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Reframing Anxiety (and mental health)

Fred Bartman

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Anxiety has a PR problem!

Anxiety is telling you that something's up and it’s preparing you to be able to work through and be successful in a difficult situation.

What happens in your brain/body?

Spike in Dopamine - chemical in our brain that makes us feel good and helps our brain work more efficiently so we can achieve our goals.
Increase of Oxytocin in our blood - hormone that triggers social connection and belonging so that we seek out the people who support us.
Blood pressure goes up, heart rate increases, take in more oxygen - Research through the field of creative arts explains that this happens so that we can be at our best to perform and succeed.
Super sharp senses - You notice things around you more than usual because your brain is trying to find things that could go wrong.

Positives and Negatives since COVID Pandemic

+++Mental health stigma has decreased significantly!

- - - Words and terminology for all things mental health are over-used and often misused.

Reframing Mental Health

27:35 - 29:15

How do we help our kids FLOURISH?

Flourishing is not the absence of mental health challenge. It is being persistent in working through those challenges and continuing to succeed.
“The only way we can help our children to feel good is by helping them to feel bad and sit with uncertainty. Help them learn how we work through challenging situations and challenging emotions that are bound to come up!”
Antifragile kids
Mindset Reset (Harvard Study)
Feelings are temporary - Both Positive AND Negative

Now what…

Let your kids make mistakes. Let them fail. Allow space for them to feel strong emotions. “Prepare your kids for the path ahead, don’t clear the path for your kids.”
Limit screen time and social media!
Talk to your kids. Listen. Do the things they like to do. Get to know their friends.
Pause and allow yourself time before you respond.
Talk to your own support network (family, clergy, doctors, friends, etc.)

Further Learning / Resources

Episode 1:

Social fitness is the key to lifelong happiness and health
Excersize has the stronger mood elevating effects than anything that the drug companies provide.
Double up the benefits by doing this with friends (builds relationships)
Difference between solitude and loneliness
How are you interacting while on social media? Scrolling vs. connecting

Episode 2:

Yrbc, the # of teens who report the persistence of sadness has gone up since 2011 every year. LGBTQ+ population is highest
Bully’s my has gone do we for girls, less smoking, drugs, etc. Joblessness, poverty, and teen hunger have all improved
You need reps to build social fitness
27:00-29:00 is great!
Flourishing is not the absence of mental health challenge. It is the persistence work through those challenge and continue to succeed
Problem with anxious parents who use accommodative parenting.

Episode 3

Anxiety is just an emotion: when people here inside clinical anxiety disorder. Anxiety is something up. There are so hot that out difficult situation.
What happens when we ar anxious:

Spike in dopamine: chemical in our brain that that makes us feel good and helps our brain work efficiently so we can achieve our goals
Increase in oxitosin: social and belonging hormone so we seek out people who support us
Research through creativity tells us that anxiety does things like extra blood to our cells and increase our oxygen levels, so that we can be at our best to perform accessible.

The only way we can help our children do well feel good, and if we out, feel bad, and deal with uncertainty and how to work through the challenging situation and challenging emotions, that are bound to come up.
Mental health is a set of skills you build not a state at which you live.

Episode 4

Socially anxious people weee brought in to give a speech. Half of them were given a mindset shift lesson for 15-30 minutes to tell them a new story about there anxiety. They performed better, had lower blood pressure and lower heart rate

Feelings Are temporary. We understand that when it is happy feelings but we have a hard time remembering that bad feelings.

What does the data say?

From 2011-2021, the # of teens who report feeling persistently sad has gone up every year. (YRBS - Youth Risk Behavior Survey)
Over the SAME time period, reports of bullying among boys has remained the same, bullying among girls has decreased, less teens report using drugs/smoking, joblessness has gone down, there is less poverty, and teen hunger has decreased.

SO WHY ARE TEENS FEELING SO SAD??

Social Fitness / Connectedness

A longitudinal study out of Harvard (thousands of participants for over 80 years) concluded that one of the keys to lifelong happiness is……