Healthy Ways to Deal with Adolescent Anxiety

Anxiety disorders are very common in children and teenagers. Most people are anxious some of the time, but when you are living among it all day, it’s overwhelming and debilitating. If you are a teenager, sometimes it can feel crushing and make you not want to have a life.

Learning how to manage anxiety in a healthy manner will change your sense of well-being. You may just need to learn some new tools.

What is Anxiety?

Panic or anxiety is a medical condition in which a person worries excessively and chronically over everyday things. The worry you feel may often be out of proportion to the actual danger that may be presented by the situation or object causing the anxiety.

Some common signs of anxiety include:

• Excessive worry
• Restlessness
• Nervousness
• Irritability
• Muscle tension
• Difficulty sleeping
• Feeling “on edge”
• Trouble controlling worry
• Racing heart
• Sweating or chills

If you or your loved one experiences any of these symptoms, you will likely begin looking for the services of a mental health professional.

How Does Anxiety Affect Kids and Teens?

Anxiety can be a real destroyer of many teenage lives: either ceaselessly worrying over not being able to sleep or building intense academic expectations so high that they feel anxious if they do not live up to their standards.

They might also fear other people’s thoughts about them. Anxiety affects school work and other issues in the social area. If you suffer from anxiety, there are a few things you can do to learn how to manage it.

How to Cope with Anxiety

There are some tools available to teach you how to handle your anxiety. You can learn how to cope in a manner that will dissipate the symptoms of anxiety.

1. Deep breathing techniques

Even now, you can learn the deep breathing techniques that can effectively work in controlling your anxiety. In that case, you can also find the following techniques related to deep breathing:

• Four square or box breathing: In four square or box breathing, you breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, and hold your lungs empty for four seconds. Once you’re done with the sequence, you start again
  
  
• The 4-7-8 breathing technique: This involves inhaling through the nose for four seconds, holding it inside your body for seven seconds, then exhaling through the mouth for eight seconds. Try to do this technique four times.
  
  
• Five-finger breathing: In five-fingered breathing, trace your fingers as you breathe in and out. Start by putting out your hand, and trace each finger. As you trace up on your finger, breathe in and when you trace back down, breathe out. Take five deep breaths at the end of tracing your hand.

Deep breathing helps revive your sense of calm and normalize your breathing patterns whenever you are anxious.

2. Relaxation techniques

There are ways, in general, to relax and loosen up, which can help teens with anxiety. Some of the relaxation techniques that are useful include the following:

• Listening to music
• Yoga
• Meditation

If you are interested in using relaxation techniques as an anxiety releaser, you must first discover one you like.

3. Medication

Medication may be helpful when teens are anxious. Though medication is never a ‘cure-all’, medication can often help reduce symptoms of anxiety. If you are considering medication, discuss it with your physician to learn what options are best for you.

4. See a mental health counselor

A licensed mental health provider can assist you in working through what is going on and help you learn how to identify your triggers and coping skills in anxiety. An anxiety therapist for teens will work out a treatment plan with you so you can work together on reducing symptoms of anxiety.

Let’s Recap

If you happen to be an anxious teenager, it might become too much and leave you emotionally drained. Anxiety may influence school and social relationships. It also makes it difficult for you to go about your daily activities.

Learn ways to relax or deep breathing skills. If that is not enough for you, you can resort to taking medication for anxiety or seeking a mental health counselor.