Teen Stress Archives - The American Institute of Stress

Stress Awareness: Help is here

William Heckman — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 14:02:10 +0000

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, BETHESDA, MD –

“The only constant in life is change,” said Greek philosopher Heraclitus, and with change can come stress.

Research has found that a certain level of stress can be a good thing if it motivates, pushing some people to work harder, meet deadlines, and achieve goals. But excessive stress, and lack of knowledge in how to handle it effectively, can be harmful and impact physical and mental health.

“Mental health is a state of mental well-being enabling people to cope with the stresses in life, realize their abilities, learn well, and work well, according to the World Health Organization. I agree with this definition,” states Army Col. (Dr.) Aniceto Navarro, director of Behavioral Health at Walter Reed.

With the current rapid pace of changes, uncertainties, and challenges, Navarro added that people are “multi-tasking [their] way into epidemic levels of chronic and stress-related diseases. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can exercise healthy boundaries, learn to do the hard work of slowing down and listening to what our bodies are trying to tell us, and make those small changes, that over time, can lead to a more grounded and purposeful life. The signs are there if we have the courage and support to learn the language,” he said.

“We don’t want to pathologize anyone,” Navarro continued. “Stresses are normal occurrences in life, but it’s how we react to the stress which would guide the appropriate resources. On my deployments, chaplains were a fantastic resource for anyone to go talk with about anything. Whether or not religion is a component of your life, they are wonderful.”

“Military and Family Life Counselors, and the Fleet and Family Support Program are also excellent resources to turn to when feeling overwhelmed by stress,” Navarro added. “I also highly encourage folks to talk with each other, to learn about each other. We are so much more similar than we are different, and when we have shared understandings, we are great resources of support for each other.”

Handling stress effectively also includes building resiliency, and Walter Reed has the only Staff Resiliency Program in the Defense Health Network-National Capital Region.

Shantrell R. Hamilton is chief of Resiliency and program manager of the Staff Resiliency Program at Walter Reed. “I am responsible for managing and providing resiliency services that will support all staff at Walter Reed. We work as a team to provide services such as individual resiliency coaching sessions, unit morale checks, sensing sessions, informal mediation, trainings and workshops [focused on] stress management/burnout, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, team building, positive leadership and more, based on request.”

The Defense Health Agency (DHA) Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is also a voluntary, work-based program that offers free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services to employees who have personal and/or work-related concerns. The EAP can address issues affecting mental and emotional well-being, including alcohol and other substance abuse, stress, grief, family problems, and psychological disorders. DHA’s EAP can be reached at 866-580-9046. Also, information concerning the Walter Reed Wellness Network can be found at https://walterreed.tricare.mil/WellnessNetwork.

“Realize that you are not alone,” Navarro stated. “Make peace with your emotions and train them to be smarter. Have a working theory of right and wrong. Don’t poison yourself with intoxicating substances such as alcohol, drugs, and pornography. Realize that moral rules have no exceptions. Morality is valid for all rational beings. Truth does not change; facts do though,” he added.

To reach the Resiliency Program Office at Walter Reed, call 301-319-2865. Walter Reed Chaplains Office can be reached at 301-295-1510. The National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7, can be reached by dialing 988.

Original Post Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

By Bernard Little, WRNMMC Command Communications

Image by Istvan Brecz-Gruber from Pixabay

There are different types of stress – one is particularly toxic. Here’s what you need to know

William Heckman — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 16:15:25 +0000

We’ve all had times when we know we should we working less and enjoying life more. But if your job puts you under chronic stress and you’re spending long hours at your desk, there could be a long-term impact on your brain.

According to new research, spending more than 52 hours a week at work could impact your brain as it tries to meet the increased demands. The study – published in the journal Occupational And Environmental Medicine – suggests that working very long hours could even change the shape of the brain as it attempts to cope. This could lead to ‘fatigue, emotional instability or reduced cognitive efficiency in the longer term’, say the team of Korean researchers who worked on the study.

‘The pressure of these demands on the body will lead to increased cortisol and adrenaline in the body,’ says specialist therapist Fiona Vigar. ‘These are useful hormones in short bursts, after which we’re designed to rest. But our nervous systems simply aren’t evolved to have elevated levels of stress hormones for extended periods, so health is more likely to suffer.’

While some ‘good’ stress is helpful, says Fiona, there are other types that impact our physical and mental health. If you’re working for weeks on a difficult or demanding project, for example, your nervous system can struggle to relax, which can impact sleep and make you feel anxious, irritable and joyless. ‘You may feel physical effects such as headaches, high blood pressure or panic attacks. Ongoing stress without respite, such as being a carer for a loved one, can cause more severe health impacts as the body gets exhausted by the strain.’

The study found that people working long hours might initially see a short-term benefit from increased volume in parts of the brain that govern alertness or efficiency. But as this turns into ‘chronic’ stress over time, this can have a more severe effect on the body, contributing to high blood pressure and the formation of artery-clogging deposits, and linked to anxiety, depression and addiction.

Fiona’s three pieces of advice

* Turn off phone notifications. Each time you receive a ‘ping’, your body will experience a jolt of cortisol.

* Journal. If you struggle to calm the mind at the end of the day, or even overnight, write down your thoughts, ideas and feelings. Don’t worry about whether it makes sense, or if the writing is neat – just scrawl on to the paper. It helps the brain to let go and to intercept repeating thoughts, helping it move into a rest state.

* Take off your shoes and breathe. Find a quiet space, get outside and take off your shoes to feel the ground. Focus on your feet and really feel them; move and spread the toes before letting them settle. Put your hands on your heart and breathe in through the nose for a slow count of five, then out for five. Repeat this, imagining the breath coming into your heart space, for six breaths. Breathing like this calms the heart rate, which calms the brain, moving it into the parasympathetic or rest and restore state. Repeating the exercise during long periods of being busy will give your nervous system respite from the fight/flight state.

Original Post by Sarah Maber for Yahoo Life

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Therapy dogs help first-year students cope with stress, depression, and anxiety

William Heckman — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 13:50:05 +0000

Researchers suggest animal visitation programs could be a vital tool for supporting student mental health during the transition to university life.

In a recent study published in Pets, researchers explored how access to therapy dogs affected the mental health of university students in their first year of study.

Their findings show promising indications that programs involving therapy dogs can reduce stress, depression, and worry, supporting the well-being of students who are struggling to adjust to university life.

Background

Around the world, university students are facing increasing levels of stress and mental health challenges. The first semester is difficult for many as they adjust to several life changes. Research shows that positive emotions and psychological functioning can decrease during this time.

Students who are leaving their pets behind may be particularly vulnerable – 25% of them experience significant levels of separation anxiety in the week after they first arrive on campus.

Pets can be a critical coping resource and source of support; 70% of American households have pets, and four in five consider them family. This loss, when experienced with multiple other stressors, can lead to diminished academic performance, discontinuous enrolment, and heightened risk of mental health disorders.

Many universities offer animal visitation programs (AVPs), but most involve group interactions over short periods while students prepare for their final exams.

Drop-in programs where students can regularly access therapy animals as needed could be helpful to those suffering from separation anxiety.

About the study

Researchers used an experimental design to evaluate the impact of access to an AVP that included seven two-hour drop-in sessions with therapy dogs once every two weeks on the well-being of university students. These sessions featured unstructured interactions with trained dogs.

Participants were recruited over the summer before they began their first university semester. To be eligible for the study, students had to be at least 18, have a pet at home, complete a questionnaire to assess their attachment to their pet and provide information on risk factors such as prior symptoms of mental health.

Of the students who were invited to join the study, 209 consented, and 105 were randomly selected for the experimental group. At the same time, the remaining were placed on a waitlist as a control group. Waitlisted sessions had access to sessions after the end of the semester.

Nearly 90% of the experimental group had dogs, while almost half had cats. Most participants (85%) were women and 86% were Caucasian.

Nearly half reported having mental health challenges related to self-harm, anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Participants who provided baseline data on separation anxiety and completed at least one subsequent mental health assessment (either at midterm or during the semester’s end) were included in the analysis.

These assessments included symptoms of depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress, emotional regulation, and self-compassion. There was no financial incentive to attend the therapy sessions, but students received a token amount for the assessments.

Statistical methods such as regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to map the difference in mental health trajectories of the experimental and control groups over the semester.

The analysis controlled for the number of sessions the students attended and their level of pet separation anxiety.

Findings

Students who experience high levels of separation anxiety also displayed more symptoms of stress, worry, anxiety, and depression at the start, middle, and end of the semester. However, there was little to no difference in emotional regulation and self-compassion.

Participants with access to the AVP program showed a generally flat trajectory for depressive symptoms, indicating that depression levels remained stable, contrasting with waitlisted students whose depression levels rose significantly.

High AVP attendance appeared to prevent worsening depression for students, no matter how high their separation anxiety levels were.

Anxiety levels decreased over time for both AVP-attending and waitlisted students, and there were no significant differences between the two.

While worry levels also decreased, this decrease appeared to be slightly greater for AVP-attending students compared to waitlisted ones. Stress for AVP-attending students decreased while waitlisted students experienced increasing levels of stress.

While the program did not appear to have any impact on emotional regulation, it did significantly improve self-compassion in the students who attended sessions; in contrast, self-compassion levels among waitlisted students decreased over the semester.

Conclusions

As students transition to university, they may experience declines in their mood and ability to function.

For participants in the experimental group, sessions with therapy dogs improved their well-being in terms of self-compassion, stress, worry, and depression, while waitlisted students experienced worsening symptoms.

These results indicate that drop-in therapy animal-assisted programs can help students who are separated from their pets cope better with stress and build resilience as they embark on their university journeys.

To learn more about stress, go to stress.org

Photo by david hou

y Nataliya VaitkevichCarr, A.M., Pendry, P. (2025) Effects of an Animal-Assisted Drop-In Program on First-Year University Students’ Trajectory of Psychological Wellbeing. Pets. doi: 10.3390/pets2010008. https://www.mdpi.com/2813-9372/2/1/8

Written by Priyanjana Pramanik

4 Simple Steps to Managing Stress

William Heckman — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 16:15:31 +0000

The world sucks sometimes. Here’s how to make it a tiny bit better.

I’ve been feeling a bit stressed lately.

Work, the news, scheduling, news, being a parent, news, social media, news… oh, and did I mention the the news?

If you feel the same way, you’re not alone.

Over the last six months, our most popular programs have been on two topics: improving communication and how to deal with stress. It was also the #3 most requested topic in our recent reader survey.

It’s no surprise, considering 43% of adults reported feeling more anxious in 2024 that they did in 2023 (and who knows what 2025 will bring).

Just look at the general state of things around you and it makes sense that The American Institute of Stress estimates that stress costs U.S. employers more than $300 billion annually due to absenteeism, turnover, decreased productivity and direct medical, legal and insurance costs.

(I am curious what legal costs come from someone being stressed. Maybe lawsuits related to an overworked employee snapping at a rude customer?)

While we can’t control the amount of stressors we experience in life, we can figure out ways to handle them better. No, I’m not talking about drugs and alcohol… I’m talking about humor.

For all the negative effects of work stress—high blood pressure, muscle tension, irritable mood swings—humor is one of the best ways to cope with the overwhelm. Humor lowers blood pressure, relaxes muscles, and helps you laugh instead of cry. Or laugh after you’ve cried. Or laugh while crying… which is terrifying to witness.

So how do you maintain resilience in the current environment? Here are four simple steps to managing stress at work:

Do you like my fancy drawing?

1. Reject stressful situations.

The simplest (but often hardest) way to combat stress is to simply avoid it. Reject the activities or environments that cause stress by choosing not to do them or delegating them to someone else.

For example, reading the news stresses me out: it’s full of doom, gloom, and things that boomed. So, I stopped listening to news stories first thing in the morning and replaced it with a crossword puzzle or jumping into creative work.

Now, if I could just get Pretzel (my wife) to do the same thing for both of our sakes, that would be great (hi, mi amor!). But she “claims” that staying up-to-date on worldly events is “important for her job.” I mean it’s not like she works at the UN or something… wait, no, she does work at the UN, so she may have a point.

For the rest of us, think about what you can stop doing by creating a to-don’t list of the things on your to-do list that you no longer need to do. Be ruthless. If it’s not something you have to do and it doesn’t bring you joy (now or in the future), cut it or give it to someone else.

2. Reframe work stress.

The second humor strategy for coping with stress is to reframe the situations that cause you stress.

When faced with stress at work, there are two ways to react to it. The first is to let it get to you, to succumb to the negativity and allow it to consume your mental and physical energy.

The second (more effective) reaction is to find a way to laugh at the stress, to see it as a challenge to overcome, not a way of being.

Simply reframing a stressful situation into a humorous one can help reduce the tension of stress. Rather than dwelling on why a situation is so terrible, find a way to find the humor in it. Why lament over traffic when you can use it as an opportunity for an epic sing-along to the Hamilton soundtrack?

Changing the way you think about a stressful activity or event can help you stop feeling stressed in the first place.

3. Relieve stressful experiences.

It would be naive to believe that you could reframe everything you have to do into something fun. If you’ve just been fired or lost a loved one, it can be difficult to find the fun in the situation.

Forcing a smile on your face can sometimes be worse than accepting the reality as it is. But that doesn’t mean the stress has to stay.

The third way to build resilience is to relieve stress after you be stressed. Yes, exercise and meditation are great ways to do this, but so is finding an excuse to laugh.

When we laugh, we increase blood flow through the body, relax muscles, and burn calories. Not a lot of calories, but it’s definitely healthier to laugh than to eat a Snickers.

The good news: this is basically a prescription for watching cat videos after a stressful meeting. The important thing is that when something causes you stress, you do something to relieve it.

4. Recharge from stress at work.

No matter how good your sense of humor or how adept you are at the previous strategies, you’re still going to face periods of prolonged stressed (such as when working against an important deadline or spending the holidays with family).

The fourth way to handle stress at work is by recharging your human batteries, to take a break to recombobulate every now and then. Studies have found that when you take a vacation, you come back with increased feelings of productivity, ability to sleep, positive attitudes toward your job, and way too many Instagram selfies.

But taking a break shouldn’t just be a weekly or monthly activity. It shouldn’t even just be daily; there is strong evidence that points to the value of managing your stress at an hourly level.

Research by chronobiologists (perhaps one of the coolest job titles) have found that most people’s minds and bodies need recovery every 90 to 120 minutes. That’s why planned breaks, aka strategic disengagement, is so important.

Create a Plan Now for Stress Later

There’s nothing revolutionary about these steps (although a lot of people like the idea of to-don’t list). They make sense on paper (or on screen), the trick is implementing them, especially when you’re already stressin’.

One of the best things you can do in a period of “no stress” is to create a plan for when you’re feeling “yes, lots of stress.” Rather than wait until you’re completely overwhelmed, start managing your stress now.

Reject: Create a list of things you’ll put off during periods of massive stress. Can you order groceries instead of going to the store, or say it’s okay to NOT finish every single NYT game just so you don’t lose your streak.
Reframe: Start a humor notebook or journal now so that you already have an outlet for reframing your stressful experiences when they occur, rather than waiting until they happen to create an outlet.
Relieve: Create a playlist on YouTube or save a bunch of Instagram reels that always make you laugh. Then, when you’ve had a stressful event, you already know where to go to get some levity into your body. Need some suggestions? I created a playlist of some of my favorite stand-up clips.
Recharge: Put breaks into your calendar at the beginning of each week. Schedule meetings with yourself to go for a walk, meet a friend, or do something that recharges your body and mind.

You can’t control the amount of stress that will come your way, but you can better manage it with these simple steps. It’s time to put the superpower of humor to work for you so you can be more productive, less stress, and happier.

(an)drew

To learn more about stress, go to stress.org

By (an)drew tarvin

OP-

Photo by Yan Krukau

Teen stress drags down U.S. economy, study concludes

William Heckman — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 16:22:54 +0000

Teenagers suffering from anxiety or depression are less likely to enter the workforce as young adults, and more likely to earn lower pay when they do, researchers reported in a study published Thursday in the journal, PLOS Medicine. Adobe stock/HealthDay

Stressed-out teenagers appear to be dragging down the U.S. economy, a new study says.Teenagers suffering from anxiety or depression are less likely to enter the workforce as young adults, and more likely to earn lower pay when they do, researchers reported in a study published Thursday in the journal, PLOS Medicine.

The economic impact is so great that $52 billion in U.S. budget savings could occur over 10 years if efforts are made to help even 10% of teens at risk for stress, researchers estimate.

“Our new research finds that, at the scale of the United States economy, improvements in adolescent mental health may bring many billions of dollars of federal budget benefits over ten years, potentially offsetting the costs of policy change that could cover critical services for young people,” lead researcher Nathaniel Counts, chief policy officer for The Kennedy Forum in Brigantine, N.J., said in a news release.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data on more than 3,300 participants in an ongoing Bureau of Labor Statistics study that is following children as they progress into adulthood.

The research team analyzed data gathered in 2000, when participants were 15 to 17, to check their mental health as teenagers. They looked specifically at questions that assessed anxiety and depression among the teens.

Researchers then looked at data gathered a decade later, in 2010, to see how the teens’ earlier mental health affected their job prospects as young adults.

Results show that 6% fewer people were holding down a job as a young adult if they suffered from clinically significant anxiety or depression as a teenager.

Young adults who were stressed as teens also earned nearly $5,700 less in annual wages, researchers found.

The researchers then estimated the potential impact on the U.S. budget if a hypothetical policy extended mental health preventive care to 10% of teens at risk of stress.

The added productivity from those teens who avoided stress amounted to $52 billion in additional federal revenue over 10 years.

The results support efforts like a 2023 law passed by Congress investing $60 million annually in U.S. mental health care, researchers said. That policy aims to expand access to mental health care at a rate of about 500 people for every $1 million spent.

“To reach 5 million people (roughly 25% of the adolescent population), the legislature would need to expand this program and invest at least $10 billion,” the research team wrote.

“Given the estimated savings of $52 billion over 10 years if the interventions can reach 10% of adolescents who would otherwise go on to develop depression, investments in adolescent mental health at scale will plausibly provide significant offsetting returns,” they concluded.

To learn more about stress go to stress.org.

Photo by RDNE Stock project

By Dennis Thompson, HealthDay News Original Post-