I was talking to a counselor at a Seattle area high school last weekend. She told me that, while her school has seen a lot of problems go down over the past several years, like teen pregnancy and gang activity, they’ve seen a big rise in stress in the kids at school. Then, last week I spoke to an intake worker at a small psychotherapy clinic who said they had been seeing a big increase in calls from parents with very anxious kids. Some of these kids are as young as six or seven.
This really got me thinking. What is causing all this stress, especially in ones so young? Is it that the effects of the current recession have been weighing on them — either directly, such as when a parent loses a job or their home is foreclosed on, or indirectly, from hearing about this kind of problem from friends or reading about it in the news? I’m sure the recession plays a part, but it can’t be everything since the people I talked to noticed this increase in stress and anxiety back during the economic boom years.
So is it hearing about all the natural disasters, like Haiti this year and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia? Or all the rancorous name-calling and blaming in the political sphere? Or the news of global warming and what it means for the future of the planet? It could be all of those things, but of course we’ve always had natural disasters, nasty political fighting and dire warnings that “the end is nigh,” although now we can hear and read about them around the clock, rather than just in the morning paper and on the six o’clock news.
Is it because school itself has become more stressful, with kids, parents and teachers realizing the importance of higher education and that it is increasingly difficult to get into top colleges and pushing the kids to succeed? Or because there is more standardized testing than ever before, with everything from school funding to personal labels (“top percentile,” “below average”) to graduation riding on them?
I’ve been thinking about all this a lot, but I haven’t any answers. I don’t know where all this stress comes from, and, while I’ve come across many theories, I haven’t found any definitive answers about its cause. I do know that the rise in stress and anxiety in kids has tracked the same rise in stress and anxiety in adults.
All I can suggest is that, until the “experts” figure out what is causing this explosion in stress and anxiety and fix it, it is up to everyone to do what they can to work through their own stress and bring it down to a manageable level. This is doubly important for parents. So let me give a pep talk to parents now.
Parents, the more you bring down your own stress, the less stress your kids will have. Parents always try to tell me that, no matter what is going on (money problems, fighting with in-laws, potential divorce), their kids don’t know what’s going on and so are protected from it. And the kids always tell me they know exactly what is going on. So Parents, just trying to shield your kids from the knowledge of what is happening won’t protect them. You actually have to get your own stress way down to make a less stressful home environment for them.
And, if you show your kids what you are doing to bring down your own stress (like exercising regularly, eating right, spending time with good friends, or getting enough sleep), you get the added benefit of teaching your kids how to manage their own stress, a skill they can use their whole lives.
In case you missed it, new research has come out showing that teens with earlier bedtimes were less likely than those with later bedtimes to have depression or thoughts of committing suicide. The study of 7th through 12th graders found:
- Compared to kids whose parents set bedtimes of 10 pm or earlier, those with a bedtime of midnight or later were 24% more likely to suffer from depression and 20% more likely to have suicidal thoughts; and
- Teens who said they usually sleep five or fewer hours per night were a whopping 71% more likely to be depressed, and 48% more likely to have thoughts of suicide, compared to those who said they slept eight hours per night.
Going to bed earlier thus seems likely to lower depression in kids.
Why am I writing about this in a blog about stress? Stress and depression often seem to be related. As noted in the WebMD article on this study, “The researchers say lack of sleep may produce moodiness that hinders the ability to cope with stresses of daily life, harming relationships with peers and adults. They say educating adolescents and their parents about the benefits of healthier sleep practices may be beneficial.” So taking steps to lower your risk of depression may lower your stress as well.
The conclusion? If you are a stressed out teenager, go to bed earlier. The experts say you need about 9 hours of sleep. If you are a parent, set a bedtime of 10 pm or earlier for your kid. (Some good news for parents: almost 70% of the kids in the study said they actually went to bed by the time their parents told them to on weeknights.)
The news has been full of the extraordinary pain and suffering in Haiti brought on by this week’s earthquake and its aftermath. It can be almost unbearable to read the articles and look at the pictures of a place that already had more than its fair share of hurt.
For most people, it is very sad. They talk about it with their friends and family. They do what they can, perhaps donating to a reputable group that is sending aid like UNICEF. But what do you do if that doesn’t seem to be enough? If you can’t stop thinking about what happened? If thoughts of what is going on in that country is getting in the way paying attention in class, getting homework done, having fun with friends, or even sleeping?
The first step is to take a break from the news. Declare a moratorium on watching TV, reading newspapers, or checking out news sites on the internet. You may have to get a change of scenery to keep from falling back into old habits of checking Google News or flipping on the TV. So take the dog for a walk or hang out at a friend’s place. The type of constant bombardment that you can get when there is a natural disaster like this can be a big source of stress — but at least it is one you can avoid.
If turning off the news isn’t enough to get rid of the stress, consider doing something more about it right now. Get together with some friends and plan a fundraiser to take place within the next few weeks. Pick a reputable group to donate to, then get creative on what you will do to raise cash. You might try the old standbys of bake sales and car washes (in January?!) or you could come up with something more unusual, like having an all-city dance with fees/donations collected at the door. You’ll need to work out the logistics to keep it safe and profitable, but that will get your mind out of the rut it has been in and get you doing something to feel proud of.
Another way to get back to normal is to try tapping on what has been bothering you the most, whether that is a particular picture, or an interview with a survivor, or even a personal memory that you were reminded of by something you came across in the news. Sometimes our brains seem to get stuck on something like this, and the best way I’ve found to get unstuck is to use tapping on whatever comes up, no matter if it makes sense or not.
If you aren’t getting any relief from anything you try, consider two possibilities. One is that you might need to see a therapist to get through whatever it is that has you ruminating over Haiti (or some other disaster). The second possibility is that you have a calling to help those in need. If that rings true, then you can start looking into what you might do, like becoming a fundraiser for a non-profit, an engineer who builds water systems in drought-stricken areas, or a doctor with Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres). And once you have an idea of what you truly want to do, you can start planning how to develop the skills and knowledge you will need to do that as a career.
If at least one person discovers a calling to help others, then something good will have come out of this disaster.
For years I’ve been recommending that stressed clients get aerobic exercise, which is the kind that raises your heart rate. Therapists, doctors and scientists have known for a long time that exercise helps with stress. Now scientists have run experiments which show exercise actually changes the brain so it handles stressful situations better, at least in rats.For more details, check out the New York Times blog post from last month reviewing three of those recent studies.
So now that there’s proof exercise really does make a difference there’s no excuse to not exercise. Don’t skip it this time of year because you have a term paper due before break, or your mom keeps yelling at you because she has to write 300 Christmas cards, or you have to spend too many days in a row with your annoying younger brother. Those are the very stressful situations that exercise will help you handle calmly.
And if you haven’t already, start exercising right away. The big changes in their brains started sometime after the rats had been exercising for three weeks. The scientists don’t know if it takes the same time in humans. They haven’t done that research yet. But they agree that the sooner you start exercising, the sooner you’ll feel more relaxed.
I rethought a post I did last week about food and family stress. I had read an article on the topic in the New York Times last week. It was full of stories of families fighting over food at the holidays: a mother berating an overweight daughter for eating too much; a grandmother criticizing a grandson for eating too little; a father trying to keep everyone from eating chocolate. The article recommended that you set up boundaries (that’s therapy talk for rules), like making a “good-natured announcement” that comments about how much or little a person eats won’t be acceptable this year. Then every time someone broke the rule, you were supposed to call them on it. All while keeping your sense of humor.
With my family therapist background, I’m all for setting good boundaries in families. In my last post I wrote about ways to encourage your family to set new rules and live by them. That would be great if you could do it, but it is very hard to do this even for parents. I’m thinking kids need different advice. So here’s my revised suggestions for what you can do to improve holiday dinners if your family doesn’t look like a Hallmark card commercial.
First, you can take comfort in knowing that you are not alone. Holidays are big sources of stress for vast numbers of people. Food is a hot topic for a lot of people. And family problems can replay bigger and bigger when the extended family gets together. That means that huge numbers of people have a miserable time of it at the holidays — just ask any therapist!
Second, you could try to change the way your family interacts at the holidays. It’s difficult, but it may be possible. Try telling your dad how you feel when he says you don’t need any pie this year. Do it very calmly. If you get angry or start crying, he’s likely to ignore what you are saying or even get angry and defensive himself. Instead, try saying something like, “Dad, when you comment on my weight at the table, I feel like such a loser. Then I just want to eat more.” Sometimes people don’t realize what they are doing is hurtful, and calmly talking with them about how you feel now before the holiday dinner can give them time to think about changing their ways.
It’s at least worth a try, unless you know that even bringing up the subject would get you in trouble, or even be dangerous. Then, of course, don’t do it. Wait until you are in a safe place to start changing the rules. This means you may have to wait until you are an adult with your own place. (If you really feel like you are in danger at home, you should probably talk to an adult about that. Someone like a safe relative, neighbor, or a teacher or school counselor might be able to get you the help you need. Fair warning: most counselors, and probably teachers, have to report abuse of someone under 18 to the authorities. It’s the law.)
Whether or not you decide to approach family members to ask them to change what they do at holiday dinners, you can still change the way you react. Remember, you can’t change what other people do, only how you react to it. A little known insight into changing family interactions is that, if you change how you react, that may change what the other person does. Then it’s a whole new holiday dinner. But you have to change first. Here are two approaches to get yourself ready to change:
1. Practice breathing. I know, you breathe every day. How can that help? I’m talking about the kind of slow, deep breaths that bypass your chest and go all the way down to your navel. (Check out my page on this, but don’t try it if you have asthma.) They calm you down and help you think even in the middle of the most stressful times. The reason to start practicing this kind of breathing now is that it’s much easier to remember both to do the breathing and how to do it in a stressful moment if you have been doing it every day for a few weeks until it becomes a habit. Then, when your sister says you chew funny, you can take a deep breath and remember to smile as you thank her for noticing.
2. Practice visualizing acting just like you want to when your relatives misbehave. Here’s how. Sit somewhere quiet without distractions. Close your eyes. Imagine watching a movie of your brother sneering when you bring out the homemade candied yams you made (or whatever gets you upset). See yourself reacting calmly, saying and doing exactly what you want to in exactly the way you want. If you start to get heated up, stop the movie, rewind it to a point before you got upset, then play it again seeing yourself being the cool, self-possessed person you want to be. Make the movie as vivid and full of details as you can. Do this at least once every day from now until you all sit down to dinner together. The more times you visualize responding to a stress in a certain way, the more likely you are to act that way when the stress really happens.
Some stress and pain goes so deep that these steps will not be enough. You can always try using my Quick Start Guide to tapping to calm yourself down as you think about stressful family scenes from the past that you expect to replay this December. If that isn’t enough, see if you can convince your family to visit a family therapist to work on setting some new boundaries.
This week the New York Times ran an article entitled “A Breathing Technique Offers Help For People With Asthma.” Since deep, diaphragmatic breathing exercises are one of my favorite, and easy, ways to help people release stress, I was very interested. I figured that, since diaphragmatic breathing was so effective at relaxing people, the technique the Times was reporting on would be some variation on that. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
According to the article, during an asthma attack most people breathe quickly and as deeply as they can, which may actually make the attack worse. Inhaling deeply and forcefully through the mouth can actually trigger a bronchospasm. The Buteyko breathing method featured in the article teaches people “to breathe shallowly and slowly through the nose, breaking the vicious cycle of rapid, gasping breaths, airway constriction and increased wheezing.”
So if you have asthma, you probably shouldn’t try the deep breathing exercises I recommend. If you are interested in the Buteyko method, check out the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03brod.html.
I’m still thinking about that article from two months ago that talked about how kindergarteners (!) are being pressured to perform tasks they aren’t developmentally ready for and are then labeled as “not good enough” because they don’t meet the unrealistic expectations.
Unfortunately, the bad effects of this kind of labeling can last long after grade school. Sometimes they last a lifetime. A second grader told that he’s not very good in math can still break out in a sweat as an adult when faced with balancing his checkbook. A sixth grader told she doesn’t have a head for science may stop trying and give up the idea of going to college, not to mention med school.
The funny thing is that sometimes, if you get rid of the pain the kid feels from being told they are no good at something (either by teachers, parents, or test scores), they are able to start succeeding at it. It’s as if they were doing what they were supposed to do when they failed at math or biology — they were being a good student in a twisted way. But once they get beyond those memories, they don’t have to fail anymore and can start finding new ways to succeed.
If you have a belief that you are “no good at” something, like math or writing, look for some specific memories that “prove” that you are no good (e.g., a teacher shaking her head at your paper, your Dad sighing when he sees your report card, the inability to concentrate on the subtraction questions in third grade). Then try my Quick Start Guide to tapping to release stress on each of those memories you have of not being good at that subject. Releasing the stress of those memories may open up your ability that has been blocked up to now
(By the way, this can be tricky. There may be a lot of memories to work on, or you may not be able to come up with a single memory — you just “know” you can’t do algebra. It may take some time, or it may take some help from someone else who knows some of the tricks to tapping. Whatever you do, don’t assume — having tried to tap once or twice — that this proves you really are hopeless at whatever you are working on. You probably just need guidance on the tapping.)
