Beating anxiety or at least trying to cope

I suppose the thing that has become very evident is the way that students react to stress. The number of anxiety cases seems to be on the increase as the stressors change with the times. As a teacher and a parent I wonder how best to help them develop the coping strategies. It really is something that we need to look more closely at. I sought out some possible simple explanation and suggestions and found an easy to read site HelpGuide.org (access here). An amazing note in the articles I have recently read, is that anxiety attacks could be linked with the overprotective or helicopter parent, who could inadvertently provide the triggers that will lead to attacks occurring in their children.

I think that the first step involves deciding and/or acknowledging that thereby is a problem. The problem lies in the self-promotion spiral that surrounds us and them, and knowing that showing any signs would be taken as a weakness. The schadenfreude in all around would soon lets us know that we have "failed' and that is was now well known and circulating. I think that this has really stopped or slowed discussions that really could have helped this problem develop to its current level. I know that students in particular are really concerned about their public persona and very conscious of their place in the world, and am becoming more convinced that it is a cause in the "slowdown of the identification and treatment". How many times have I seen self-denial lead to the problem become larger, is too many to recall! The idea that they are the cause rather than that they have a problem is a distinction that is lost on most teens. Again, the idea of admitting that a problem exists is the first step in actually solving and treating the issue.

Unfortunately panic attacks seem to come in cycles for many, and the triggers can be associated with people or places. This can present problems with students as they associate the school with attacks, making the school a stressor/trigger. The explanation of stressors and the anxiety cycle provided by David Carbonell in his Panic Attacks workbook is shown, and I would suggest that a read of his two articles is definitely worth the time (I have linked them - AnxietyCoach.com and The Panic Cycle for easy access). Carbonell sees the pattern in terms of triggers and responses, and if you look closely you see that it makes a lot of sense. we all associate happiness, sadness and other emotions like fear with positive and negative thoughts and actions that have occurred. We see them as precursors of recurring patterns and not as isolated incidents that can occur in our lives. These attacks produce very real physical symptoms that reinforce the emotion and tend to magnify the anxiety levels.

So the strategies we adopt have to try and "de-link" the feeling with the perceived stressor/trigger. This can be much harder than you think if the teen has bottled up their anxiety and the cycle has been gone through several times. This will inevitably strengthen the link between the trigger/stressor and the anxiety attack. So as you can imagine, identifying and then addressing the problem early is imperative.

Some suggestions or strategies that might help are:

1. Write them down - having the anxiety trapped inside will tend to magnify it. If you can write down your feelings and anxieties, it will have a cathartic affect and allow you to release some of the anxiety. If we talk it out it can be done relatively quickly, but by taking the time to describe and explain the sensations and feelings will help release some of the tension. This is a classic step in anger management and helps to alleviate that emotion to a manageable level, so it should also work on this emotion as well. 
2. Accept that life is uncertain - there are many of us who over think and plan too much. This will make us a little inflexible and unable or unwilling to handle change. I relate this to instilling a fixed mindset in your child that promotes a real black and white mentality that does not really allow for coping with change. A growth mindset, on the other hand, will allow your child to see challenges for what they are and have the flexibility to adapt to change. Being goal oriented does not mean that you have to have a fixed mindset.
3. Admit there is a problem - is probably the hardest thing any of us to do, little own a teen. Many of us concentrate on the physical symptoms and treating them instead of seeing the root cause is something in our past that makes us over think and worry whenever a certain trigger occurs. The main thing to remember is that the many of us are insecure and have anxiety triggers and that by admitting it and seeking help can we hope to treat the actual cause rather than the symptoms.