Teens can take charge of their lives by using these stress-reducing strategies.
Eat regularly. Healthy eating habits are necessary to manage stress. Eating nutrient-rich, unprocessed foods increases your physical, mental, and emotional stamina. They boost your immune system, help you maintain a healthy weight, and help you feel better about yourself. Eating regularly throughout the day is also important to keep blood sugar levels stable. Eating at regular times prevents mood swings and promotes better academic performance. Read The Domino Effect: The delicate relationship between stress, nutrition, lifestyle, and disease >>>
Avoid excess caffeine intake. Caffeine might help you study in the short term, but it interrupts sleep and makes you more anxious, tense, and jittery. To manage your stress level, drink no more than one cup of coffee a day and forego energy drinks. Read The hidden dangers of caffeine: How coffee causes exhaustion, fatigue and addiction >>>
Get enough sleep. Lack of rest aggravates stress, negatively affecting your immune system and your ability to learn and remember information. Get into an 9- to 10-hour sleep routine and stick to that schedule even on the weekends. Sleep in a dark room so that your body can produce melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep and wake cycles. Any sort of light, even a night-light, disturbs the natural production of this hormone. Once you wake up, open the curtains or switch on the lights, and prepare yourself for a new day. Read Teens and Sleep >>>
Exercise. All forms of exercise reduce stress hormones, flood the body with feel-good endorphins, improve mood, boost energy and provide a healthy distraction from problems and worries. For example, just 30 minutes of walking a day can help put things in perspective, improve sleep, sharpen mental productivity, improve academic performance, and boost self-confidence. Find physical activities that you enjoy ― bicycling, swimming, aerobic exercise, dancing, skateboarding, hiking ― and try to devote about 60 minutes to them each day. Read Physical Activity Reduces Stress >>>
Don’t use alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs, especially “study drugs” (ADHD medication and other stimulants). They may seem to be a temporary fix to feel better or have more energy and focus, but they can mask stress. In the long run, alcohol and drugs don’t take away stress. Instead, they can create more problems and add to stress. Read Teens Using Drugs to Cope with Stress, Parents Underestimating Pressures >>>
Learn relaxation exercises. Deep breathing exercises and muscle relaxation techniques reduce stress and improve energy and concentration. Yoga, pilates, and tai chi are also helpful as they involve deep breathing and increase body awareness. Therapeutic massage and listening to soothing and uplifting music are excellent relaxation and calming strategies.
Decrease negative self-talk. Challenge negative thoughts about yourself with positive thoughts. For example, “My life will never get better” can be transformed into “If I work at it and get some help, it will get better.” Read Positive Self-Talk >>>
Build a network of people you trust who help you cope in a positive way. When you experience love and support, it’s easier to resist unhealthy behaviors and you’ll feel less stressed. Read How Friends Relieve Stress and Help Us Cope >>>
Reach out! When there is no one to talk with or in times of great stress, call a hotline or helpline ― the counselor will listen to you, guide you in problem-solving, and give you unconditional positive regard. Also, participating in a support group and seeing a counselor or therapist on a regular basis can be very helpful.
Help others. Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” You can take your mind off your problems by giving to others — helping a friend, volunteering in the community, even taking the dog on a long walk. These are positive ways to channel your feelings. Read Improve Your Health by Helping Others >>>
Don’t overwhelm yourself by worrying about all the things you need to do, what you have to do, if you’re doing a “good-enough” job, and what could happen in the future. Worriers operate under the mistaken belief that their over-thinking and attempts at controlling every situation help them to problem-solve and plan for the future. This is just not true! Instead, worrying increases stress andcauses anxiety. It’s more productive to focus on the present, handling each task as it comes, or in the order of importance. Read Dale Carnegie’s classic book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living >>>
Keep a gratefulness journal where you can acknowledge and express your feelings, thoughts, and appreciation for the gifts of life. Being thankful helps us see difficulties as opportunities. This brings forth hope and the strength to keep moving forward. Read Six Habits of Highly Grateful People >>>
Laugh! Watch a funny movie or video, go to a comedy club, play with children or a pet, read cartoons. When you laugh, there is immediate stress relief – your blood pressure and pulse rate lower, your muscles relax, and your outlook becomes positive. Laughter is contagious. When you laugh, people laugh with you (even when they don’t know what you’re laughing about). Laugh at yourself too – it helps you not to take yourself too seriously. Join Laughter Yoga. a global organization that started in India with goal of spreading unconditional laughter to improve health, well-being, relationships, and, yes, promote world peace. So start looking for the silly, ridiculous, and funny things in life. Read Laughter is good medicine for reducing stress, enhancing brain chemistry >>>
Connect with nature. Whether involved in physical activity (like hiking, canoeing, mountain climbing, horseback riding), camping, gardening, or in meditation, reflection, and prayer, being in nature is both calming and revitalizing. It’s essential for good physical and emotional health. Spend at least 20 minutes each day outdoors or in a natural setting and you will see the positive difference. As Wendell Berry said, “In the outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.”
Explore your spirituality. Spirituality means finding meaning and purpose in life; it doesn’t mean religious dogma. Faith ― a person’s most deeply held beliefs ― strongly influences health, bringing the positive attitudes of hope and optimism during hard and difficult times. Find a place of worship where you feel welcomed and accepted, attend its services, and participate in its activities. Read books of spiritual wisdom, such as The Bible and the writings of C.S. Lewis, Frederick Buechner, Anne Lamott, and Viktor Frankl. Read Faith Can Improve Mental Health and Reduce Stress >>>
Learn to pray. The act of putting oneself in the presence of or conversing with a higher power has been used as a way of healing across all cultures throughout the ages. Read Spirituality can relieve stress and Stressed? How to Experience a Calmer Life >>>
Recognize and accept things as they are and concentrate on everything that you do have control over. Every person is unique, gifted, valuable, and worthy, but no one is perfect. When you realize that you cannot control or do everything, pray and meditate on Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer, trusting it to the One who can.
God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change…
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.