Stress Relieving Practices for Teens

Life can be overwhelming sometimes. Your kids go through a lot, from school drama to hectic sports schedules to learning to control their raging hormones. While they’re trying to figure out this life, you want them to enjoy each day with new opportunities. From playing sports and engaging in extracurricular activities to the hectic schedule it creates, we know how necessary it is for the entire family to relieve stress and decompress.

Relieving stress looks a little different for everyone. A lot of teens default to playing video games to escape this world. And I don’t blame them. At the end of the day, I want to read a book, watch my favorite show, and escape reality for an hour. When stress overtakes your thought life, it’s important to establish a healthy manner of calming your mind, body, and spirit, instead of just escaping. Here are some practices you can try to help you relieve stress in a healthy way.

Coping strategies help manage stress in a productive way. And you can practice these techniques before you become overwhelmed with stress to help prepare you when the stress does hit.

Breathing

When you start feeling overwhelmed with all of the hustle and bustle of life, try these breathing exercises to help calm your body and mind.

http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-management-breathing-exercises-for-relaxation

Writing

Writing is another way to release everything that’s bottled up inside. Take about 10 minutes per day to write about the cause of your stress. Express how the stress makes you feel. You’ll feel much better once you’ve released all of your feelings through writing.

Meditating

Meditation is a practice used to focus your attention on the right now, like breathing, the sounds you hear around you, your feelings, etc. Meditate on the positive and release the negative. You can also incorporate spiritual practices into your meditation time.

Doing

Another healthy practice is to do something you love, like playing video games! Sometimes we feel stress because of the full schedule and lack of “me-time,” but carving out time for yourself to do something you enjoy should be a non-negotiable on your schedule. Our kids feel this too, they might just not know how to verbalize it. Give them an hour to decompress, play their game, and relax. Then, you can move on to chores, dinner, and other day-to-day events.

Some stress can’t be removed from your life, but there are ways to help you handle the stress. These practices aren’t a solution to all of the world’s problems, but they do help provide a little perspective.