In this Post I will briefly share some helpful observations pertaining to Teenagers and anxiety. I will be offering some themes – and some easy to use solutions.
What is Anxiety?
- Psychological Fear: Anxiety is essentially psychological fear (fear that comes from thoughts) – ex.fear of possible rejection, fear of failing, fear or being viewed as inadequate, fear of judgment, fear of death, fear of meaninglessness, fear of having an intolerable emotion etc.
- Identity, Past, and Future: Anxiety almost always has to do with Self-Concept – or – controlling suffering in the past or future (anxiety believes that it can prepare you to avoid suffering in the future – which it can’t).
- Why do we fear?: Fear is an emotion that encourages us to take decisive action to protect our survival (Fight, Flight or Freeze).
- Fear and anxiety: In the present moment we sometimes experience fear (ex. I am fearful of that snake that it rattling its’ tail at me. Anxiety is a fear response related to a possible or anticipated future (ex. I am anxious (fearful) about the possibility of there being a snake when we take our hike this afternoon. Ex 2 – I am fearful that I will be rejected by my social group if I __________).
- Biology of ‘psychological fear: our physiological (heart rate, perspiration, muscle tightening etc.) and emotional systems react to thoughts about future and past events in much of the same way that they react to present moment realities. The stimulus (whether a thought about the future or an actual real-time occurrence) causes the activation of our fight or flight system, which is a complex system involving the brain (amygdala), the central nervous system (sympathetic activation) and various hormonal systems (adrenals).This means that fear created in the mind (psychological) has the same impact on the body as a fear that is the result of a stimulus in the present moment.
What can we do to help?
Encourage attention on the Present Moment (mindfulness)
- Why? Anxiety is almost always related to one’s attention being on the future – When we create opportunities to live in, and to communicate about, the present moment, we offer respite from one of the main sources of anxiety.
- Example: (present) I love how my polarized sunglasses are allowing me to see the fish so clearly – I feel so grateful to be here with you. (Future) Have you signed up for your SAT class like I asked? Have you decided on a major yet etc.
Encourage increased opportunity for emotionally intimate, authentic, subjective, self-reflective, and vulnerable communication (as opposed to all conversation being about teaching or solving. Note: teaching and solving communications are necessary, and they need to be balanced with Compassionate/empathetic communication)
- Why? Regulation, Self-Concept, Emotional Acceptance, and Influence.
- Regulation: Humans are a social animal and can be physiologically regulated (destressed) through the process of receiving genuine compassionate empathy and understanding from another person.
- Self-Concept: Sharing of subjective experience helps us to develop a healthy self-concept; when our self-concept or emotional experiences are accepted and validated by another person – we feel regulated as this reduces existential anxiety (who am I ? what is my purpose?)
- Influence: The degree of influence we have on a person is related to our level of connection = the effectiveness of your teaching and problem-solving communications will increase as you increase your connection with your teen (or any human for that matter). Connection is the product of emotional intimacy.
- Emotional Acceptance: We all have beliefs about emotions (good/bad, should feel/shouldn’t feel) which results in the use of defense mechanisms (defensiveness, denial, intellectualization, insincere optimism etc.) to avoid certain feelings. To live life with intentionality and consciousness we must all strive to increase our willingness to experience the emotions that naturally arrive in life. We as the parents can model this with our own growth and development, and we can encourage it in our teens by holding space for them while they experience difficult feelings.
- Example: (empathy, curiosity, and understanding) I care for you and want to know more about how your grades are impacting you. You rock at singing what does that songs mean to you? How do you feel about all the stuff on the news these days? What do you think the meaning of life is? How is _____ positive and how is it negative from your perspective? (Teaching) if you don’t get good grades you won’t get into college or this is ‘good’ behavior and this is ‘bad’ behavior. (Solving) What is your plan to get your math grade to a B or higher?
Increase access to concrete (as opposed to abstract) goals. Concrete goals – the results are observable and measurable in the moment or near future (building something). Abstract goals – the results are not observable or measurable – the results are always in flux or can be altered (ex. being successful or being happy or being good).
- Why? It creates an existential anxiety (a feeling of meaninglessness) when we never get feedback pertaining to our goals. We feel a sense of fulfillment when we get direct feedback that our actions were successful – this encourages hopefulness and motivation.
- Example: Concrete – Learning carpentry skills to build a flower bed. Abstract – doing well on a standardized test so as to get into a good college and have a good life.
Anxiety Specific to Teens
Validating the difficulties of the teenage developmental stage. These years are marked with the developmental tasks of: defining the self and navigating your place in social dynamics. Teens can often suffer from chronic anxiety as a result of 1.) Believing that they are fundamentally bad or faulty and 2.) Believing that they will be rejected by their social group.