How to Deal With Anxiety As A Teen
Being a teen is one of the best times of your life. You’re making memories with friends, learning about who you want to be, and exploring what comes next in life. Choices are endless and the world is your oyster.
It’s also a stressful time, filled with important decisions, new adult experiences, and discovery of newfound emotions. Pressures from school, work, sports, and your social circle can add up.
When you’re experiencing frequent anxiety, it’s important that you understand how to manage it before it becomes a larger problem. Here are some helpful tips!
Know Your Symptoms
There’s a lot going on in your life during these teen years and much of it can be hard to navigate. You may be feeling anxiety in different ways and not even fully understand it.
An important starting point for managing your anxiety is understanding your personal symptoms, any patterns you have, and triggers that can set your anxiety off. Your body is able to tell you a lot, so make sure you’re able to listen to it.
Pay attention to any physical signs you’re experiencing. While not an all-inclusive list, these can include sweaty palms, body tension, stomach aches, headaches, shakiness, or a fast heart rate.
Equally important are the emotional symptoms, like anger, fear, sadness, irritability, and racing thoughts. Give them a name and work with them rather than try to fight them off. Knowing what you’re working with can set you up for staying calm.
Don’t be Afraid to Express Yourself
As a teen, getting emotional and expressing your feelings can be quite difficult. It’s important that you don’t get into the practice of bottling your emotions up or try avoiding them in hopes that they’ll just disappear.
Talk to your friends, your parents/caregivers, or any other trusted adult that can help you work through whatever is going on. Sometimes just talking about your experience can help reduce the weight of the anxious feelings.
Practice Effective Breathing Techniques
When anxiety hits, one of the best things you can do is take a moment to focus on your breathing. It’s something simple, requires nothing but yourself, and can be done anywhere.
Anxiety makes your breathing more shallow and rapid. When this happens, your body can’t take in the necessary amount of oxygen.
Practice taking long, deep breaths and trying to slow down your breathing rate. If this feels hard to control, practice doing a box breathing technique. Breathe in for four counts, hold that breath for four counts, breathe out for four counts, and then hold for four counts. Repeat as many rounds as needed until you notice more effective breathing.
Use Movement and Exercise
Getting in physical movement can be helpful in dealing with anxiety. The researched benefits of exercise on all aspects of your health are extremely positive.
Movement doesn't have to be a full on exercise routine if that’s not your thing or your time doesn't permit it. When you’re feeling anxious, take a walk. Go for a bike ride. Run or swim if those are available to you. Even dancing has its own benefits.
Find an activity that you like and use it to channel out that nervous energy. Plus, when your brain is distracted with the activity, it has less ability to continue on the anxiety spiral.
Limit Social Media
Nowadays, being a teen means you’re heavily connected online in one way, shape, or form. Social media has become a second language and major component of daily life.
For all of its positives, it also comes with an equal amount of negative aspects. Unfortunately, research has shown there to be a strong correlation between social media use and developing anxiety symptoms amongst other things.
If you’re having a bout of anxiety, maybe it’s time to detox from social media for a little while. Taking a quick break can help you regroup mentally, refocus on other valuable parts of life, and maybe shift your interactions to in real life.
Are you struggling to control your anxiety? We’re here to help! Reach out to us for more information about teen counseling.
