Anxiety is a condition that creates panic attacks, makes you feel sad, and carries out extreme worrying sensations. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety affects almost 40 million people every year across the United States where most of the victims are teenagers.
Understanding what causes anxiety in teenagers and finding out causes of anxiety attacks and disorders can be complex sometimes. Most of the time, physicians observe that causes of anxiety among teenagers are the result of the environment and life events happening around them. Moreover, the social and family pressure also causes anxiety amongst teens.
Some factors that intensify the feeling of anxiety have the tendency to make things worse. These factors are called triggers.
In order to learn how can you avoid these triggers and get away from them you need to identify your triggers. This can be the first step towards your treatment.
What triggers anxiety? Common anxiety triggers
Depression
Some depression symptoms present in teenagers can lead to severe anxiety. Sometimes what causes depression overlaps the anxiety symptoms. That is why most parents get confused in looking for treatments as they can’t identify the symptoms responsible for the said mental health issue.
The symptoms of depression that overlap most anxiety symptoms include:
- Insomnia
- Deprived feeling
- Trouble in concentrating
- Suicidal thoughts
- Irritation
- Physical disorders (including headaches, muscle aches, fatigues, and migraines)
- Social isolation
- Hopeless feelings etc.
Underdeveloped brain
Nobody expects a teenager to earn a living or provide for the family. But sometimes when a teen takes on the responsibilities early due to the loss of a parent at the time when his/her brain was in the development phase, then it hampers their brain development. Eventually, lack of resources and not having enough skills increases frustration that causes anxiety most of the time.
Parental disapproval
Teens at their age need parental approval at every stage until they become adults. But often, to make themselves look stronger, they build up rebellious emotions and try to dominate the society by going against it.
The feeling of disapproval from parents ignites frustration and they start feeling stressed and anxious. It is natural sometimes during their developmental stage, but stressful for everybody involved.
Peer pressure
Teens are hard to control these days. Pressure from their peers can be effective and dangerous. Both kinds of pressures increase the stress level. For instance, being pressured to commit a crime or have drugs can be destructive, on the other hand, if a teen’s peers are achieving higher grades, winning medals, cheerleading teams, applying for top colleges, then it can put high pressure on your teen to keep up and avoid anxiety.
High expectations
To meet the level of expectations of the community, teens today have to do a lot of things including participating in social events, contribute voluntarily to different activities, chores, and responsibilities at home, etc.
These expectations increase the stress level and add anxiety to your teen making it harder to create a quiet sleep cycle for their own.
How to get rid of anxiety?
If you have seen anxiety symptoms in a teen that needs help, then figure out if s/he needs to see a health specialist. Start consulting your family health physician or pediatrician first that may take your teen through tests to identify hormonal imbalance or vitamin disorders that are making it difficult for him/her in getting over the anxiety. Other than this, encourage your teen to do enough exercise daily, maintain a balanced diet, and help them to evaluate the schedule.
Conclusion
Helping your teen to get over anxiety issues and live a healthy life is necessary to make him/her successful and confident. Transitioning from intense to moderate anxiety levels with your help and support takes less time for your teen to get back to normal life.