Helping Teens Cope with Stress

Stress is a common problem among teens, and as a parent, you have a role in helping the teen in your life cope with it. So what exactly is stress? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stress is the body’s physical and psychological response to anything perceived as overwhelming. This may be viewed as a result of life’s demands—pleasant or unpleasant—and the body’s lack of resources to meet them.

While stress is a natural part of life, it often creates imbalance in the body, especially a teen’s body, which is already experiencing so many changes. Girls also report feeling "frequently stressed" more than boys. Visit Teens Today: An Inside Look to learn more about how teen girls and boys change from early to middle to late adolescence.

A certain amount of stress can be helpful as a way of keeping your teen motivated. But too much or too little may render them ineffective and interfere with their relationships at home and socially, as well as their physical well-being. According to a recent survey, 43 percent of 13- to 14-year-olds say they feel stressed every single day; by ages 15 to 17, the number rises to 59 percent. The day-to-day pressures teens experience, such as the pressure to fit in and to be successful, can lead to stress. Jobs and family economics can also prove stressful for teens, as nearly two-thirds of them say they are "somewhat" or "very concerned" about their personal finances.³

If stress becomes unmanageable and teens are left to their own devices without guidance from a parent or caregiver, they may find their own ways of coping. Sometimes these coping mechanisms involve unhealthy behaviors such as drinking, smoking marijuana, and engaging in other risky behaviors.⁴ Here’s how you can help the teen in your life with healthy, productive coping strategies.

1. Recognize when your teen is stressed-out. Is your teen getting adequate rest? Are they eating well-balanced meals? Do they ever get to take breaks to restore their energy? If these needs are unmet, your teen will show it through chronic moodiness, irritability, anxiety and/or long bouts of sadness. If you have a teen daughter, be particularly aware if she is obsessing about looks or weight.
2. Introduce positive coping strategies to your teen. Let’s face it, stress will be a part of your teen’s life. Help them identify ways in which they can relieve their stress in a healthy way. It can be as simple as having your teen talk to you about their problems or pressures. Other ideas include: exercising, getting enough sleep, listening to music, writing in a journal, keeping a healthy diet, seeing a counselor and reminding them of their accomplishments.
3. Be a good example. Young people often pick up their coping strategies by watching their parents. If a child sees a parent drink an alcoholic beverage or smoke a cigarette every time they are overwhelmed, they are more likely to imitate the same behavior. So, be mindful of your own reactions to stress and set a good example for your children.

If signs of stress persist, ask for help. Some sources you can consult include: a health care provider, mental health center, social worker, counselor, nurse, therapist or clergy.

Full story at Managing Teen Stress

See also;

• A Problem Shared is a Problem Halved
• Adult Children of Alcoholics
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Seek help for yourself

Dealing with the Stuff That Makes Life Tough : The 10 Things That Stress Teen Girls Out and How to Cope with Them

Causes and Risks for Binge Drinking by Women

Women’s childhood and adult adverse experiences, mental health, and binge drinking: The California Women’s Health Survey.

Researchers surveyed nearly 7,000 women in California during 2003-4 and found that 9.3% were involved in binge drinking.

The reasons given for alcohol abuse in this manner were;

Poor physical health, and poorer mental health, including;

• symptoms of PTSD,
• anxiety,
• depression,
• feeling overwhelmed by stress

Adverse experiences in adulthood, including;

• intimate partner violence,
• having been physically or sexually assaulted, or
• having experienced the death of someone close

In childhood, including;

• living with someone abusing substances or mentally ill, or
• with a mother victimized by violence, or
• having been physically or sexually assaulted

The study concluded that identifying characteristics of women who engage in binge drinking is a key step in prevention and intervention efforts.

Binge drinking programs should consider comprehensive approaches that address women’s mental health symptoms as well as circumstances in the childhood home.

Women’s childhood and adult adverse experiences, mental health, and binge drinking: The California Women’s Health Survey. Christine Timko, Anne Sutkowi, Joanne Pavao and Rachel Kimerling. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy 2008, 3:1.

See also;

• AA and Treatment Work Better Together
• Current Social Problems
• Address the drinking problem directly
• Subscribe by e-Mail to Alcohol Self-help News

24 Workplace Actions of ACOA’s

  Adult Children of Alcoholism / Addiction in the Workplace

ACOA’s often transfer behaviour learned in childhood into other adult spheres of life. In true codependency style these often confuse and confound us.

Some of these are;

1. We confuse our boss or supervisor with our alcoholic parents and have similar relationship patterns, behaviors, and reactions that are carryovers from childhood.
2. We confuse our co-workers with our siblings or our alcoholic parents and repeat childhood reactions in those working relationships.
3. We expect lavish praise and acknowledgment from our boss for our efforts on the job.
4. Authority figures scare us and we feel afraid when we need to talk to them.
5. We get a negative gut reaction when dealing with someone who has the physical characteristics or mannerisms of our alcoholic parent.
6. We have felt isolated and different from everyone around us, but we don’t really know why.
7. We lose our temper when things upset us rather than dealing with problems productively.
8. We busy ourselves with our co-workers’ jobs, often telling them how to do their work.
9. We can get hurt feelings when co-workers do things socially together without asking us, even though we have not made an effort to get to know them and join in the social life.
10. We are afraid to make the first move to get to know a co-worker better, thinking they will not like us or approve of us.
11. We usually do not know how to ask for what we want or need on the job, even for little things.
12. We do not know how to speak up for ourselves when someone has said or done something inappropriate. We try desperately to avoid face-to-face confrontations.
13. We are sensitive and can get extremely upset with any form of criticism of our work.
14. We want to be in charge of every project or activity, feeling more comfortable when we are in control of every detail, rather than letting others be responsible.
15. We may be the workplace “clown” to cover up our insecurities or to get attention from others.
16. We are people-pleasers and may take on extra work, or our co-worker’s tasks, in order to be liked and receive approval from others.
17. We do not know how to be assertive in getting our needs met or expressing a concern. We may have to repeatedly rehearse our comments before delivering them.
18. We have felt that we do not deserve a raise, promotion, better workspace, or a better job.
19. We do not know how to set boundaries, and we let others interrupt us. We can accept more work without knowing how to say ‘no’ appropriately.
20. We are perfectionists about our own work and expect others to be the same and have the same work ethics and values.
21. We become workaholics because it gives us a feeling of self-worth we did not get as a child.
22. We may jump from job to job, looking for the perfect position as the substitute for the secure and nurturing home environment we did not have.
23. We get upset when people do things that affect us or our work without asking us first.
24. We have a high tolerance for workplace dysfunction and tend to stick it out in an unhappy job because we lack the self-esteem to leave.

After the ACOA laundry list of characterisation.

See also;

• Adult Children of Alcoholics
• Al-Anon May be able to help
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Workaholism
• Subscribe by e-Mail to Alcohol Self-help News

Stress Relief Drinking

Men More Likely to Drink for Stress Relief

Depressed men are more likely than women to crave alcohol and develop alcohol-related disorder, according to researchers at Yale University.

CBC News reported May 12 that the study of 54 healthy adult drinkers studied responses to stressful events such as relationship problems and job loss.

“Men’s tendency to crave alcohol when upset may be a learned behavior or may be related to known gender differences in reward pathways in the brain,” said researcher Tara Chaplin. “And this tendency may contribute to risk for alcohol-use disorders.”

The research study was published online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

From Join Together Online

See also;

• Alcohol is a drug – TOO!
• Alcohol & Medication Interactions
• Alcoholic Insanity
• Subscribe by e-Mail to Alcohol Self-help News

Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure -Yahoo!

Cocoa, but Not Tea, Lowers Blood Pressure

More happy justification for chocolate lovers: blood pressure responds favorably to cocoa, but not tea, a new analysis suggests.

Authors of the study say that while both products are rich in polyphenols, the study findings suggest that phenols in cocoa may be more active than those in tea. The study appears in the April 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Products rich in cocoa may be considered part of a blood pressure lowering diet, provided that the total energy intake does not increase,” lead investigator for the study, Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, from the University Hospital of Cologne in Cologne, Germany, told heartwire. “I believe that cocoa is healthier than other sugar confectionary or high-fat dairy products.”

Cocoa Beats Tea for blood pressure

In the cocoa studies, cocoa consumption was typically flavonol-rich chocolate in the range of 100 g per day; in the tea studies, consumption was in the range of 4 to 6 cups daily.

In the cocoa studies, blood pressure dropped; however, in the tea studies, no differences were seen in blood pressure. The authors point out that while the 2 substances contain similar amounts of polyphenols, the components of these polyphenols differ between cocoa and tea: cocoa is particularly rich in procyanidins, whereas black and green tea are rich in flavan-3-ols and gallic acid. It may be that the polyphenol components in cocoa are more bioavailable, Taubert and colleagues propose.

According to Taubert and colleagues, the effects of cocoa on blood pressure were comparable to those achieved with antihypertensive drugs. “The magnitude of the hypotensive effects of cocoa is clinically noteworthy; it is in the range that is usually achieved with single doses of medication,” they write.

“At the population level, this level of reduction of blood pressure would be expected to substantially reduce the risk of;

• stroke (by about 20%),
• coronary heart disease (by 10%), and
• all-cause mortality (by 8%).”

Research article published in the Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:626-634.

See also;

• Health Benefits of Chocolate
• Dark Chocolate OK
• Subscribe by e-Mail to Alcohol Self-help News