Tag Archive for: anxiety

Sunday Prep Check-in (for students and educators)

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Sunday Prep Check-in

Many of us start to feel anxious halfway through the day on Sunday, anticipating the beginning of another work or school week. This is a downloadable worksheet I created to help focus attention and plan for the week. Often, the simple act of writing down all the things we need to do has the effect of diminishing the looming sense of overwhelm we can feel.

Additionally, writing down reminders to play and relax every single day can help us develop the belief that these are things that are just as important as the “work” we have to do in any given week (whether that work is paid, graded, or simply devoured at the family dinner table). Simple reminders like this are powerful over time, and the questions at the bottom of the weekly table help us frame our response to the anxiety we might feel and plan for how to manage unexpected things that come up.

If you use this tool, I’d love to know if you find it helpful.

When Competition Brings Out the Worst in Us

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  Human beings like certainty. We like rules and order and we especially like it when we can make analogies in order to extrapolate principles from one thing to another as a way to make sense of the world. Unfortunately, sometimes we do this without questioning the basic underlying ideas or thinking about potential consequences. Case in point, the notion that competition is good for us, that it spurs us to greater feats, drives us to do things we wouldn’t do on our own.

The “Space Race” in the late 1950s and early 1960s between the US and the Soveit Union is widely touted as a prime example of competition that benefited humanity as a whole. There are those who say that humans would never have made it to the moon without it, or at least not as quickly.

Capitalism is rooted in the idea that competition for customers means that companies will be held to account, that they will continue to innovate and grow and we will all be better off.

We’ve extended these ideas to our places of work and our schools – reviewing employees and students on a bell curve, creating sales incentives and spelling bees and the like. Some parents even pit their own children against each other in competitions around chores and grades, but are we really benefiting from this culture of competition?

First and foremost, the notion that competition is responsible for bringing out the best in us is based on a pretty dim notion of human nature. It presupposes that we are not internally motivated enough to innovate and create things on our own, which I don’t believe is true. I think that humans are naturally driven to want to create and improve on things and that competition can actually bring out the worst in us.

Left to our own devices and given ample time and space to experiment and work on things we are interested in, we may find that we get blocked or need some outside inspiration. We can also discover that there are different ways of thinking about things and perhaps feel more free to expand our creativity. But when we’re worried about “losing” a race of some sort, we can take shortcuts, fudge data, and become more focused on the end result than we are on the ultimate goal. Our brains react to this stress with a flood of stress hormones that shut down our ability to be creative or think rationally, and the emotional need to triumph takes precedence.

The idea that human beings require some sort of external motivation to perform to our potential is baked in to our cultural narrative, but are we actually training ourselves to eliminate our own internal reasons for acting, thinking, innovating? When we teach kids that they can’t be trusted to come up with their own ideas unless we give them a compelling reason, we are underestimating the human need to challenge ourselves and think creatively.

If our reasons for scientific discovery and product innovation center around competition with other countries or becoming the richest entrepreneur, are we really living up to our potential, or have we simply become slaves to an artificial construct? Does Apple feel like they really need to innovate on their phone technology or are they simply creating new phone after new phone because that’s what is expected of corporations? Is it because their executives want to continue to be the most well-compensated workers in the world or because they want to maintain their place on the NASDAQ or Fortune Magazine’s lists of successful companies?

If human beings are designed to create and be in community -which there is ample scientific evidence to support – then the premise that we are unmotivated slugs who need to one-up each other is contrary to our actual nature. If we have decided that competition is the way to keep moving forward, we have also said that creativity and collaboration are not as important, even though these things are an integral part of what it means to be a healthy human being.

What if our entire economy, educational system and cultural ethos are built on a premise that is anathema to what it means to be human? And what if we’ve bought in to it so deeply that it is creating depression, isolation, and anxiety on an epic scale? How can we begin to shift our view of humanity to acknowledge that people will create, innovate, and grow regardless of whether we challenge them to do so? What if we trust that, even if someone else’s process doesn’t look exactly like we think it ought to, if we give them time and space and support enough to believe in themselves, they will flourish and begin to express their purpose and passion and it will end up benefiting us all?

 

Back-To-School: When Anxiety Rears its Head

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The end of summer is a difficult time for many teens, especially older teens who are entering their final years of high school and anticipating the challenges that will come with that, and first year college students who may be moving away from home for the first time. So how can kids think about anxiety in a way that will help them continue to move forward in the face of fear and often overwhelming feelings? My own personal experience with anxiety might help shed some light on this all-too-common issue.

The problem with anxiety is that it is insistent. It is conniving and coy and always trying to convince me that I have to do something – or, NOT do something. Everything is fear-based with anxiety and, in my case, as soon as I started listening, it was incessantly in my ear, my brain, buzzing. But over a period of years I learned that the best thing I could do when she showed up was nothing. I promised myself that I wouldn’t ever make big decisions out of fear, and it took many repetitions of this mantra and even written reminders on my laptop, my bathroom mirror, my desk to help me hear it in my head over the sound of Anxiety’s yapping.

My first instinct was to fight Anxiety, and it worked for a while, but it was so much work. I was exhausted and Anxiety just kept coming back. Everything changed when I learned that instead of combating it, I could stop, breathe, acknowledge its presence. I could listen to the frantic admonitions, the nay-saying, the fear-mongering, and let them pass right through me. I started to pretend that they were the ramblings of some sad soul on the subway. I nodded with sympathy, heard Anxiety out, and released it all. I don’t have to believe any of it. I get to understand where Anxiety is coming from and honor it and also not follow its advice. Anxiety will tell you that it wants what is best for you, that it will keep you safe, but that path keeps you small and afraid. It keeps you in the dark – isolated and lonely. True, I might be safe, but that’s not how I want to live, and I’m pretty sure, if your kids are honest with themselves, that’s not the life they want either.

THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ANXIETY

It’s important to remember that Anxiety isn’t  me. Anxiety is afraid and it always will be – it is literally the only reason Anxiety exists, but it is not why I’m here. I have other reasons for being, and while Anxiety is loud and compelling and jacks up my heart rate and makes my palms sweaty and my head spin, it is possible to gradually separate myself from Anxiety. I can hear its words as though I’m underwater – muffled and distorted – I can let them pass through me and not stick.

It is also important to remember that Anxiety hates being ignored. It will come back again and again. I know this. But I also know that everything I’ve ever done that I’m proud of, that was worth it, that gave me joy, was in spite of it. Going to college. Getting married. Having a baby. Those were all things that paralyzed me, that made Anxiety stand up and say, “What do you think you’re doing? You don’t know how to do this! This is terrifying!” And I believed that some of the time, but I did those things anyway, and I don’t regret it. It is possible to move forward, step by step, with Anxiety right next to you, yammering in your ear that you couldn’t do this, sweating and heart pounding.

Maybe most important, Anxiety is quiet when you’re busy – when you’re doing your thing. Because you’re calling it on its BS. You’re proving it wrong. You’re showing it that you CAN do this, that you WON’T mess it up, that you are capable of going out there and living your fullest life. That’s also why it’s loudest before bed and right when you wake up – because you’re chilling and not out doing, but if you can work on silencing it (or acknowledging, listening, and dismissing) at those times, it gets much easier.

KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER

*Know who you are. Know what you want. Know what you’re willing to do to get there. Anxiety doesn’t like clarity. The more clear you are, the less Anxiety will pipe up.

*All you have to do is the next right thing. When Anxiety is chatting away in your ear, it’s tempting to believe that you have to have it all figured out, that you have to have a plan. But, to be honest, there is never a point in your life where you have to have it all figured out. When you’re dealing with anxiety, the best thing to do is take the next step forward. And the next. And the next.

*Bonus points for noticing the things that feel right, that make you smile. Gratitude is a powerful antidote to Anxiety. If you get immersed in school and you start to enjoy yourself, do yourself a favor and take a moment to chalk one up for you and rub it in Anxiety’s face. You’ve got this.

*More bonus points for patting yourself on the back every time you go to class, talk to someone, join an exercise group, get out of bed. Those are monumental acts when Anxiety is riding shotgun.

When Anxiety Shows up as Anger

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If you have a child or student who struggles with anxiety, it is vital to remember that, in adolescents, anxiety can show up very differently than it does in younger children. As I’ve noted before, one incredibly important mantra to repeat when a child acts out is

where there is bad behavior, there is pain.

Yes, even in teenagers. Even if we think they should “know better.” And for individuals who are experiencing anxiety, there is an even more compelling reason why we can’t expect them to act or speak in calm, rational ways when they are in the throes of a strong emotional response.

Often, for people who aren’t feeling anxious, anxiety reactions can seem out of proportion to the situation. But we have to remember that for the person who is triggered, the reaction is very real. Take the example of the war veteran walking down the street one day when a car backfires nearby. Anyone on the street will likely startle at the sound, but as soon as they look around and assess the situation, they are able to recognize what the source of the noise was and temper their response. But for the person who associates that sound with something terrifying and/or life-threatening, that sound triggers a series of chemical responses that overrides their ability to be rational in the moment. Their heart begins racing, they have a huge adrenaline spike, and their brain tells them to duck or run. It’s survival mode. The reaction is all in the context.

This is exactly what it’s like for people with anxiety, and for adolescents, because their amygdala (emotion center of the brain) is in charge, any fight or flight response is magnified, and that is what we as educators and parents need to remember when we’re in conflict with kids like this.

Over time, we may be able to predict what kinds of things activate this kind of anxiety reaction in our kids. Maybe it’s a certain tone of voice or a slamming door or yelling. It could be a threat of punishment or the silent treatment. Ask them in a moment of calm and you may be surprised at what you hear.

KEY REMINDERS:

  • their experience is theirs and it’s totally valid. Even if you don’t understand it or it feels disproportionate to you, downplaying it or telling them that the way they feel is silly will only make things worse;
  • the fight/flight response is very compelling. If they feel like they need to walk away from a conflict (flee), forcing them to stay will give them no alternative but to fight;
  • learning can’t take place in a brain flooded with emotion. When someone is in the middle of an anxiety reaction, you will not be able to reason with them, and it’s not their fault. They are physiologically incapable of processing what you’re saying or doing with their rational brain;
  • you’re the adult here. Even if this teenager in front of you looks and acts and demands to be treated like a little adult, they aren’t yet. Their brain won’t be fully mature until they’re around the age of 25. That means that they can’t be expected to hold other people accountable for their behaviors, have strong personal boundaries, and be able to articulate exactly what they’re feeling yet. It is up to us as the adults in their lives who care about them to create a safe enough space for them to talk to us, understand that when they’re acting out they are expressing some need to us, and help them figure out better ways to deal with their frustrations and anxieties.

Questions? Leave them in the comments section. I’m happy to explain further if necessary.

Next time – the rules my family came up with for having constructive disagreements with adolescents.

 

Adolescent Anxiety

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Teens and tweens are an anxious bunch. It is well-known and well-documented that many kids struggle with anxiety disorders and many are medicated for them and treated individually. Unfortunately, their brains are primed to be ruled by their emotions during this time, but it is possible to help them understand anxiety and begin to tame it. Because it is so prevalent (more than 20% of teens experience significant anxiety), we can harness the power of groups to help kids this age find solutions.

Anxiety thrives inside our heads. The nagging thoughts we have often grow bigger as they rattle around in our brains, reminding us how scary the world is and how unprepared we are to deal with it. But often, when we verbalize those thoughts we can see them for what they really are and realize that they aren’t rooted in reality. That is the power of groups. Adolescents are particularly social creatures, drawn to connect with their peers in an intense, all-consuming way. In my generation, that manifested itself in hours on the telephone every night, and today we see it with kids texting and FaceTiming each other. They rely on each other for social cues and support and we can capitalize on that to help them help each other.

By talking about anxiety as part of our curriculum, we are not only normalizing the experience for teens and reminding them that they are not the only ones who feel like that, but we are creating a network of peers that have some important tools to combat it. The exercises we teach them are rooted in the most recent brain science and mindfulness practices.

Often, when we are in the throes of an anxiety attack, we can’t rationalize or remember how to counteract it. It is important to have friends that we can draw on to remind us how to re-set our brain’s response, to give us a reality check, to reassure us that we aren’t dying. The more we practice defusing anxiety, the easier it gets, and if we can learn this as adolescents, we will be much more able to handle difficult situations as adults.

Want more information? Contact us to set up a workshop at kari@theSELFProject.com.