News
Coping! with Anxiety
Expert from Yale Child Study Center speaks with parents, students
In our most recent Girl Matters | Girls Matter installment during IMPACT today, Professor Eli Lebowitz, Associate Director of the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program at the Yale Child Study Center, presents his findings on adolescent anxiety. Last evening, he spoke to about 100 GPS parents on the same topic.
In a manner that is engaging, relatable, and at times even humorous, Dr. Lebowitz shares his own experiences of anxiety and gives insight on how to not only recognize anxiety but understand why we’re supposed to feel it. “It’s not a disease or a sickness,” he says, “but a crucial part of our lives." Our brains detect threats and ignite the ‘flight or fight’ response to keep us safe.
In a manner that is engaging, relatable, and at times even humorous, Dr. Lebowitz shares his own experiences of anxiety and gives insight on how to not only recognize anxiety but understand why we’re supposed to feel it. “It’s not a disease or a sickness,” he says, “but a crucial part of our lives." Our brains detect threats and ignite the ‘flight or fight’ response to keep us safe.
But just like a smoke detector that sounds when there is a fire to prompt us to leave the building, sometimes that smoke detector goes off when someone burns toast and there’s no immediate danger to our wellbeing.
Those responses can inhibit how we function in our daily routines; for example, a ‘fight or flight’ instinct isn’t particularly helpful when one takes an exam. The anxious brain takes less than a second to engage its amygdala. “The brain will shut down when the amygdala lights up,” Lebowitz says, producing different thoughts when we are anxious.
While it’s natural to avoid situations and events that produce anxiety, experiencing things eventually dulls the emotional impact. Lebowitz uses the analogy of giving each person in the room a significant amount of money today, and again tomorrow, and again the next day. What initially seems like a treat becomes expected, thereby dulling its novelty. Facing what makes one anxious can then induce less anxiety.
Even though levels of anxiety are found in nearly equal measures for boys and girls, parents are found to be more cautious in raising girls, thereby creating increased levels of anxiety. Lebowitz’s suggestion that “Boys mostly fear blood … and commitment,” receives an uproar of laughter from the girls.
He then shares tools for coping with anxiety:
BODY
Breathing, in through your mouth and out your nose from the belly (belly breathing—much how a baby breathes—tells your brain you are safe)
Muscle relaxation
Using imagery, such as a hot air balloon filled with whatever makes you anxious, floating away in the basket
SLEEP!
EAT HEALTHY (and regularly)
“You should feel the fear and do it anyway,” Lebowitz concludes, before fielding questions from the student body.
Q: Is medication OK for dealing with anxiety?
A: Lebowitz says medication is an acceptable mode of treatment but suggests it be used in combination with therapy to help learn coping skills.
Q: How can you determine what is an acceptable level of anxiety?
A: Lebowitz suggests using the FISH test: consider the Frequency, Intensity, Severity, and History of your level of anxiety.
Q: How do you best support someone with anxiety?
A: In order to help a friend, Lebowitz says you can understand what they’re going through and accept them, but also support in a way that doesn’t cause them to avoid situations that cause anxiety. For example, if a friend struggles to speak up in class, answering for her doesn’t allow her to overcome it.
Helpful Nuggets:
- Components of Anxiety: cognition, emotions, behavior, physiology
- Maintaining a high level of tension is exhausting (compared to driving while stressed), especially when you’re not sleeping well.
- When faced with big tasks, break them into smaller goals
- Recognize unhelpful thoughts and work to change them
- Challenge your thoughts to be actual facts (e.g. someone with a fear of flying should consider actual crash stats)
- Avoid skipping over logical steps when rationalizing
- Thought traps can include: fortune telling, overgeneralization, catastrophizing (what if??), mind reading, selective abstraction
- Learn to STOP and think about what is causing you to be anxious: scared, thoughts, other thoughts (or things I can do), praise
- Practice doing things that make you uncomfortable (but not dangerous)
- Practice gradual exposure to situations that make you anxious
Things to Avoid: (that might acerbate feelings of anxiety)
- Sleeping all day
- Procrastination
- Alcohol and drugs
- Acting aggressively
- Lying about how things are going
- Dangerous behaviors
- Ruminating
- Too much screen time (video games)
Dr. Lebowitz’s research focuses on the development, neurobiology, and treatment of anxiety and related disorders, and he is the author of numerous research papers and of books and chapters on childhood and adolescent anxiety.
