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PROMOTING POSITIVE MENTAL health is a topical issue at the moment. However, many teenagers and their parents are struggling to find the right balance. How do you manage stress in order to prevent distress? Ongoing stress can lead to heightened levels of distress which can be emotionally debilitating and extremely challenging for teenagers and their parents to deal with, if not addressed in a timely manner.
Teenagers are exposed to and experience a range of challenges which can have significant and adverse effects on their mental wellbeing. These challenges include exam pressures, bullying, peer pressure, sexual identity confusion and life transitions to mention a few.
Many teenagers feel they cannot cope. They engage in self-harming as a means to manage and express their distress. Others experience suicidal thoughts due to feeling overwhelmed. However, with the right support and interventions teenagers can be helped to recover their lives and develop resilience.
Food and mood
Teenagers need to be mindful of their lifestyle and how this might be affecting their emotional wellbeing. The link between food and mood is well documented. Teenagers need to be encouraged to eat a healthy and balanced diet. For example, carbonated sugary drinks which are very popular with this age group cause sugar crashes and craving, which has a marked negative impact on the mood system.
Overconsumption of processed foods does not give the body the vitamins and nutrients required during this developmental period. Parents and teenagers would be well advised to examine their diet and make the necessary changes.
I would recommend that teenagers studying for exams take Omega 3 fish oils, for example. Research has noted its positive effects in terms of aiding concentration. Vitamin B Complex is widely regarded for stabilising the mood system and promoting positive mental health. Vitamin C is seen as a positive antidote in counteracting the psychological effects of stress.
Proper sleep and relaxation is essential
Stress can also interrupt sleep patterns, causing teenagers to lie awake at night worrying and ruminating. Teenagers need at least eight hours of quality sleep per night. I would strongly advise teenagers to develop a sleep routine: many of my teenage clients find having a bath or shower before bed helps them to relax and unwind.
Try writing a diary or journal; journaling has proven to be a valuable tool in helping to prevent rumination. Teenagers can write about their day and give vent to their feelings and concerns. This aids in moving their racing thoughts out of their mind, and giving their head some space.
I have found that teenagers can process their stress triggers more easily when they write in a journal and then explore and examine the contents of their journal entry with me during their next therapy session. In addition, complementary therapies such as massage, reflexology and acupuncture are beneficial in aiding relaxation. A combination of vitamins, a healthy diet, exercise, complementary therapies and talk therapy can be an excellent and powerful formula in helping teenagers to deal with and overcome their distress.
Talking really does help
If you are a teenager and feeling distressed or engaging in self-harm or have suicidal thoughts, please seek support. Don’t struggle alone. You might consider letting a close and trusted friend or relative know how you are feeling. If you feel you cannot talk to your parents, maybe you have a teacher or coach you trust.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help even thought it might be difficult for you. Having someone with whom you can share your concerns will help to alleviate some of your distress. A trusting adult will be able to help you and get you the additional support you might need.
If you are a parent, and are concerned for your teenager’s emotional wellbeing, approach them in a sensitive manner and try to uncover what is bothering them. Listen to their story and plan together how best to give them the support they need.
Serious issues and self-harm
If you discover your child is self-harming, attend to your own feelings first: you may feel shocked and unnerved, which is understandable. When you have gathered yourself, approach your child about your observations. Time your approach, wait until you have your child alone and are sure you won’t be interrupted. Engage in a dialogue and outline your concerns in terms of what you have noticed.
For example, ‘Sarah, I wanted to have a chat with you. I have noticed that you are not yourself and I am worried about you.’ Now be direct: ‘I have noticed that you have marks on your arm and I am wondering if you are self-harming.’ Your teenager will probably become defensive. Let your child know you are there to help, not judge and that you appreciate this is difficult for them. Outline what will happen next. For example, ‘We will make an appointment with the doctor or we will find a counsellor that will help you and I will support you all the way’.
This is an important step that needs to happen in order to get your teenager on the road back to positive mental health.
Psychotherapist Liz Quish is a leading counsellor, parent coach and mediator. Her new book, Overcoming Self-Harm and Suicidal Thoughts: A Practical Guide for the Adolescent Years, published by Hammersmith Health Books, is available now from all good bookshops and online at www.easons.com and www.amazon.com. For further info see www.csei.ie.
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Couldn’t be arsed reading his bull , the comments are more interesting anyway .
Watch out Gilmore ‘New’ labour is coming to get ya……..
Gilmore if you told me Christmas was just around the corner I would not believe you…Why,because you have done nothing but lie since you got your power……your a disgrace and don’t have one labour principle in your body.
Come on now Shane we’ll have no talk of xmas till tomorrow week please.
Fair enough Pablo..going to ask Gilmore to turn on my lights….there could be sparks..lol
That’s a good idea, live brown, neutral blue, earth Gilmore, simple enough to wire, very effective though
Too late Gilmore the damage is done.
Enjoy your pension.
Don’t forget Damien he might still have the money the workers party made in a basement in their building, the party he was a member of at the time before he joined the democratic left.
Whether you agree or not with their policies, Labour’s biggest mistake was agreeing to be part of a coalition government in a bankrupt country. If they waited and watched by the sidelines they would be the biggest party in the country by a huge margin.
Truly one of the biggest political blunders in the history in this country.
Long enough speech but not enough time to explain how his minister gave his wife a 120k job.
The last Goverment bought a site from the wife d I’d he ever thank Cowan
Blah blah blah it doesn’t matter what you say cos ye are busted #nevervotinglabouragain
How predictable is this thread going to be.,..
Predictable as in,Labour will be history.
You’re on it,,soyes,it’s going to be predictable!
If not Labour who will you vote for?
Can you suggest anyone ?
Someone who doesn’t tell lies would be nice.
Fair play…. F€&k Bert
Look at Iceland Eamon!
They told their banks to bugger off and jailed/indicted white collar criminals and wrote off people’s debt of €1.5 billion. They now have about 5% unemployment. That’s a proper Labour government.
Instead we put ordinary people through the wringer, gave our money and assets away and let our “bankrupt” white collar criminals live it up in plush houses and live on hidden wealth.
Labour me @rse. A poor mans Fianna Fáil more like.
Iceland were and are not in the EURO. And they didn’t have the president of the ECB threatening to cut funding for irish banks when we were on the verge of defaulting.
As for white collar crime. Perhaps your are unaware of the case being painstakingly put together against Sean Fitzpatrick, Willie McAteer and others of Anglo Irish Bank. You seem to delight in just writing off debt, if someone takes out a loan, they have to pay it back. Why should I pay my mortgage when someone else gets a free ride off my hard work? Welcome to the real world. Maybe you are reading too many fantasy stories from Ben Gilroy and hiss Freemen buddies.
Gosh Matthew, if only it was as simple as you’d like to think.
So off the wall tired of reading the Iceland comparison. Comparing the Republic of Ireland to a glorified iceberg…..
Ireland should never have joined the EU but that’s a different story.
You think that if a bank loses money in gambling on currency or investments they should not be liable to lose it as well?
Were you handing over a refund to bond holders or at the top of the queue to do so?
I’m paying my mortgage as well. But there’s a bigger picture. The Celtic Tiger bypassed a lot of ordinary people.
Why should they pay? What’s your reason for saying so? Why should someone in debt, through no fault of their own, to say, €150,000, pay back part of the billions of Euro that were flashed around by criminals in this country?
The investigation into white collar crime in Ireland is probably 4-5 years old now. Going nowhere because the laws aren’t there. Authorities are standing with their mouths open looking at them.
The simplicity is real. I know how real it is. We were sold out and we’re paying the price for decades to come.
Now, who’s Ben Gilroy?
Yep Dobson. Your insulting arrogance by referring to another country as a ‘glorified iceberg’ indicates you’ll go a long way with Labour. Happily, Labour are going only one way.
He stood for Direct Democracy in the Meath By-Election, and he seriously annoyed Dobson and his ilk by coming 4th ..
If you don’t like Iceland take the example of Dubai.
They told the banks to piss off when they looked for the country to cover the debts of the DubaiWorld project.
And off they pissed.
They also voted their version of FF back in.
And off they pissed…loved that
Will seanie and co do time ??? Not a hope in the the banana republic
5 years later they have a case pending, c’mon, the Yanks had there mess sorted in 6 months, no one gone to jail in this country for this financial melt down
Dane, How right you are couldn’t have put it better myself.
Peter,
Perhaps you might get one of your legal beaver to explain the difference between the laws in Ireland and those of USA then you might make a more meaningful contribution and see past populists remarks.
Some populist bull$hit on this site comparing us to Iceland and Dubai, 2 countries not even in the euro. Some people love quoting sound bites to please the masses on the journal.ie. what would happen if we told the IMF and ECB to piss off?? It doesn’t bear thinking about? Why don’t we all just keep borrowing money and never pay it back. I mean, if we don’t pay it back, they will keep giving it to us anyway, wont they? coz “everybody loves the Irish”, even if we tell them to “piss off” when they have the nerve to look for their money back! Some clowns around here
Dane, you need to take some anti-delusion tablets. Seriously.
“Quoting sound bites”. Being realistic more like it.
Would you be looking for your money back if you invested in banks…? You must have invested?!
Ordinary people in arrears? Don’t help them? You seem to prefer your hard earned cash going to fat cat European institutions? Swallowed up into the digital money system.
Your hard earned cash is going into a black hole. If you’d rather see it go there than to real use at home in Ireland where ordinary people are flat broke then so be it.
Why should we pay for their mistakes?
ECB can write it off. It’s purely digits on a screen. ECB control the currency. It’s that simple. We’re being made an example of.
Put that in your populist pipe and smoke the bejesus out of it.
After reading that I feel sick. I never felt so much hate and anger for anything in my life as I do for labour.
Agreed. Despite the generations of my family who contributed to the labour party through union fees being disrespected by Gilmore, I was happy to consider him a workers party blow-in opportunist (along with rabitte) who had weaseled his way to the top of the party of Connolly, but the ovation was the final straw.
Good chap, Pete. Fianna Fáil brought this country to its knees. Clearly, though your ire should be focused on Labour.
Labour enabled your party to sign our kids and grandkids into debt servitude vincent/kevin/touchy/eggy etc.
You just embarrass yourself with that line “werejammin”. Blaming the medicine instead of the disease.
Kevin the troll.
Jog on Kevin ye numbnut
Ah, Pete. God help ya.
Werejammin
Solemn declarations from a Shinner!
Poor ritchie all alone
Ah well werejammin sure they found a sucker in you what else were they to do – priceless
Werejammin is a Sinn Fein activist! Pretending that he used to vote labour he never voted anything other than Sinn Fein in his life. Defends Sinn Fein on every single thread on this website without fail. The number 1 shinner hack on the journal!
Planet earth is flat
Ireland is in Asia
The sun is smaller than the moon
Honestly, I’m telling the truth.
One word: spoofer.
One word LIAR.
One word wa*****
Three words…
Why a dick
No no no… That was meant to be
What a dick.
Not why.
Fail.
We undrstood. No worries!
I’d rather iron my ball bag than listen to eamon Gilmore
You don’t care enough so you comment? Irony much
Run with the hare and hunt with the hound springs to mind Mr. Gilmore I’m afraid.
All I got from that speech was:
“lie, more lies, bit of spoof, we’re great, country destroyed without us, lies, spoof, few more lies, lots more lies, you should all bow before us, more lies.
Makes me sick. Turncoat.
No mention of his 500,000 euro field I see.
I would rather watch the angelus on repeat for five hours than watch five minutes of this lying hypocrite
Dick head
Has that c%*t Gilmore been on the sauce again?????.
The Labour party is supposed to represent the working class not just Gillmor’s own beliefs he forgets he came from a union background the working class are fed up with the same retric from him all the time. Resign from government now?
Mans a puppet
Turnip head.
Predictive text works correctly in this circumstance. The man is indeed a puppet, hes also a muppet.
Pablo, calling him a Muppet is just an insult to Jim Henson.
Also a muppet, Mark. Sorry, no offence to muppets intended!
Only one thing to say…Eamonn fcuk off pronto!
I couldn’t scroll down quick enough to get past that drivel!
He’s right. There definitely won’t be a return to any sort of boom with him in government.
Hes there for the money… sell out. Will never vote labour again. And as for the unions they have sold us out as well. …
Who will you vote for then?
We should vote for an unemployed person it would set them up for life.
Jobs for family members big wage plus expenses and a nice pension at the end of it,and let’s face can’t do any worst than the clowns we have at present.
B******t
Yawn!
Please read the speech.i thought it was brill. At last hope for the future. Labour will be in the next government I have no doubt
Ha ha ha ha ha ., good one !! I think it that was a joke … Right ????
You forgot the sarcasm emoticon, Michael!
That’s great eamon but you’ve lost my vote
Labour is distinct from Fine Gael ,and come next election, they will be extinct like the Greens.
If ya told me it was sunny outside,I’d have t check for meself!!!
Hugh, what is the story? We are entitled to know your political affiliation. Who in the name o Christ would publish the entire of that load of hogwash, whilst conceding that there was no actual substance in it. We, the readers, deserve to know.
A lot of Labour.ie members in Dublin live in wealthier and nicer parts and they don’t really care about poorer Dubliners. They pretend to care to look good on Twitter and Facebook updates. It makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside. Eamon Gilmore is a TD for one of the wealthiest constituencies in Ireland. Most of the people in his constituency couldn’t care less about poorer Dubliners and poorer Irish people. All they care about is protecting the world they live in.
Pretty much what we knew, the deeds of the country were handed to the banks by Fianna Fail, and then to the Troika when the guarantees were called in.
Now the Troika will be handing the deeds back to the banks when we exit the bailout program and we as a nation are no further forward, the deeds will be there for the banks to use when they need their next bailout.
And in their period in government Gilwank and his muppets have done nothing to change that.
But I suppose to do it a starting point would have been a philosophy of representing the working man and women and those who want to work but can’t because of the economic sh****le we now inhabit.
Something these windbags abandoned a long time past.
Horse shit from a donkey !!
Why is Gilmore so fat after all that belt tightening?
Now if only he wrote that himself… buy that would require a brain of some kind. Maybe he’ll meet the tin-man looking for a heart (inda kenny) while they’re “off to see the wizard”, Angela Merkel, next time.
Totally agree with Jono on reading this sh1te. Labour party has totally screwed workers by going along with their lethal weapon fine gaelers. Now they are wanting to climb back…its a tad too late Labour!!!
Ah good old Dane and his hard work!
History will be kind to these great people they restored sovereignty and that fact can never be changed
Gilmore – just go away!
Here is a comment for the labour researchers.
GILMORE IS AN ARROGANT SMUG BASTARD.
Less said the better,,,
Among all the waffle faffle, one thing stood out for me, when Mr Gilmore said running a country is not that much different from running a home. I can remember very clearly Mrs Thatcher making the same point many times druring her time as Prime Minister. And look what happened in the UK. Industry and manufacturing output- mainly in the North of England – destroyed and two generations of unemployed created at one fell swoop. Thatcherite policies are alive and well here in the Republic.
As a member of Fine Gael, I thought it was a superb speech
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