Alex Bloom, Psy.D.

Childhood anxiety is on the rise. So much so that over the last decade, anxiety has overtaken depression as the most common reason why college students seek out counseling. And according to the American College Health Association, undergrads reporting “overwhelming anxiety” has shot up dramatically from 50% in 2011 to 62% in 2016. 

So the question becomes how can parents help better prepare children for adulthood?

First, we have to understand what anxiety is: the avoidance of discomfort and uncertainty. So we have to teach our kids how to learn to cope and problem-solve when facing the unexpected or uncomfortable events that come with life, otherwise they learn how to avoid these scenarios which only strengthens the anxiety. 

1) Self-regulation

Children are new to their bodies and need training on how to manage the feelings they experience. Just like we had to go through classes on learning how to drive a car, we need similar education on how to deal with strong (and sometimes scary) emotions when they arise inside of us. 

So spend some time this coming week with a family project of building a ‘comfort box’. Have everyone brainstorm ways in which they can get in touch with all five of their senses that can bring about a sense of calmness. Then place these items in a shoebox for easy access. For example, coloring pens, a bottle of bubbles, a playlist of songs they can listen to calm them, a notecard that says “take a deep breath”. (Hint: make a box for yourself, as well!). Then, when they are feeling anxious, prompt them to go to their self-soothe kit to use one of their own tools. 

This skill of self-regulation cannot be emphasized enough. Teaching a child how to calm themselves is one of the biggest gifts a parent can give give to their young one. It gives them a sense of autonomy and bolsters problem-solving skills. 

2) Limit cellphone & internet usage

Both smartphones and social media are becoming increasing sources of stress in the 21st century for all of us, but especially children. So what’s a parent to do? Let’s quickly focus on three areas: punishment, family time, and duration of access. When your child is grounded or sent to their room, make sure they don’t have any electronics they can use (phone, tablet, laptop) to hop online. These digital devices become the gateway to escape, whether it be through chatting with friends or zoning out watching YouTube or Netflix. When they escape in these ways during time out, they are only learning how to avoid negative feelings – not how to grow from them. Regarding family time, make sure to have dinner together at least a few times a week to strengthen family bonds…and digital devices are not allowed. Lastly, duration of access. When teens come to see me it’s all they can do to put their phone away for our 50 minute sessions. One study showed that kids average 7.5 hours per day of electronic usage! So encourage kids to play with others aside from video games or watching TV to foster creativity and social skills. Go on family outings together and work on projects together, like arts and crafts. 

3) Be mindful what you model

Parenting can stir up uncomfortable emotions in us, such as fear and guilt, and we need to ask how do WE handle these emotions. Do we never allow our child to make small mistakes because of the fear it can bring up in us? Or we back down from a consequence we’ve given because of the guilt we feel? What we’re teaching our children in times like this is that uncomfortable emotions are intolerable. So enforce that your child go to school even though they’re protesting because they don’t want to take the test. If they didn’t study this is a learning experience then for them. And the number one parenting suggestion I can offer is consistency! So when you feel that guilt bubble up when they give you those puppy dog eyes after making a mistake that is begging for correction, stand strong and remember you are modeling good behavior for them by enforcing the rules. 

Chronic pain. A condition that affects over 20% of Americans and over 1.5 billion people worldwide and the numbers continue to climb. In fact, one study found that three out of four Americans have either experienced chronic pain themselves or have a close family member or friend who has. 

As a clinical psychologist, I have run a weekly chronic pain group for almost a decade and continue to be struck at how clients who have struggled with chronic pain for years will come to my group, usually after being referred by their physician, and never knew there were alternatives to treating their pain aside from medication! 

So, here are some big ideas that every person struggling with chronic pain should know:

1) Lifestyle upgrade

It’s vital to recognize that chronic pain is very different from acute pain. How do you distinguish between the two? There is no hard definition but most say if you struggle with ongoing pain for more than 3 (to 6) months, you dip into the chronic realm. More importantly, the approach one takes between the two needs to be different. For example, if you fall and break your leg, you rest and let your body recover. Soon, your bone has healed and you’re back to the old you. With chronic pain, however, if you take this approach it can not only backfire but can become more damaging to your body. When we move less, over time our muscles atrophy and our pain increases as movement stiffens. We also become more prone to depression. The take away? This concept of a lifestyle upgrade or adaption refers to a conscious commitment we make to have a more active and alternative approach than what our default stance might be towards our pain. We have to recognize we’re living ‘Life 2.0’ and have to honor the fact that our body is not what it used to be. A specific example of this new lifestyle commitment is the next point.

2) “Life within your 70%”

If you struggle with ongoing pain, when you have a “good” day there is a natural inclination to want push yourself to check off more of those boxes on your daily to do list. Those dirty dish? Vacuuming? Finishing all those loads of laundry? Heck, why not do all of them today. We feel proud of ourselves in the moment, catching a fleeting feeling of what a “normal” day was like before our pain began. But what happens to our functioning level the following day? It plummets from the increase in pain we now feel! This is called the Boom-Bust Cycle and it is not only deceiving but can actually be dangerous to our health. Research shows our average functioning level actually decreases the more we get caught up in this trap. 

So the way out is through pacing. You have to recognize that on those days when you’re full of energy and your pain levels are lower to not push yourself to the max. I often say in group, “Live within your 70%.” This means you monitor your regular activities on a number of different days to find an average of how long it takes you to complete those tasks and then scale back. Let’s take washing dishes. If, on average, it takes 10 minutes to clean all those plates but then you’re fried and your back is on flames afterwards from standing that long, you’ve gone past your ceiling. Experiment with scaling back to 6 or 7 minutes and then pause to take a break. While it will take you longer to complete the activity, chunking the task with rest periods can be an absolute game changer.

3) “Close the gate”

When we experience pain, what’s happening is there are signals from various parts of our body that are being sent up electrically through the spine and into the brain where the pain is then processed. So the spinal column acts as a highway sending these messages to and from the body.

But here’s a secret: we have more control over this flow of information than we might think.

If you imagine that there is a gate that can “close” the flow of this information then the theory is you experience less pain. There are four factors to keep in mind with this theory: physical, emotional, mental, and behavioral. We can “open” this gate, for example, when we overexert ourselves (physical), struggle with negative emotions like stress or depression (emotional), focus our attention on the pain itself or continue dwelling on negative aspects about life (mental), or withdraw from positive activities in life and participate in poor health habits (behavioral). So the mantra here is that we want to “close the gate”! We successfully do this through a number of ways in these four areas. We close the gate when we practice relaxation skills or get a massage (physical), manage our stress and strive to experience positive emotions like love and gratitude (emotional), distract ourselves from the pain and work on pursuing a positive attitude (mental), and participate in more social activities and eat healthier (behavioral). The take home message? Learning all you can about strategies that close the pain gate will help you feel more empowered and in control with your pain.

Do you remember the last time you took a break from Facebook? What about social media in general? And how long was it for? A break for some might have to be defined by a few hours, let alone a few days.

I know for myself I was definitely in need of a detox. In part, inspired from my last ABC/KATU appearance.

My cleanse started last week with this growing desire (need, more than anything) to hop off for just a couple days to reboot. But what happened next was quite curious.
I thought to myself, “Hey, if I’m going to pause on Facebook, why not all social media?”

And then, “Why not just take a break from my phone all together? And just keep it turned off so I wouldn’t have any distractions from texting and fewer temptations to want to hop on ‘real quick just to check in’”? (I know myself too well –- btw, sound familiar to anyone?).

Then from there it quickly escalated to, “Well, if I’m going to not turn on my phone I might as well not check email, watch vids on YouTube, and just unplug my wifi. (OMG did he just say no wifi?). That’s right, no electronics OF ANY KIND. No TV. No radio. Nada.
And so I did.
Just.
That.

It helped that my first day I distracted myself by staying at a McMenamin’s and enjoyed their soaking tub. I had a lengthy and enjoyable conversation with the bartender for hours on end conversing about life, the universe, and everything.Y

I came home and that’s when the withdrawals started. The mind can be SO crafty, can’t it?
“Let me just check this one thing. Real quick.”
Or, “I better tell my friends I’m not dead yet.”
But my personal favorite was, “Ermagawd! The world might be on fire! I better hop on just to make sure nuclear holocaust or the arrest of world leaders hasn’t happened and I’m missing out.”

Yes, FOMO is a real thing, btw, and it can be quite strong.

Luckily by keeping the phone OFF I was able to mindfully catch those kneejerk impulses to grab my phone and chuckled to myself instead.

I then went for a long walk and was just present. Present with myself. My breathe. And all the naked branches and diversely painted homes I passed. I played a game with myself and counted the number of times my hands went searching for my phone to take a picture.

14.

Not bad, actually, given how a recent study found a typical cellphone user touches their phone 2,617 times every DAY. (Yes, you did read that right). And the top 10%, by the way? More than 5,400.

So what happened after 48 hours? Did I go rushing back online like a maddened bull coming into the ring?

Tempted, yes. But then I thought, “Hmm. If I can actually go 48 hours…..how much longer can I push the envelope?” So the next day I left my phone in my pocket (still turned off, mind you) and carried a small notepad with me. If I had a question to ask, task to do, book concept, or even a meme creation idea (a growing pastime of mine), I’d jot it down in the notepad. In fact, I even wrote this blog post in the notepad.

I ate more mindfully. I drove and exercised in silence. I went to bed at a decent hour
(and my body began to remember what life was like pre-1994). I smiled at the zombies I passed, well, everywhere, who had their nose glued to those beautiful and alluring pieces of glass, metal, and rubber, reminding myself how I’m not alone.

I reorganized my closets, cleaned my garage, and completed almost all of those “I’ll get to that later” projects. I treated myself a massage and meditated in salt baths. I attended a concert by one of my most favorite musicians (another bucket list item checked!). I even went to the coast for a short retreat and finally completed a manuscript for one of my many side project books.

Over time I began to feel less stressed. Less rushed. Less harried in my body and frayed in my mind. Less edgy with life.

Technology has advanced so quickly it has become this goo that has seamlessly woven itself into the very fabric of our daily lives. Our very existence it can seem like. It hasn’t been all bad, of course, given the convenience it has gifted us. But it has also brought on new headaches. Email, for example, was originally supposed to be a way to streamline and simplify snail mail; but now we have spam, filters placing important emails in the wrong place, and the continuous search for that damn unsub link to get out an email avalanche you didn’t sign up for in the first place.
And it’s not really our fault, either. Our brains have been hijacked by technology, which, the founding engineers of Facebook, for example, would say was done very intentionally.

Over the ensuing days, I also found myself walking slower. Giving more sustained eye contact to others. Striking up conversations with waiters, store clerks, and Air B&B hosts.

In short, I settled more into the moment. More into Life. More into….Me.

I have also been gradually emerging back. I started checking email a couple days ago (limited to strictly once in the morning at 10am and again at 7pm, answering only urgent ones). Yesterday, I gifted myself to return to glorious YouTube and felt like a crack fiend getting a fix (yet still somehow managed to go to bed before midnight). And today, Day EIGHT, or more specifically 185 hours (and 28 minutes), I have reemerged to the world of Facebook’s zero’s and one’s.

My intention going forward is to now avoid being a Luddite but do my best to remain more balanced. How, you say? That question could be answered a number of different ways but one place that I, personally, will start is by carving out one day a week with going “wifi free.” It’s simple – but hard – at the same time. By just unplugging the Internet all together (or at least turning it off on specific devices I’m using) the temptations eliminate themselves. Of course I’ll also have a plan ahead of time for how I’d like to best spend it. And if I can’t make it a full day, even half a day counts as a win.

Willing to take the plunge and try out the 48 hour tech (or at least social media) free? Do it and post on my FB page what it was like with the #My48. I’ll be anxious to read about your experiences.

Social media. It’s a sticky beast that affects millions of us. With New Years upon us, consider incorporating a change with how frequent you view your accounts to reclaim more of your life back. Here are five simple ways to make this possible:

1) Ease of access. Just like if you wanted to go on a diet you wouldn’t keep your shelves fully stocked with fattening sweets, consider the same mindset for social media. Some ways in which this might play out include:
– deleting the apps off your phone or shortcut buttons on your internet browser on your computer
– log out after use so it takes an additional step, and thus time delay, for you to question what your purpose is in hopping on the site
– use website restriction apps like SelfControl, Freedom, or Cold Turkey

2) Replace. This is a habit that was socially engineered on purpose. So it will take time to work with this. As with any addiction, replacement is the name of the game. The creators of Facebook will tell you that all the hard work that went into creating the platform was done to make the experience as addictive as possible. From the notification bells to the algorithm on the news feed. So learn to take your power back and find other ways to get your dopamine kicks.
Step back and ask yourself how best you WANT to use your free time. What other activities do you wish to pursue either on a daily basis or more broadly aside from being on social media? Do you have projects you wish to accomplish? Spend more time with family or friends? How is your exercise? Diet? Sleep? Start small with these goals but be intentional. Which leads me to my next point…

3) Make a plan. Again, just like with any other form of addiction, making a plan is one of the most important steps! Have an accountability partner and share your plans with them. Research shows by broadcasting our goals we’re more likely to stick them (BTW, keep this in mind for all your New Year’s resolutions).
There are two ways to make a plan. The first is to go all out and detox, which means to cut off cold turkey. This could be for a weekend, a week, or even a 30 day social media “cleanse”. Know that if you take this approach it will naturally be most difficult in the beginning so stick with it. There are resources online to help you pursue these types of media diets.
The other approach is to slowly wean in your way off. Some examples of this include setting an intention ahead of time. When you go out with friends for dinner, set a rule for yourself (or with them) to not look at your phones during the meal. Also be intentional about your usage. Do you really have to check in when you go to Starbucks or the laundromat?

4) Buy an alarm clock. No, I don’t mean a paid app; a physical alarm clock! One of the worst times to slip into what I call “black hole time” is when we’re in bed. We transfix on our screens while mindlessly scrolling or tumble down rabbit holes all while burning the midnight oil. By using an alarm clock, we can either put our phones further away from the bed (and thus much less likely to zombify at night or first thing in the morning) or – better yet – charge your phone outside the bedroom.

5) Cultivate a mindfulness practice. Increased awareness is one of the biggest anecdotes to our bad habits. Ultimately we want to move from unconscious reacting to intentional responding. There are so many benefits that come with this type of non-judgmental, present moment practice and this is one of them! The more aware we are to the things we wish to change, the quicker we are at course correcting when we go back to autopilot. Remember, “awareness is always the first step towards change.” Consider starting a 5-minute breathing routine to strengthen the muscle of attention. Or if you need to start smaller, another idea for point #2 above of replacing is to use a mindfulness app.

Here’s to creating a more intentional and less time-absorbed 2019!