Beyond clich茅s: Teen anxiety prompts closer look at young lives
| Acton, Mass.
Eighth-grade student Biz Brooks and her friends like to chat about K-pop music, photography, and her new dog. But when the teens hang out or send text messages on their phones, they also deal with darker thoughts.
鈥淢y friends and I talk about being anxious a lot of the time,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e talk about how things stress us out because generally we are a pretty stressed group of people.鈥�
Biz lives with her family in Acton, Massachusetts, a prosperous suburb about 30 miles outside Boston.
Why We Wrote This
A majority of young people say they feel stressed out, pointing to causes other than social media. How are adults trying to address and shift teenage thought?
The 13-year-old may be especially attuned to mental health struggles since from a spate of recent youth suicides. Yet new research shows her and her friends鈥� feelings are far from unique.
A Pew Research Center survey released in February found that consider anxiety and depression a major problem among their peers. That comes on the heels of other studies showing alarming rises in the among young Americans and heightened levels of 鈥溾�� in college students.听With the issue starting at earlier ages and affecting all races and income brackets, efforts at solutions also appear to be rising.听 听
Anxiety and depression among teens 鈥渋s significantly worse鈥� now says Karen Bluth, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 鈥淚 get emails from parents with 11-year-olds who are super anxious.鈥澨�
There鈥檚 no consensus among researchers about what drives teen anxiety, although common theories include fear of failure, the rise of smartphones and social media, changing parenting styles, and a world that feels unusually chaotic.
Biz and her neighbor Charissa Yu, a high school junior, say their anxiety stems from intense pressure to achieve good grades, attend a prestigious four-year university, and hold a successful career that makes a positive impact on the world.
鈥淚 want to tell myself that I鈥檇 be OK if I failed, but I really don鈥檛 think I would be,鈥� says Charissa, who worries about how many advanced classes to take next year. 鈥淚 definitely feel that anxiety coming up. It鈥檚 just a building pressure of 鈥榟ow much can I endure?鈥� 鈥� she says.
Biz calls anxiety 鈥渁n icky feeling you get that you can鈥檛 shake really easily,鈥� and says her friends have been anxious about grades and college since sixth-grade.
鈥業t鈥檚 OK to be kind to yourself鈥櫶�
In the nationwide Pew survey of U.S. teenagers ages 13 to 17 conducted this fall, researchers found 61 percent of teens face pressure to get good grades. The second most common pressures teens report are to look good (29 percent) and to fit in socially (28 percent).
Professor Bluth co-developed a curriculum for teenagers called 鈥淢aking Friends with Yourself: A Mindful Self-Compassion Program for Teens鈥� that teaches teens how to deal with anxiety by treating themselves kindly, the way they would a friend. She runs trainings on the curriculum around the world.
鈥淚 tend to teach a lot of high achievers who have pushed themselves to get where they are and [who are] incredibly stressed and anxious to the point of sometimes being not functional,鈥� Professor Bluth says. 鈥淭hey learn that it鈥檚 OK to be kind to yourself. It鈥檚 revolutionary for them. I think it鈥檚 revolutionary for adults too. It goes against a lot of what our culture teaches us.鈥�
One of the most commonly cited reasons for increased teen anxiety is the rise of smartphones and social media. Psychologist Jean Twenge found starting in 2012, the first year the majority of Americans owned smartphones.
Biz pushes back against the premise that social media increases anxiety, saying it鈥檚 an outlet for self-expression and connecting with others with similar interests. 鈥淚 run a poetry account [on Instagram] and that makes me really happy all the time.鈥�
For Biz, world issues such as global warming, homophobia, and racism cause more anxiety than social media. 鈥淚t鈥檚 stressful to know you鈥檙e going to have to be the change,鈥� if change is going to happen on such issues, she says.听
While teens from all demographics face anxiety in themselves or peers, it鈥檚 important not to lump everyone together, says Angela Neal-Barnett, a professor at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, and director of the university鈥檚 Program for Research on Anxiety Disorders among African-Americans.听
鈥淲e have to be honest and talk about race and racism, particularly structural racism,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he research is clear that for black Americans, anxiety is more intense and tends to be more chronic,鈥� especially as black teens experience the recurrence of troubling news reports, such as the shootings of unarmed black men.
Pew Research Center
Tell teens: This isn鈥檛 permanent
On a recent chilly evening in Groton, Massachusetts, about 100 people gathered in the local middle school to hear Lynn Lyons, a psychotherapist from Concord, New Hampshire, talk about breaking the cycle of anxiety.
Ms. Lyons cracks jokes on stage as she covers topics ranging from how to prevent and treat anxiety, to how parents can rein in their own anxiety.
In an interview before her talk, Ms. Lyons says it鈥檚 key for teenagers to know the feelings they have now aren鈥檛 permanent.
鈥淲hen we use the language of permanence with teenagers, like 鈥榶ou have this condition called anxiety鈥� or 鈥榶ou have this disease called depression,鈥� we are basically saying to them, 鈥榶ou will be like this forever,鈥� 鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the exact opposite message that we want to give teens who are struggling.鈥�
