The teenage years are filled with some of the biggest changes in your lifespan. It’s a potentially difficult time to go through even if you have the ideal physical and mental health with a happy family life and no major traumas.
There are several potential mental health issues that can exacerbate the angst and stress of the teenage years — and anxiety is one of the biggest and most common.
About 32% of teens aged 13 to 18 are dealing with an anxiety disorder. Having a tool kit of tips can help a teenager feel comfortable in their own skin again.
The tips below will provide some anxiety coping skills for teens that can be life-changing.
Get Counseling Services
Professional counseling services can assist you when you’re ready to help your teenager make sense of their anxiety issues.
Not only can counseling get to the root of the anxiety issue, but it can help develop the necessary coping skills to work through it. People have different reasons and triggers for anxiety, many of them rooted in worry over future calamities.
Your mind becomes accustomed to envisioning worst-case scenarios to the point that it can even bring about physical symptoms.
Perform Some Breathing Exercises
When you can breathe deeply, you’ll be able to oxygenate your blood and activate your body’s de-stressing response.
It’s important that you let your teenager know that they have the ability to control their anxiety and slow down the symptoms. Breathing exercises are a hopeful way to slow down your mind, get your heart rate down to a normal pace, and work through an anxiety management routine.
Once you are able to control your mind and slow down your physicality, you can do things like work through affirmations, retrain the anxiety that you are experiencing, and calm down your fight-or-flight response.
Develop a Yoga Routine
There’s a reason that yoga is a practice that has been popular since ancient times. It’s part exercise and part spiritual system that many people incorporate into their lives to help deal with stress and anxiety.
The scientific benefits are clear even if you don’t delve deeply into the spiritual leanings. With yoga, you learn to develop bodily and mental presence rather than being a prisoner to your impulses.
Yoga teaches you to quiet your mind while recognizing and being present with all of your bodily impulses. This keeps you from going on autopilot and helps you cope with your anxiety when it occurs rather than being carried away by it.
Yoga also involves deep breathing and helps your body become stronger and more flexible. Building a stronger body and mind that remains in sync will arm you to fight back against even the most stifling anxiety.
Write in a Journal
There’s a reason that previous generations of teenagers have followed the practice of writing in a diary or journal. This is an excellent way for teenagers to process their thoughts as they go through many physical and hormonal changes.
Having this outlet to vent can help steel the mind and also gain insight and context for the things that worry you the most.
Getting back to pen and paper and a quiet mind can be particularly helpful for today’s teenagers, many of whom grew up on devices and social media and don’t remember a pre-internet world.
Journaling can help with stress management to cope with the many curveballs that life throws your way in the teenage years.
Change Your Perspective
Anxiety in teens and adults alike is often rooted in bad or unprovable information. A simple change in perspective can make your anxiety a thing of the past.
In many cases, it involves worrying about something that will never happen or that you can’t prove will happen. What’s more, even when the thing that you were worried about does happen, it’s rarely as bad as your mind plays it up.
Recognizing this can help take the teeth out of your anxiety while developing impeccable coping skills for teenagers.
Study Different Philosophies
Never forget that there were always people in history that have faced what you’re going through. This includes learning how to cope with anxiety in your teenage years.
Learn about the philosophies that people from the past have come up with, and work these into your life. Stoicism is a mental philosophy that largely deals with controlling what you can control, and not worrying about the rest.
Taoism is a philosophy that focuses on observing the present moment, rather than getting carried away by your thoughts.
Learn all about the best philosophies so that you can add them to your life.
Follow an Exercise Program
Finally, one of the best ways to cope with stress is to start exercising. Recognize that the mind and body are connected. When you focus on your physical fitness, it can have a huge impact on your mind.
Going through a strength and conditioning program can also sharpen your mental fortitude. Exercising regularly produces endorphins that lower stress and improve your mood.
Develop These Anxiety Coping Skills for Teens
Having some anxiety coping skills for teens will help your loved one through some of life’s most difficult times.
Talking Circles Therapy and Wellness can assist you when you’re ready to do what’s best for your mental health and well-being. This practice is heads and tails above the competitors and will help you with your counseling needs.
Take time to contact this practice by sending an online question or calling (505)261-9770.
