Managing anxiety: Information for Children and Young People

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is something we all experience. It is a normal response to certain situations. For example, it would be natural to feel anxious going into hospital for an operation or doing a test

Anxiety can be helpful sometimes. It can provide more energy when needing to act under pressure such as coping with an emergency. The symptoms of anxiety can become a problem when they feel.

• Uncomfortable and scary.
• Last for a long period of time.
• Occur very often.
• Cause you to worry there is something seriously wrong with them (which creates more anxiety).
• Gets in the way of your daily functioning and stops you doing what they want to do.

What anxiety may look like?

Below are examples of common symptoms but anxiety does look differently between people:

• Having a lot of negative thoughts or worries that bad things are going to happen.
• Becoming more irritable, tearful, clingy or an increase in angry outbursts.
• Have difficulty sleeping e.g., waking in the night, having bad dreams or wetting the bed.
• Lacking confidence in abilities or struggling try new things.
• Finding it hard to focus.
• Avoiding everyday activities, such as seeing friends, going out in public or going to school.

What causes Anxiety?

Anxiety can happen for different reasons for different people.

Other times it can be lots of events that lead to anxiety. People can have similar experiences and for some it can lead to anxiety but for others it will not.

It is important to remember that anxiety is very common and although it can be hard to manage. It is likely there are others who are going through something similar.

What keeps Anxiety going?

• If something in the environment is there that makes you feel stressed and anxious it can be hard to reduce feelings of anxiety.
  
• Anxiety can develop into a cycle. The feelings of anxiety are often uncomfortable and scary. This leads to thoughts that something is wrong or something bad will happen which leads to more anxiety.
  
• You may avoid or escape situations you find cause anxiety. Often these situations are not dangerous. They can create further difficulty and hassle as well as reducing confidence in being able to manage.

How to manage anxiety

Below are some tips and strategies to support your child. This is does not cover everything and we have created an anxiety pack with further resources, which may also be helpful.

It may be a case of trial and error to see which strategies work for you. Sometimes a strategy that does not work one day may work another day so keep trying them out!

Keep a diary

Use a diary to record your level of anxiety during the day from 0-10 (0 being not anxious at all, 10 being really really anxious). This may help you to spot patterns of when you are feeling more anxious. Think about:

• Where you are when you start feeling more anxious?
• Is there a particular time of day you start feeling more anxious?
• Who were you with?
• Are there things that make it worse or better.

Problem solve

One strategy that may be useful is using the Worry Tree. Worries often build up over time so it may hope to have some ‘Worry Time’ to get them out.

The Worry Tree shows you the worries you can do something about and the worries you cannot.
Start by writing down your worries and then use the worry tree to split up the worries. For the worries you can do something about, plan when you are going to deal with this worry. For the worries you cannot do something about let them go as there is nothing you can do.

To help let go of the worries your child cannot do anything to solve below are some strategies:

• Writing the worries down then tearing up the paper or putting then in the bin
• Pretending to say the worry in a funny voice.
• Using an app like Reach Out Worry Time.

Relaxation

Help reduce the uncomfortable physical feelings of anxiety by finding activities that help you relax and distract you from worrying. This could be activities like a sport, listening to music or gaming.

We have suggested two activities below that focus on relaxation, slowing the body down and helping you to focus on the present moment. Relaxation is a skill that does require practice.

For both exercises:

• Find somewhere comfy to do the exercise where there are not many distractions.
• Get comfy and sit or lie down.
• Make sure clothing is comfy and take shoes off.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)

PMR involves squeezing and tightening the different muscles in your body and then letting them go and relaxing them. Before starting, try to do the following:

Now, try starting the exercise:

1. Slow down your breathing.
2. Tighten the muscles that you want to relax. Remember not to squeeze too much so you feel uncomfortable. Keep the muscle squeezed for around 5 seconds.
3. Then relax the muscles and keep them relaxed for around 10 seconds.
4. When you have finished, stay sitting or lying down for a little while until you feel ready to get up and get on with your day.

Here are some muscles you might like to try this exercise on, and how to do it.

Square breathing

Square breathing is a technique that helps to slow down breathing. Square breathing helps to distract the mind and focus on breathing while counting to four.

1. Breathe in slowly through your nose whilst counting to four and feel the air filling up your lungs.
2. Hold your breath for four seconds.
3. Breath out slowly through your mouth for four seconds.
4. Repeat these steps until you feel relaxed.