Three MORE Ways to Decrease Anxiety in Children and Teens
We hope that you found our blog about the first three ways to help manage anxiety in children and teens helpful. In this post, we hope to round out the skills you have already learned.
Remember that Anxiety wants Certainty and Comfort. As we all know, though we don’t always accept, there are and will continue to be a lot of situations in life where we can not have certainty and comfort. Treating anxiety is not about removing worry. It is about problem solving when we can and tolerating the discomfort when we cannot. Addressing anxiety is about PROCESS and not about the actual CONTENT of the anxiety.
Before we jump into the last three tools you can use, let’s review the mechanism of anxiety in our brain. An event or worry thought occurs and a signal is sent to the Amygdala (alarm system of the brain). The alarm system can not differentiate between real danger and imagined fear. The Adrenal Glands are contacted by the Amygdala and chemical messengers are sent through the body signaling danger. This causes the physical responses that often join anxiety. Our logic center goes off line and more worry thoughts flood in, causing the cycle to continue. The sprinkler system for our brain? It is Self-Awareness. A great skill to help tolerate anxiety is to increase self-awareness by naming five things you see, four things you hear, three things you can feel (touch), two things you smell, and one thing you taste. This is a grounding skill that helps turn off the alarm in our brain by helping us to realize that we are not in a true danger. Now that we know how anxiety works and what it wants, we can see that, even though it feels overwhelming, it really is not that complex.
In the last blog about anxiety we looked at patterns of Rigidity, Globalization, and Catastrophic Thinking. In this post, we will explore Permanence, Internalization, and Avoidance.
Permanent vs. Temporary: This is a space where we see anxiety and depression overlap at times. Believing that emotions, situations, thoughts, etc. are permanent can take a major toll on your mood. Imagine if you truly believed that things were going to always stay the same. That would be an anxiety producing and potentially depressing belief pattern to hold. Middle school lasting forever? Studies have shown that the simple belief that people have the ability and potential for change can have profound effects on performance and mood. In order to demonstrate this for children and teens, find and point out examples of positive change. Share with them times when you believed something that you no longer believe and encourage them to notice this as well with themselves and others. Young people often enjoy groaning about the idea that they used to find a band or tv show wonderful and have now outgrown it. Acknowledging that things are temporary can initially set off anxiety. If it is not permanent (even though it may be negative), then how do I get certainty? This is where the belief that we are able to tolerate uncertainty becomes so important. “The future is uncertain and I trust that I have the skills to handle that uncertainty”. It is also helpful to look at potentially difficult situations as a series of moments. Being dropped off for the first day of school may make a child very anxious and that emotion only exists in that “moment of drop off”. The next moments have positive potential to be something else.
Internal Focus vs. External Focus: Anxiety is an internally focused feeling. It centers around our thoughts, emotions, and physical reactions. The more that we ruminate over thing, the more anxious we become. An emotion initially only lasts about 15-30 seconds!! It is our thoughts and physical sensations that then reactivate that emotion over and over again. By shifting the focus from internal to external, we can stop triggering the emotion. A major part of helping children and teens step out of the cycle of anxiety is to demonstrate for them that thoughts and emotions are not facts. Just because we think or feel something does not make it true. I can experience fear without truly being in danger. External focus can also be gained through connecting with others. Encourage children and teens to be active in their social life and create opportunities to contribute to others. Purposeful thinking is part of problem solving. Rumination is not.
Avoidant vs. Active: Anxiety promotes avoidance. If you think of the urge that you have when you are fearful, it is often to run away or hide. This is especially true for young people. Avoidance sounds like “I have to know what will happen or I can’t do it”, “I cannot stand to be uncomfortable”, “why even try”. Being active means saying “I am willing to try even if I don’t know what will happen”. It is helpful to expect worry to show up in a situation and then to actively demote it when it does. Oh, there is that worry again, pestering me and telling me I have to be sure. The key is to notice the anxiety, believe it is tolerable, and then continue to do the action. The more we throw ourselves into being active, the less our brain believes that avoidance is the answer. A helpful skill to demonstrate for (and do with) children and teens is to make a list of what we don’t know in a situation and then a list of things that we find out as we step into the situation. Let’s look at an example of going to Open House before school starts for the year.
Don’t Know Find Out
Is my teacher nice? My teacher is nice
Who is in my class? Cindy is in my class
Can I see the board? I can ask to move seats if I can’t see the board
You can make the first list of items and then draw arrows to the connecting information as it is discovered. If there is something that cannot be known yet, we actively accept that we will be uncertain about it.
An overarching activity that can often bring in several of the thought patterns we are seeking (flexibility, parts, problem solving, temporary, external, and active) is to have the child or teen ask a small number of adults to tell them about something they are proud of accomplishing. These accomplishments often involve being flexible, addressing things in parts, utilizing problem solving, accepting the temporary nature of life, having an external or connecting focus, and being active. Identifying which of the skills were present can highlight the positive impact of these thought patterns. In keeping with this exercise, take the opportunity to note your child’s successes and ask them how they achieved it. This is a great way to reinforce the skills they are already using.
There we are. The final three ways to help your child or teen manage anxiety. We hope that these posts are proving to be helpful.
All our best,
The Nest
