“When kids start skipping things it might look to their teachers and peers like they are uninterested or underachieving, but the opposite might be true.” – Rachel Ehmke

Children count on adults to help them understand the spectrum of intense emotions they experience throughout their childhood and adolescence. They rely on their parents’ wisdom and emotional skills to assist them in developing their ability to define, express, process, and learn. As parents do their best to nurture children into thriving young adults, they might misinterpret troubling behaviors and difficulties in the classroom without recognizing acute childhood anxiety as the source.

As first described by Harvard physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon in the 1920s, activation of the sympathetic nervous system occurs in response to perceived threat. This acute stress response, also known as the “fight-or-flight” response, is the brain flipping the body’s survival switch, bypassing higher cognitive function and transferring all available resources toward the goal of staying alive.

Once this process is triggered, the mind interprets the environment through a lens of fear. A child’s classroom becomes a physically, mentally, or emotionally dangerous place from which they must escape.

The fight-or-flight response can lead to patterns of withdrawal, avoidance, or aggression.  In some cases the child’s nervous system will try to manage stress by going into the freeze state.  Your child or teen may appear to be listless, tired and sad, when in fact the nervous systems is trying to turn down the emotional thermostat and relieve the anxiety.

However, not all children and adolescents experiencing anxiety in their learning environment exhibit the same behaviors, and sometimes parents misinterpret these as the symptoms of other conditions. If your child’s performance in school is declining, the Child Mind Institute points to several indicators that chronic anxiety might be the cause:

• Trouble paying attention and focusing, restlessness and fidgeting.
• Poor attendance or frequently late to school and classes.
• Aggressiveness towards teachers or other students and being disruptive.
• Performing tasks well when alone or with you, but freezing up or going blank when called on in class.
• Difficulty completing homework.
• Avoiding group activities and assignments.

“Anxious students may be trying desperately hard just to keep up and this could be at great psychological cost” -Professor Michael Eysenck

If your child is struggling with chronic anxiety in school, they are burning an exponential amount of energy just trying to maintain. This daily experience can leave them feeling depleted, depressed, alone, and insecure. Left unaddressed, the chemistry of chronic anxiety can cause long-term physiological changes to their brain as well as negatively impact their developing sense of self.

As discovered by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers, the brain responds to persistent stress in childhood with overdevelopment of the amygdala, the brain’s emotion regulator. The increased number of associated synaptic connections can lead to the development of anxiety, depression, and PTSD in adulthood, and greater susceptibility to substance abuse. Prolonged stress can occur without further emotional complications, but if additional issues do arise, they often become lifelong struggles.

If a child is experiencing educational setbacks due to continual school-related anxiety, it is imperative they understand it’s because of a chemical response to fear rather than an intellectual deficit.

School-age years are critical, as this is when children are forming fundamental beliefs about themselves. Emotional intelligence is more than a psychiatric buzzword; it is a means by which children can learn to distinguish their emotions from their identities.

When faced with a physiological response to stress that undermines their efforts to succeed, children may interpret learning difficulties as the limit of their abilities. If a child is experiencing educational setbacks due to continual school-related anxiety, it is imperative they understand it’s because of a physiological response to fear rather than an intellectual deficit.

Acute stress is an innate response that’s appropriate in extreme circumstances, but the higher cognitive functioning it blocks is what a child needs to survive in their learning environment.

When parents, counselors, and mentors help a child discover what school-related triggers are flipping their anxiety switch, the fight-or-flight cycle is demystified – empowering children and adolescents to overcome their classroom fears and thrive.  In some cases, bullying might be the source of this anxiety, and many children endure this is silence

If your child or teenager shows signs of anxiety or unrelenting stress, we can help.  We have therapist in both our Tigard office and our east side Cherry Blossom office who can see your child immediately.  Why wait?  We take most insurance plans to make it affordable and we love seeing kids recovery from emotional challenges and thrive.

Give us a call at 503-342-2510, or email us.  We can help.

Here are more articles you might be interested in:

• http://www.counseling-portlandoregon.com/bullying-is-wrong/
• http://www.counseling-portlandoregon.com/children-and-teens-therapy/signs-of-bulling/

The post Childhood Anxiety and its Cost to Your Child’s Learning and Development appeared first on Oregon Somatic Therapy.

Here are some steps you can use to get back in the flow, and let overwhelm and tension find their way out of your body. You can do this in just a few minutes, even at a stop light! Just keep your eyes open!

Connecting with the Here and Now – Orientation

• Let your gaze leave this article. And let your eyes look around wherever, and at whatever, they want – just 20 seconds or so.
• As you LET this happen, you may notice that your eyes get interested in something. Your inner and outer attention starts to shift to the here and now, connecting with something that interests your eyes.
• When you notice this subtle shift, notice what it is your eyes are interested in. Really look as if you’re never seen this before and you’d like to take it in so that you could tell someone about it.
• This is orientation as “connecting to the environment through the senses”, literally, coming back to our senses.
• Next, tune into body sensation.

Listening to your body’s language – sensation

• Let your attention softly go inward. Let the awareness come to you, rather than searching.
• As sensations arise, simply name them. Notice your mind wanting to interpret or analyze and return to sensing. “Yes, there’s that tightness, that heat, that numbness . . .”
• If you have a lot of energy, notice how that shows up in your body, and book mark the storeis and thoughts for a moment.
• If you have little sensation, notice that. And simply be curious.
• Then notice what other sensations come next. Simply wait for them to be revealed. Once your body knows you are listening, it will respond.
• Your attention will initiate a sequence that the mind cannot anticipate. And this is golden. Something new can happen.

New Pleasing Sensations

• When you notice there is a little lull in new sensations, switch over to exploring and noticing what feels good. Many people find this a little more challenging since our brains are 80% oriented to detecting problems, rather than detecting pleasure! Wait and watch with curiosity. It will come to you.
• Name and describe the neutral or pleasing sensations in your body. Imagine telling a friend how it feels: a sense of stillness, a pleasant warmth, feeling of flow, strength or relaxation, a sense of power or elation.
• Practice keeping company with these pleasant sensations, like you would attend good friend. Notice how it feels from the sensations point of view.

Alternate Noticing Pleasing and Other sensations

• Once that has settled, let your awareness alternate between the pleasant impressions and the tight, tense, numb or uncomfortable sensations.
• And then be curious to see what happens next.

Look Around

• When you sense a shift or feel complete, move your awareness outward and look around. Notice how things look. Notice what pleases your eyes. This takes you back out into the world, into the here and now. And like saving a document on your computer, it anchors and completes the experience in your nervous system.

Taking it inside with words. Here’s a lovely version of this process in first person

written by Ann Weiser Cornell Ph.D. and Barbara McGavin

• I’m bringing my awareness into my body
• I’m sensing for what wants my attention now
• I’m waiting until something comes into my awareness
• I’m taking some time to feel it in my body
• I’m starting to describe what’s here
• I’m acknowledging what’s here just as it is
• I’m settling down with It
• I’m keeping It company with interested curiosity
• I’m sensing how It feels from its point of view
• I’m letting It know I hear it
• I’m taking some time to sense any changes

The science behind this is fascinating. When we are stuck, blocked or frustrated, or overly energized, the sympathetic nervous system provides us with the energy to change things . . . except when we can’t. And then all the energy gets stuck in the nervous system.

When we observe the body, it’s like sending a document to the printer. Instead of it being stuck in the printer cue and taking up space, the colorful documents pour out of the printer. Over a life time, we have 100s of documents stuck in the printer cue, waiting. We feel overwhelmed and all jammed up. But the good news: when we observe what’s happening in the body, stuck energy starts moving again. Then you and your body can focus on life’s pleasures.

That’s when the parasympathetic nervous system comes alive:

• Helping muscles relax,
• Eye sight softens and broadens,
• Heart slows down,
• Digestion starts working again,
• And a long delicious exhale settles the body.

The “rest and digest” functions of the parasympathetic nervous system support the body to return to Relaxed Readiness, or some people call this Easeful Readiness. And we don’t have to do anything more than just observe and be curious to see what will happen next. It feels more alive and calm at the same time, and quite different then the excited / vigilant state so valued by our culture. And very different than feeling checked our or numb.

The only side effect is well-being! . . . And a few more rocks out of your backpack.

The post Feeling Overwhelmed? Tense? appeared first on Oregon Somatic Therapy.

Diets don’t work. Hating your body doesn’t work.

Most people don’t realize that prolonged “dieting” can contribute to a higher ratio of fat to muscle in your body. But what is the alternative to dieting? Simply letting the old pattern rule? No! There is a peaceful way to work in harmony with your body and its neurobiology. Intuitive eating develops with simple skills anyone can learn.

Why Dieting Doesn’t Work

Research* shows that 90 – 95 percent of dieters regain the weight they lost and continue on a roller coaster cycle of dieting and weight gain that wreaks havoc with your hormones.

Most people mis-diagnose the problem. They believe they lack willpower. But what really happens when you restrict, diet or eat unnaturally, is that you have what some researchers* call a “broken food thermostat.” They have discovered two hormones leptin and ghrelin, which regulate fat storage and hunger signals. When levels of leptin are high, and levels of ghrelin low, the brain signals you to stop eating because you are full. Dieting breaks this delicate system so that you feel hungry all the time. After years of dieting, your appetite hormones stop working properly and you can’t tell if you are hungry or full. And this leads to anxiety which often leads to even more overeating.

Poor sleep also scrambles these two important hormones. With frequent insomnia, the body produces more ghrelin making you hungrier, and it reduces leptin production, the body’s appetite suppressant. So, you feel hungrier and never feel full. And then you wonder why you struggle so much with food.

Research shows dieting leads to weight gain.

Let’s look at the research summarized by Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole in their book Intuitive Eating**

“Would you really embark on a diet, (even a so-called “sensible diet”) if you knew that it could cause you to gain more weight? Here are some sobering studies indicating dieting promotes weight gain:

• UCLA researchers summarized 31 long term studies on dieting and found that dieting is a consistent predictor of weight gain
• Scientists studied 17,000 kids ages 9-14 years old and found that “…in the long term, dieting to control weight is not only ineffective, but it may also actually promote weight gain.”

Intuitive eating doesn’t mean you just eat mindlessly, anything you want, where or when you want. Instead, you can learn to eat in a natural way: 1. Eat what you are hungry for, 2. Eat when you feel hunger 3. Eat foods that satisfy and heal your body and 4. Learn to stop eating when you feel full. When your food “thermostat” is broken, you may need a little help and support to develop these skills again.

Common experiences that result from dieting.

After multiple cycles of dieting, weight loss and weight gain you may notice some of these symptoms:
You feel anxious about getting hungry and over eat for fear you won’t get enough
You are easily triggered to over eat when you feel judged, or subject to scare tactics regarding health problems
You turn to food when you feel stressed, anxious , frustrated or when something is bothering you.
Intuitive eating can be learned like any skill such as playing the piano, or driving a car. The more you practice, the more at ease and natural you become. In your relationship with food, knowing what to do, and how to do it are two VERY different skills.

Managing thoughts.

Successful change depends on how you respond to your thoughts.

For example, you’ve had a stressful day, and you stop at the store to pick up something for dinner. You decide to give yourself a little treat. Notice what your thoughts are telling you “You’ve had a hard day. You deserve a little reward. You’ve been good all week. If you don’t reward yourself, who will…” And the next thing you know you find yourself not just getting a single ice cream bar, you get a pack of six and eat them all on the way home. These sabotaging thoughts over-ride the best of intentions and defeat “will power.”

There is a better way than having a daily power struggle with food. It’s time to fire your Inner Critic who bullies you, pushes you around and shames you any time you eat or even think about food.

A better way.

With a new set of skills, the scene might turn out differently. You hear the thoughts starting to justify impulsive mindless choices. But instead of getting on struggle-with-food-train, you respond to the thoughts in a more compassionate way, “Yes, we’ve had a very hard day. And I am going to get one small treat, eat it with great pleasure, savoring every bite, slowly enjoying the pleasure of my favorite sweet. And I am going to feel very proud of myself for making healthy choices and taking good care of myself. I am building a healthy new life for myself with each choice.”

The difference is that you drop any judgments, whether they are good or bad. You listen to your body and your thoughts as a compassionate observer, and you make choices based on your values, rather than on what anxiety, stress or fear would have you do.

Intuitive Eating: Understand the Stages
of Changing Your Relationship with Food.

When confronted with daily challenges, and especially when things are going really well when you want to celebrate, you may find yourself thinking: “I’ve been good so I can afford to splurge . . . I’ve had a long day, and I need a little extra to keep my energy going . . . I’ll just skip breakfast just for today since I’m already late . . . If I get too hungry, I might freak out . . . This is pointless. I’ve only lost a few pounds why bother? I’ve already eaten one, I might as well finish the package.”

These normal thoughts challenge everyone, and most people simply don’t know how to lovingly respond to them. To make sustainable, natural, long-term change in your relationship with food, there are 5 stages that help you gradually build reliable skills to make peace with food.

Stage one: Developing skills such as how to stay motivated, understanding sustainable eating habits, learning to recognize body sensations such as hunger, cravings, feeling full, feeling emotions and learning how to recognize when anxiety, fear, stress, anger or shame are making choices for you.

Stage two: Developing regular eating habits

Stage three: Sustainable food choices: choosing delicious, satisfying foods and eating for pleasure and enjoyment without guilt, shame or anxiety, with every bite.

Stage four: Planning for special occasions

Stage five: Staying motivated for life and learning how to handle stress and other triggers.

Skills you will learn to sustain these changes for life include:

• How to motivate yourself every day
• How to make small, manageable changes
• How to enjoy every food you eat at every meal
• How to give yourself credit for small changes
• How to feel good about following your sustainable plan
• How to get back on track when you stumble.

The Journey of Intuitive Eating – Part Two

Judith Beck PhD, the Director of the Beck Institute has written about her experience helping people make successful, sustainable change with food issues. She outlines the steps to make these changes.

Stage One: Preparation not Change. Food Is Not the Issue: 3 – 12 weeks until these skills are mastered, not just practiced.

1. Make a list of all the things that would be better in your life when well-being, peace of mind and self-worth do not revolve around food. What would life be like if you made peace with food and your body could return to its natural size? For example: “I’d be able to wear whatever I want.” “I’d have more energy.” “I’d be able to travel comfortably.” “I’d be confident to date or join friends and family on social occasions.”

To lay the foundation for sustainable change, you will create and read a list of 15 – 20 positive motivators every morning and later in the day. These seed thoughts plant new ideas in the mind and start to replace the weeds of self-hate, guilt and shame. In this stage, you will notice what your brain tells you to sabotage this simple step of reading your list: “I already know what’s on the list, so I don’t need to read it. I’m feeling good so I don’t need to read it. I can just think about it and not read it.” It’s like house training your dog; you are consistent, firm but gentle and compassionate.

2. Make index cards with written responses to old thoughts and keep these with you during your waking hours. For example, “If I skip breakfast, I’ll save myself 10 minutes but then I’ll be tempted to make poor food choices at lunch.” “If I don’t read my reasons for change, it will be easy later on to justify caving into my cravings.” “If I let anxiety choose my food, it might feel good for a few minutes but then I’ll be mad at myself for the rest of the day.” “Cravings go away.” “Extra food will always go to waste, either in the compost, or in my body.” If you have a smart phone, you can keep these lists in your phone.

3. Learn to eat slowly. Taste and savor what you eat. Notice this step isn’t about what you eat, but how you eat.

4. Notice the sensation of hunger. You may be triggered to eat by thoughts, stress, shame or anger rather than physical hunger. You may not know the physical sensations of hunger. You fear becoming hungry, so anxiety makes food choices for you.

5. Notice the physical sensations of food cravings and how these are different than hunger.

6. Notice the physical sensations of stress, anxiety, depression or fear and how they trigger food choices.

7. Notice the effects of eating particular foods or amounts or at different times. When you eat out of panic, fear, anxiety, stress or depression, it’s difficult to connect the effects of what we eat. “Do I feel well when I eat fruit? What happens when I eat late at night? What happens when I skip breakfast? What foods energize me and sustain that energy? What foods give me a buzz and then leave me feeling depressed in a couple hours? What happens if I let myself get too hungry, too angry, too lonely, too tired?” These patterns cannot be discovered in a book. Your own has the answers.

Stage Two: Regular Eating. 2 to 6 weeks

1. Regular meals help stabilize your blood sugar, reduce hunger, reduce cravings and give the animal that is your body loving kindness. Without mindful eating skills in stage one, you would let cravings and fears decide when to eat. Emotional triggers sabotage food choices and give permission to eat anything. Everyone is different and you will learn what a natural schedule is for you through mindfulness. Many people eat 3 regular meals and a couple snacks to reassure the body that it will always have enough, but not too much.

2. Continue practicing stage one skills daily

3. Notice and collect new thoughts your mind offers to sabotage your intuitive eating plan and having a written response. For example, resentment suggests that “I should be able to eat whenever I want.” Compassion replies “When I used to eat whenever I wanted, I paid the price of shame, guilt and anxiety. I want something better for myself now. I want to feel confident and enjoy eating.” The Rebellious One suggests “It won’t matter if I skip breakfast just this once.” Compassion replies “Every time I let stress run the show, I pay with anxiety and make it easier to give in the next time I’m stressed.”

You can move to Stage Three once you can maintain regular meals without requiring a lot of effort, self-control, will power or discipline. It starts to feel natural and believe it or not, easy.

Stage Three: Food Selections

1. Throw away any ideas of dieting, calorie counting, any radical food plans and learn to eat naturally. In fact, throw out all those dieting books. Delete all your dieting internet bookmarks. In this stage you will eat foods and portions that you can easily maintain for the rest of your life. In this stage food choices are satisfying, tasty, easy and completely enjoyable. There will be no forbidden foods that create a sense of longing or doing without in this stage. Food choices are guided by mindful eating skills developed in stage one. You learn to recognize how different food desires are from food cravings. You’ve learned more about your body’s natural cycles and can make food choices that prevent stress, keep your metabolism humming a happy song throughout the day. You look forward to eating without stress, shame or anxiety.

2. Meal planning can become a joyful celebration of the good life. Grocery shopping is not walking the gauntlet from temptation to temptation. Every choice feeds a new thought such as “I’m healthy and confident, making a new relationship with food.” “Food is my ally in health and happiness.” “What would my body really enjoy this week that will give me pleasure and energy and fill up my emotional bank account?”

3. Continue cataloging sabotage thoughts and building kind and gentle responses to these challenging thoughts

Stage Four: Planning for contingencies: holidays, vacations, work events, illness and stress

1. Back in the 80s a funny list of dieting rules passed through our office such as “Calories don’t count if you’re standing up. Calories don’t count if you’re on vacation. Calories don’t count after midnight…” It was funny, but highlighted all the ways the mind can sabotage a thoughtful and gentle approach to food.

2. In this stage, you will forecast and plan for special events, working with thoughts to see where you will need to have special plans. Thoughts such as “It’s not fair that I can’t have pecan pie with vanilla Haagen Dazs” as thanksgiving approaches. Special guidelines might include a plan for going off the plan. Not a blanket free for all, but a guideline that will allow for flexibility, eliminate the “have not” feeling of loss, but still be mindful and planful.

Stage Five: Maintaining the plan for life: after 6 – 12 months of the first 4 stages.

1. Maintaining a plan for life will include the experience of a complete crash of the plan. Everyone has times when stress builds up, unexpected events blind side us. And you may completely abandon your plans. The Intuitive Eater will take stock, learn from the experience and add a new component to the plan so that food once again is a natural pleasure that sustains good health and energy and not a coping mechanism or a reward.
2. One of the skills you will learn is how to manage disappointment and setbacks.
3. You may have reached your goals and find a new thought challenging you “I’ve reached my goals so can I start to eat more?” A kind of magical thinking invites us to go back to old patterns. But you remember that you are building a plan that will last a lifetime, not until the scale reports a number that signals you to drop the plan.

Your natural wisdom.

From the moment of your first breath, your body knew how and what to eat. As you practice these simple skills, you will attune with the wise animal that is your body. And every body has its own grand design, guided by DNA and environment. Take the power that is yours for the asking. Listen to your body. Enjoy the natural pleasure of eating. And enjoy the peace that comes from your own natural wisdom.

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