Having a teen who suffers with anxiety can be tough, but as a parent, you can play a vital role in supporting them.
Hold Space For Your Teen
As parents or caregivers, remember that you are your teens’ safety net, to be there for them, listen to them, validate their feelings, and to support them through their struggles. While it can be tempting to shield your teen from difficult situations or fix their problems for them, this can actually do more harm than good. By offering a listening ear, a warm hug, and a non-judgmental presence, you can help your teen feel seen, heard, and loved, which is crucial for their emotional well-being.
Even if you don’t have all the answers, simply holding space for your teen can make a world of difference and help them feel more confident and secure as they navigate the ups and downs of life.
As someone who has struggled with anxiety myself, and now as a parent of a child with anxiety, I understand the challenges of navigating this complex and often overwhelming condition. It can be tempting to want to “fix” your young persons’ anxiety and make it go away, but this approach is often counterproductive.
Anxiety is a multifaceted issue that requires a holistic approach that includes acknowledging and accepting it as a beautiful part of us. It’s just that, a part of us, not the whole of us. It is a journey, not a destination, and that there is no quick fix or one-size-fits-all solution. However, by staying present, empathetic, and open to learning, you can help your teen build the skills and resilience they need to manage their anxiety and thrive in life.
Tune Into The Body
Tuning into the body can be incredibly beneficial for calming the nervous system, especially for teens with anxiety. Many teens feel disconnected from their bodies, as they are often so focused on external factors. It might feel like their brains are filled with static. However, the body is constantly sending messages to the brain, even before the brain has consciously realised it. By becoming more aware of these bodily sensations, teens can learn to recognise when their body is in a state of stress or anxiety and take steps to calm themselves down before the overwhelm takes hold.
This can help them feel more in control and empowered in managing their anxiety symptoms, which can ultimately lead to greater feelings of well-being and improved mental health. By helping your teen to connect with their body and listen to its messages, you can help them develop a deeper sense of self-awareness and emotional regulation.
Reframing Anxiety
Anxiety is a natural response to stress and danger, and is part of your body’s ancient survival programming. In the face of perceived threats, your body releases stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which prepare you to fight or flee. While these responses can be helpful in short bursts, chronic stress and anxiety can have negative effects on your mental and physical health. However, it’s important to recognise that anxiety is not a flaw or weakness – it is simply your body’s way of trying to keep you safe. By seeing anxiety as a natural response to stress, your teen can begin to shift their relationship to it and develop greater compassion towards themselves and their emotions.
Encouraging your teen to reframe anxiety as a protective mechanism rather than a flaw can help them feel more empowered and in control of their emotions, and may even reduce the intensity of their symptoms when they notice their anxiety is working for them, not against them.
The Power Of Heart Connection
Learning how your body communicates can take some practice but it’s easy to do. One of the strategies I teach young people (and parents!) is the power of heart coherence. Now, I know it sounds fluffy, but on a scientific level, it’s vital for calming the body. It can almost instantly reduce stress and calm brain activity.
Heart coherence is a powerful technique that can have numerous benefits for teens with anxiety. When you experience anxiety or stress, your heart rate variability (HRV) can become erratic, which can send signals to the brain that further increase feelings of anxiety and stress. However, when you practice heart coherence, you intentionally regulate your HRV by breathing in a rhythmic and coherent pattern. This can help bring your body into a calming state of coherence, where your heart, brain, and nervous system are working together in a more harmonious way. This can have numerous health benefits, including a reduction in anxiety symptoms, improved emotional regulation, and an increased sense of well-being.
By showing your teen how to practice heart coherence, you can give them a simple and effective tool for managing their anxiety symptoms and improving their overall mental health. It can be used to calm in the heat of a stressful moment, or before a potentially stressful event to alleviate symptoms. Plus, it’s a great start to helping them feel more connected to their bodies and develop a deeper sense of self-awareness.
So, how do you do it? Here’s the basic heart coherence method: Close your eyes, and take a few deep slow breaths and focus on your heart. Imagine your breath moving in and out of your heart, as your chest rises and falls, imagine that’s the breath entering and leaving your body. Just keep focussing your slow breaths through your heart. Do this for a few minutes, and you’ll start to feel more relaxed and centred within a minute or so. This is heart coherence in its simplest form and it’s really powerful!
Make Friends With Your Anxiety
In today’s society, there is often a stigma surrounding emotions, particularly “negative” ones such as anxiety, fear, and sadness. Many people are taught to suppress or ignore these emotions, which can lead to increased feelings of stress and anxiety. This is especially true for teenagers, who are often navigating the complex and intense emotions that come with adolescence. However, it’s important to remember that all emotions are valid and that experiencing anxiety is a normal part of the human experience.
This is why I teach teens, and parents, to make friends with their emotions and recognise that it’s okay to feel anxious or overwhelmed, so they can feel more accepted and normal. This can lead to greater emotional regulation and resilience, as they learn to acknowledge and validate their emotions in a healthy and supportive way. Additionally, making friends with their emotions can help teens feel more connected to their inner selves and develop a deeper sense of self-awareness and self-compassion.
One technique that can help is to give anxiety a name or character. For example, they might call it “Will the Worry” or “Annie Anxious”. By personifying their anxiety, they can separate themselves from it and view it as something external to themselves. This can make it easier to talk to and manage their anxiety, rather than feeling overwhelmed by it. Personifying it in this way can also create a distance from it, removing you from the intensity of the emotion, and often things “just don’t seem as bad”.
Encourage your teen to have a conversation with their anxiety, asking it questions like “What are you here to show me?” or “What do you need from me right now?” This can help them understand their anxiety better and develop a sense of compassion and curiosity towards it, rather than fear or avoidance. Ultimately, making friends with anxiety is about creating a sense of acceptance and understanding towards our emotions, even the difficult ones. By acknowledging and validating their anxiety, teens can learn to manage it in a more positive and healthy way.
Learn How To Tap
Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) is another powerful tool that I teach all my clients, I am a huge fan of this method and love that it can reduce cortisol by up to 40% in a session, calm the nervous system, and also boost feel-good chemicals, it’s a win-win! Tapping is a powerful technique that can significantly benefit teens with anxiety, and there are many reasons why.
Firstly, tapping can have fairly instant results, especially when working with an experienced practitioner like myself to calm the brain, reduce anxiety symptoms, and improve overall emotional regulation in just one session, with effects that build and compound over more sessions.
Secondly, tapping can help teens develop a deeper sense of self-awareness and emotional regulation. By tapping on specific points on the body while focusing on a particular issue or emotion, teens can acknowledge and validate their feelings in a safe and supportive environment. This process can help them gain insight into their thoughts and emotions and develop more positive coping strategies for managing anxiety.
Thirdly, tapping can also help boost feel-good chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine, which can help improve mood and reduce stress. This can lead to a greater sense of well-being and a more positive outlook on life.
Finally, tapping is a simple and effective tool that can be used anytime and anywhere, making it an excellent resource for teens to have at their disposal. Whether they’re feeling anxious before a big exam or struggling with social anxiety, tapping can help them calm their nervous system and reduce their symptoms quickly and easily.
Lead By Example
Remember, you don’t need to fix your teen, they will respond best knowing they are validated and acknowledged just the way they are. Just holding space for them to process their emotions, knowing that you are their safe space is a great starting point to supporting them. Lead by example, your teen doesn’t want to be told what to do, they will learn from your example. By managing anxious feelings yourself using these strategies in your own daily life, you can demonstrate that it’s ok for them to connect with their body. By practicing the body-mind tools mentioned here, you can help your teen manage their anxiety and live a more empowered life.