Fighting Stress as an Adolescent

Although you should never accept the “it’s just stress” diagnosis of migraine or headache, it’s clear that there is a link between the two. Minimizing the negative effects of stress can certainly have a positive effect on your life.

A recent study from Spain suggests that responses to stress as an adolescent can make a big difference in how stress effects you. Learning how to respond to stress early on can have a positive physical effect down the road.

This study builds on several other studies on “stress controllability”, that is, being able to respond to and control stressors. This is also related to studies on “learned helplessness”, which is just as disturbing as it sounds (it means that you “learn” that you’re helpless. And even if the circumstances change, and you would be able to improve your circumstances, you don’t, because you’ve already given up, and you assume that you’re – helpless.).

Research on rats, in this case, tested two different circumstances. One set of rats could learn to control their stressful circumstances. The other set of rats were trapped in their stressful circumstances.

At first, researchers could detect no change. Both sets of rat-brains responded in a similar way.

But long-term, the story was different. The rats who could not control their adolescent stressors were more inflexible, more impulsive. But it wasn’t just behaviour – differences were biologically measurable.

The researchers explain that this does support studies in humans, which suggest that adolescent uncontrollable stress is a risk factor for neuropsychiatric disorders later in life. In their conclusion:

Although the neural circuits and neurochemical processes underlying this differential effect remain to be studied, the ability to control threats in our environment appears to be critical for behavioral resilience, and this is particularly relevant during adolescence, a critical developmental window of heightened sensitivity to stressors. Preventive approaches in humans should aim at increasing perception of control as a way to decrease vulnerability to some psychopathologies with impulsivity/compulsivity-related symptoms.

Controllability affects endocrine response of adolescent male rats to stress as well as impulsivity and behavioral flexibility during adulthood

Notice the phrase “perception of control”. Now, without getting all philosophical about how much control we actually have in life, this does open the door to a lot of strategies for helping older children and teens better deal with stress.

As other studies have suggested, moderate responses to stress can help us become more resilient (more on that in When Does Stress Help or Harm? The Effects of Stress Controllability and Subjective Stress Response on Stroop Performance). This doesn’t mean we have to be able to escape all stress in life (which also would not be healthy!) – and after all, some people under huge amounts of stress have had very fulfilling productive lives!

But it does mean that we need to learn to respond to stress. Maybe confront that person who is bothering us, to try to mend the relationship. Maybe understand how to use certain non-drug treatments to minimize our migraine attacks. Maybe it’s something simple, like moderate exercise each day. Strategies for studying for that exam. Minimizing time on social media.

But it’s something that helps, and at least helps us to feel like we’re in control. If we can do these things when we’re young, it can improve our lives down the road. And if we do them when we’re older, it still improves our quality of life.

So don’t give in to “learned helplessness”, and be sure your kids don’t either! Whatever the stress may be, find appropriate ways to respond. Your body will thank you.

Via: Reducing the Adversities of Stress by Controlling the Source- Study Shows Promise