You shouldn’t have to choose between your school and your mental health!!
If you or someone you know is struggling with anxiety about high school- try these 5 coping skills for teenagers.
Coping with anxiety about high school before it becomes a bigger problem is possible!
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If you prefer to read, here’s what you need to know about these 5 Coping Skills for Coping with High School Anxiety:
ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ANXIETY
Anxiety does not have a do not disturb button, which means that you can't ignore it. You've gotta acknowledge your anxiety about high school if you want to overcome it.
When you acknowledge your anxiety, you let it know that you hear it, you understand what it's trying to do for you, and then you get to decide what you do next about it.
When you try to ignore your anxiety, it usually comes out in some other really wonky or stressful way.
Sometimes our bodies and our anxiety likes to shout at us, which can lead to things like panic attacks, or emotional meltdowns.
So the key here is that you've gotta acknowledge it first if you wanna overcome it.
2. ASSESS THE RISKS
We all know that high school is risky business. It can be really overwhelming and stressful, which is why you've got to assess the risks.
Anxiety is just trying to let you know, be careful, wake up, pay attention, there's some potential danger or risk lurking about. It does that so that you can plan and prepare ahead.
We call this Coping Ahead.
So if you don't take a moment, and just kind of assess the risk level, then you're gonna be stuck in anxiety mode because your anxiety is gonna keep alerting you to every risk no matter how minor or major it is.
It's up to YOU to make a move or adjust your approach.
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3. CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITIES
So for this coping strategy, I really recommend playing the "what if?" game. If you're not familiar with it, it's usually played in three separate rounds. I like to set a timer because sometimes my mind can go a little wild here, especially when I'm feeling really anxious and stressed out.
This is how you play the "what if?" game:
💛 Round 1: Pause and consider all the potential negative outcomes or possibilities here. You're probably already really great at this, especially if you're feeling anxious, so go wild. They don't have to be realistic. They don't have to be likely. They just wanna be any of the possible negative scenarios that could pop up for you.
💛 Round 2: Consider all of the neutral outcomes or possibilities here. So things that don't necessarily have a positive or a pleasant outcome, or a negative or uncomfortable outcome. They just kind of are.
💛 Round 3: This is where the magic happens. It's where you consider all the possible positive pleasant outcomes of this scenario. So what are some possibilities here?
This game can help break you out of that negative thinking cycle that anxiety likes to keep us stuck in because you might miss out on some other potential opportunities that exist in this situation.
So what are some possible outcomes of going to high school and participating in high school?
I know a key one that a lot of parents are thrilled about is that when you get a high school diploma, it opens up other possibilities and doors for your career choice.
4. TELL SOMEONE
If you're still feeling really anxious about high school, then you've got to tell somebody. Schools happen to have excellent resources usually when it comes to assisting with anxiety, or school anxiety in general. That's because they are really motivated for their students to perform well.
So if their students are able to show up and enjoy school, and get what they need from school, that's good for them too.
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Some people that you might wanna reach out to for support might be:
→ your parents
→ a neighbor
→ a school teacher
→ the school social worker
→ your school guidance counselor.
There are lots of possibilities here, though I do highly recommend that you reach out to a safe, responsible adult.
Because the thing is is that I know a lot of teenagers love to rely on their friends, who also happen to be teenagers going through this together, which is awesome, I'm not gonna knock that.
When you are a teenager, and you're relying on other teens for support, you don't always know what their capacity is for helping. And you wanna make sure that they have knowledge of all the resources available.
Somebody in the school system might have a little more knowledge and resource capacity than another teenager.
5. PRACTICE MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness is really, really great about calling our attention and noticing when things happen, why they happen, and the patterns to our problematic circumstances, and also our positive ones too.
When you take a moment to practice some mindfulness, it allows you to slow down, pause, and consider what you can keep doing to continue a positive or pleasant outcome, and what you might need to change up that's in your control to shift away from an uncomfortable circumstance.
I know one of the most common experiences when it comes to high school anxiety is experiencing anxiety in the morning, which is why you've gotta check out my morning anxiety meditation right over here for teenagers: → https://youtu.be/-ecJXpCVR2E
Let's get ready to meditate together!
If you found the information in this video useful and helpful, you know what to do. Go ahead and share it because you never know who YOU could be helping!
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