Developing Healthy Stress Management at Our Behavioral Rehab Center

Today’s teens are under an extreme amount of stress, making healthy coping and stress management skills paramount. At Lotus Behavioral Health, we understand the importance of developing these skills, especially when teens enter our behavioral rehabilitation center as part of their recovery journey.

Teens are faced with stress in the form of life’s everyday hassles, demands, and pressures, in addition to bigger issues, with emotional stressors and hormones playing a part. While a small amount of stress can help motivate your teen to achieve their goals by studying, planning, and preparing, too much stress can put teens’ physical and mental well-being at risk.

Averting stress is often unavoidable, so it’s critical that parents and teens alike possess effective coping and management skills. By keeping everyday stress manageable, you and your teen can better handle bigger challenges if they come up down the road.

Stress narrows your teen’s ability to think clearly, function effectively, and enjoy life. Parents and teens need to remember that you have more control over your stress response than you might think, and effective management techniques can help you become happier, healthier, and more productive.

Learning about and experimenting with stress management strategies can help parents and teens work toward a balanced life. These skills can give teens time for work, relationships, and fun, as well as the resilience to hold up under stressful situations and meet challenges head-on.

Understanding Stress

It’s easy for parents to say that their teenagers have a stress-free life. While many parents work toward giving their children a better life than they had, teens today are inundated with more stress than previous generations.

To develop healthy coping and stress management skills, it’s important to understand what stress is and its impact on mental and physical health. Stress is a physical or psychological response to an external cause (a stressor) that may be one-time, short-term, or happen repeatedly over a long time.

Some stress responses include:

• Emotions like fear, anger, sadness, worry, numbness, or frustration
• Shifts in appetite, energy, goals, and interests
• Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
• Issues with sleeping
• Physical responses like headaches, body pains, or skin rashes
• Decreases in physical and mental health
• Increases in substance use

Most individuals often deal with challenges that are stressful and overwhelming, but understanding your response can help you identify your stressors and become more resilient.

Identifying Stressors

Identifying common and personal stressors can help you learn how to manage your distress responses and cope in a healthy way. However, this can be difficult, as not all stress is caused by external factors, and some stress responses can present as eustress (good) or distress (bad). As a parent, it’s important to remember that everyone is different and that your teen’s stressors might vary greatly from your stressors.

Eustress is manageable, positive stress that motivates you to meet challenges at work, school, or in your personal life. On the other hand is distress, overwhelmingly negative stress that can damage your mood and outlook, disrupt your sleep, and trigger health issues such as depression and anxiety.

Identifying the sources of stress in your and your teen's lives may seem straightforward, but the sources of chronic stress can be harder to pinpoint. Major stressors like families moving or going through a divorce are obvious, but everyday stressors can give you insights into how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors contribute to your overall stress levels.

Common external causes of stress can include:

• Major life changes
• Work or school problems
• Relationship difficulties
• Financial troubles
• Being too busy
• Family-related issues

Common internal causes of stress can include:

• Pessimism or a general negative outlook
• Inability to accept uncertainty
• Rigid thinking, lack of flexibility
• Negative self-talk
• Unrealistic expectations/perfectionism
• All-or-nothing attitude

To identify stressors, first look closely at your daily habits, attitude, and excuses. Weigh the common life stressors, like school or work, relationships, or financial burdens, never mind the major stressors like grief or loss and divorce. Factor in if you view the stress as either temporary or integral to your routine/personality and whether or not you blame your stress on others or outside events: whatever the cause, at the end of the day, you need to accept responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining the stressors in your life.

Developing Teens Support and Coping Strategies

As a parent, there are many different ways to provide teens support in developing healthy coping strategies to deal with stress. Encourage your teen to take breaks, disconnect from the news and social media, and prioritize taking care of themselves and their bodies.

If you or your teen’s current stress control methods aren’t contributing to your greater emotional or physical health, it’s time to reconsider and find new ones to help feel calm and in control.

Some healthy coping mechanisms to employ include:

• Physical activities (exercise, yoga, etc.)
• Relaxation techniques (deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness)
• Social support and connection
• Creative outlets (art, music, writing)
• Eating healthy, well-balanced meals
• Getting plenty of sleep
• Avoiding substance use
• Recognizing when you need more help

You’ll want to help your teen cut out unhealthy ways of coping and instead utilize the four A's (avoid, alter, adapt, or accept) to gauge if the stress is worth their response.

• Avoid unnecessary stress. This means avoiding stressors by knowing your limits and sticking to them.
• Alter the situation. Change the way you communicate and operate in your daily life.
• Adapt to the stressor. Change your expectations and attitude to adapt to stressful situations and regain control.
• Accept the things you can't change. Accepting things as they are might be difficult, but it is easier in the long run.

Building Resilience

Resilience plays a key role in stress management as it allows you and your teen to harness your inner strength and rebound. Resilience can help you and your teen see past obstacles, find ways to enjoy life, and better handle stress. Rather than making your problems disappear, you embrace challenges as opportunities for growth while cultivating a positive mindset and outlook on life.

If you’d like to help your teen become more resilient, you can encourage them to build skills to endure hardships, including:

• Adapting to tough times
• Building strong, healthy relationships with loved ones, friends, and mental health professionals
• Making every day have meaning
• Learning from the past
• Staying hopeful
• Taking care of themselves
• Taking action

Overcoming Obstacles Through Behavioral Health Treatment Programs

Developing healthy coping skills is a critical component to your and your teen’s effective stress management plan. By working together, you can remove common barriers, create strategies to overcome obstacles, learn from setbacks, and adapt your coping strategies accordingly. Learning from setbacks is crucial as it enables your teen to adopt coping strategies accordingly, fostering resilience and growth in the face of adversity and helping them develop robust stress management skills conducive to overall well-being.

At Lotus Behavioral Health, we’re committed to creating a nurturing and healing setting to foster a healthy lifestyle in teen clients. We provide a well-rounded, whole-family-focused approach to teen drug rehab that includes assessment, four distinct levels of teen behavioral health services, individualized treatment options, and more.

If you are a parent of a teenager with a substance use disorder, reach out to the Lotus Behavioral Health team for additional information on our services and the different levels of care we offer at our adolescent treatment facility. You can start the process by visiting our Admissions page, where you can view more information about a complimentary brief assessment to determine eligibility.

To learn more about navigating the challenging journey of addressing teen substance abuse issues, contact Lotus Behavioral Health for an intake consultation at (833) 948-2273 or visit our website.