How to help your teenager with worry and anxiety

From friendship fall-outs to exams and everything in between, there are lots of things for our teenage children to worry about. Dr Radha Modgil is a GP, wellbeing advisor and co-host of the new World of Wellbeing podcast. Here are her tips on how parents can support their teenagers with worry and anxiety.

How to explain worry to teenagers

It might be helpful to explain that our brains were designed to think and come up with solutions to problems as a kind of survival mechanism. That’s great if we actually do solve things when we think about them and that’s the end to it, but with worries it’s not always about that. Our brains and thoughts can get into a loop and we end up going round and round with worrying ‘what ifs’ without getting any further with solutions. It can be really tiring, and if we worry a lot then it can affect what we can do day to day and affect our mood and how we feel. Our brains get into a spin, we can get all jumbled up, and we sometimes jump to conclusions without any evidence or facts, or just assume the worst possible scenario.

What strategies can I teach my teen to help them with worrying?

Here are some practical exercises you can do with your teen to support them in the moment.

• Notice past and future thoughts

Worries come from being concerned about the future or the past rather than the present – ‘what ifs’ and ‘should haves’ often play a big part. Encourage your teen to notice their thoughts and work out if they are in the future or in the past and, if so, then bring them back into the present. It’s virtually impossible to worry if we’re thinking about what’s happening right here right now. If there’s a problem in the here and now, we’re more likely to be able to just act and get on with it and it’s done. We can ask for someone to help us come up with solutions, or take action and small steps to make it more manageable.

• Get your worries out

Explain to your teen that when they’re worried it can often be helpful to talk to someone they trust and tell them what they’re worrying about. Getting specific and breaking the problem down so they can see the wood for the trees can actually help them move forwards. Journalling or writing down worries can help us get perspective on them. Often when we look at what we were worried about yesterday, the following day we realise that we didn’t actually need to spend our mental energy and time on those things at all.

• Let go

The habit of worrying is sometimes created because we think that if we worry enough or think about something enough, then we’ll be in control of a situation and everything will be ok. The reverse is true. Instead, it can be helpful to separate the things you can control from the things you can’t – that way you can put your energy into what is in your control, and stop wasting your time and energy on what isn’t. A good exercise to do here is get a piece of paper, write your worry at the top, then draw a large circle and put all the things you can control inside the circle and all the things you can’t on the outside. It can actually be a relief to know that you aren’t in control of everything – all you can do is your best in any situation.

• Get some space from worries

It can be helpful to have some space from worries and one of the best ways to do this is to move your body or get creative. It might be exercising or drawing, or listening to music, or reading. We need a balance between finding solutions to problems in life and having some distraction or a break from them.

• Breathing exercises

Mindful breathing is a mindfulness technique used to ground you to the present moment and get out of your own head. Breathing exercises can help our nervous system calm down. You could show your teenager how to get comfortable and relax their arms and legs before taking a deep breath in for four counts and then a deep breath out for eight, then repeating that.

The difference between worry and anxiety

Worry tends to be in our heads and based on thoughts we have whereas we tend to feel anxiety in our bodies with physical symptoms. Worry also may be more specific about one particular thing, whereas anxiety can feel more like it is about a lot of things or more general. For example, I am worried about my maths test versus I have anxiety about meeting new people. Worry can cause anxiety if we keep worrying about something.

The difference between anxiety and feeling anxious

Feeling anxious is a normal emotion and part of life – for example, your teen might be feeling anxious about going to the dentist or about an exam. However, anxiety is a feeling of unease and comes from feeing really scared or fearful about something. Anxiety can really affect us and can become a problem if it’s recurrent or repetitive, when it affects what we are doing day to day, or if we get symptoms from it. Physical symptoms of anxiety can include shortness of breath, sleeping problems, or getting panic attacks.

If you or your teen are experiencing anxiety then it’s important they talk to a trusted adult and a GP can help as well.

You and your teenager can get more advice by watching the World of Wellbeing videos on Bitesize Study Support, where Dr Radha and co-host Ami Charlize cover topics like confidence, self-care, anxiety, exercise and sleep. You can also listen to the podcasts on BBC Sounds.

If you’re struggling with how to support your teen with some of these issues, it can be really helpful to chat it through with other parents, carers, school or even your own GP sometimes to help you look after your own health and wellbeing so you can be resilient in supporting them. You can find more help and advice on supporting your children or teenagers on Bitesize Parents’ Toolkit.