, or was sexually abused. Eventually she married the first guy she could find simply to put some stability in her life. Do you know whose story this is? It’s Marilyn Monroe. We all know the tragic ending her life took after three divorces and drug abuse struggles. By the age of 36 she had overdosed, and it was called a likely suicide.
This isn’t to say that if you’re child has experienced a trauma they will end up like Marilyn Monroe. What I am hoping to point out from her really sad story is that recurring trauma absolutely wears a person down. We all have some amount of resilience build into us, but if we come to the point that we expect to be battered by life again and again, we will look to whatever escape we can find. The tragic irony of this is that many of those escapes ultimately cause further trauma. An example of this is using drugs to escape the deep anxiety, sadness, shame and hopelessness caused by trauma. Over time though, being around people who use drugs means being exposed to people who resort to all means to obtain more drugs. Now there is increased risk for more traumatic exposure.
To heal from deep trauma there are many components. I will talk about only a couple of them here. One is having something reliable and unchanging. People die and places change, but God never changes. A deep, meaningful faith is really helpful to healing from trauma. Knowing there is still hope, still love, and still something to lean on is important. But, this is complicated because a lot of trauma survivors feels abandoned by God as they question how He could have let something awful occur in the first place. While there are good answers to these very important questions, it’s outside a therapist’s purview to answer them. I strongly encourage you to have this discussion with your own religious leaders as you try to seek answers.
Another extremely important element to healing from trauma is addressing and uncovering shame. Shame says, “I am bad,” for whatever happened. This is different from regret or some other similar emotion which says, “That event was bad.” Many trauma survivors feel the event was somehow their own fault. It takes some deep work to change this belief.
Overcoming trauma is extremely important. During a lifetime each and every one of us will experience deeply disturbing and upsetting circumstances. Some of us will be unlucky enough to witness death, have our own lives threatened, or see our own children hurt in unimaginable ways. Resilience is built into our psyches and our hearts, but it can be really hard to find it sometimes. If you worry about your teen’s reaction to trauma, please seek a professional opinion. Sometimes just one event can continue to traumatize its victim over and over again. At Teen Therapy OC we desperately want your adolescent to have a joy-filled life, not one full of fear, anxiety, shame and hypervigilance.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Wanting approval isn’t a bad thing unless it goes too far. Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
This post will not apply to every parent. Some of you have kids who are very comfortable with who they are. They seem relaxed and self-assured. What a blessing!
There are a large number of you though who have teens that really want approval. This can take on multiple forms. Some teens long for the approval of their peers. Others desperately want to hear “well done” from their parents. Wanting approval is not actually as bad as it sounds. It is part of what motivates teens to do their homework and chores, and to comb their hair. Sometimes though the desire for approval becomes excessive, and leads to anxiety or depression.
I have seen teens in counseling who wanted approval so badly that they developed eating disorders, tried drugs or alcohol, or became sexually active before they were ready. It is really important to recognize a teen who is trying too hard to be liked because sometimes it means they are making unhealthy choices. A lot of these teens actually do get a substantial amount of approval, but they do not feel it. Even when there is a lot of evidence to the contrary, these teens feel disliked or negatively judged. As a parent, what are you supposed to do in this situation?
One of the most important things you can do is to help your teen realize the meaning of that famous first line from Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, “It is not about you.” Help your child gain some perspective. It is very hard for teens to remember that there is a world beyond their school and social group; expose your teen to it. Get them out into the community to serve someone else. Usually once a person dedicates some time and energy to others they stop focusing on themselves.
A second thing to try is not allowing your teen to voice the things they dislike about themselves if those things are unreasonable. Do not let your 3.5 GPA student tell you they are stupid, and do not let your normally sized daughter tell you she is fat. Learn to respond only when your child is honest about themselves. One thing we do in therapy is stop believing everything we feel. What I mean by this is that a teen will tell me, “I feel like nobody likes me.” Once we establish that there are in fact people who like the teen, we no longer allow that to be said. Instead the teen has to tell the truth, which is, “I feel disliked by some people.”
Try these two tips for approval-seeking teens. If your teen’s desire to be liked is overwhelming your teen, and you for that matter, call for help. There is often a way to change their focus. Sometimes you need help to help them too. Most parents, even the very best parents, have tried a number of different ways to encourage their adolescent without success. Sometimes a little tune-up makes a big difference.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Exercise is a critical factor in managing your anxiety. Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
It is very, very important to take good care of yourself physically. You already know this though. What you probably also already know, but maybe haven’t been thinking about, is how critical it is to exercise. As a whole, we Americans like to procrastinate exercise. We generally don’t do it often enough, or with enough intensity.
Did you know that if you set aside 30-60 minutes to exercise, you will actually get more done during your day? That seems odd because by time you exercise and then shower, 2 hours are used up. It’s true though. Your ability to focus and stay on task is greatly increased with exercise. Your ability to push through a work-out you don’t feel like doing also increases the mental toughness needed to get other things done. When you exercise regularly you aren’t just flexing your physical muscles. You learn to have more will power. It takes will power to jog up the hill that is seemingly never going to end. It even takes will power to get up off the couch and get your running shoes on. Forcing yourself to do so when it’s not really what you want to do is a form of discipline. It teaches self-denial.
Self-denial (in a healthy dose) is extremely important for anxiety management. When you learn to do more of what you should do instead of what you feel like doing, your life is usually headed in a direction that you choose. This means you have more control. The antidote to anxiety is a sense of control.
Consistent exercise not only releases chemicals into the brain that are calming and pleasant, it also teaches discipline and self-control. It is a critical factor in the alleviation of anxiety. It is also an important part of time management. So, to help get your anxiety under wraps, hop on your bike, jump in a pool, or go for a stroll. Do this several times a week and watch what happens. Oh, and you also just might find you end up enjoying yourself.
When you think about how to specifically apply this to your teenagers, think social. Teens (as a generalization) love to be around their friends. Help them figure out a way to get in a work-out with a couple friends. Maybe they can join the same gym as their best friend, or organize a common goal with their friends. When I was in college a couple of friends and I set-up a work-out plan. We were only able to exercise together a couple times per week, but we held each other accountable for the rest of the time. It made a big difference in our ability to stick with it. I still think this is because we enjoyed the social aspect of doing it together more than anything else.
Exercise is a great, healthy coping skill for anxiety and stress. You can model this for your teenager and invite them to join you. You may or may not get a yes, but they are definitely paying attention to how you handle your stress.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Do you ever feel like you can’t find a good solution for a problem? You’ve tried and you’ve tried to fix something but it continues to challenge you. One example of this might be losing weight. You’ve tried a lot of diets and exercise plans, but you simply cannot lose the weight, or you cannot keep it off. Here’s a tip for getting “unstuck” wherever you are.
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.
