Trauma in Teens: What You Need to Know
Trauma comes in all shapes and sizes. Something that one teen considers traumatic may not be traumatic for another teen. However, coping with trauma for teens involves using the same behavioral and mental strategies to manage all types of stressful events.
Understanding Coping Mechanism
What is the purpose of learning how to use coping skills? What exactly are healthy coping mechanisms? While the origin of the term “coping mechanism” isn’t attributable to a specific individual, Sigmund Freud’s concept of defense mechanisms is an early description of how people deal with stress and trauma.
Freud claimed that denial is a defense mechanism that people use to avoid dealing with feelings of anxiety or fear associated with an unpleasant truth about events, others, or themselves.
For example, substance abusers often deny they are addicted and believe they can quickly stop using drugs. By denying their addiction, substance abusers avoid facing an awful truth about themselves–that they are indeed drug addicts.
In this case, denial as a coping mechanism is an unhealthy coping mechanism. It does not solve the problem, nor does it relieve anxiety. Alternately, healthy coping skills for teens experiencing the emotional turmoil of living through a traumatic event will solve problems, reduce stress and depression, and help them feel in control of their lives, thoughts, and emotions.
Trauma and Emotional Regulation for Teens: Why Teen Coping Mechanisms Work to Foster Emotional Resilience
The Science Behind Coping Mechanisms
The science supporting the effectiveness of coping strategies involves regulating a stress response system called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
Techniques like cognitive reframing, mindful meditation, and creative expression have been shown to stimulate the formation of adaptable neural pathways in the brain, improve trauma processing, and strengthen resilience.
Developing Emotional Resilience
Cultivating emotional resilience is one of the goals of learning about teen coping mechanisms. Emotional resilience is the ability to bounce back from difficult or stressful situations with empowerment and confidence.
It involves recognizing and effectively managing unhealthy emotions and maintaining a positive outlook when confronted with difficult situations. Some people are born with personality traits that include high emotional resilience, but others must actively cultivate their ability to develop emotional resilience.
Learning to Apply Healthy Coping Skills
Learning how and when to apply healthy coping skills for teens naturally builds emotional resilience and its benefits:
- Better capacity to process and control emotions
- Enhances ability to maintain positive relationships
- Increases adaptability to life’s challenges
- Greater capacity for personal growth and development
- Enriches problem-solving and decision-making skills
Mastering emotional regulation for teens by using coping techniques is not just for teens dealing with trauma. The life of a typical teen is just like riding a roller coaster blindfolded–you know there are going to be enormous ups and downs, but it doesn’t stop the anxiety and fear from overwhelming you.
4 Teen Coping Mechanisms That Work
1. Deep Breathing Techniques
Deep breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes relaxation and counters the body’s stress response. It slows down your heart rate, decreases blood pressure, and reduces the levels of stress hormones like cortisol in your body.
Additionally, deep breathing increases the oxygen supply to the brain to further enhance a sense of control and calmness.
Breathing for calmness begins with sitting or lying down with your knees bent. Next:
- Close your eyes (optional)
- Inhale slowly through your nose for around five seconds. Stop inhaling if you start feeling uncomfortable.
- Hold your breath for one or two seconds.
- Begin exhaling gradually. Take at least five seconds to complete the exhalation while focusing on emptying your lungs.
- Repeat this breathing exercise several times a day or whenever you feel anxious.
2. Muscle Relaxation Exercises
- Lie down on a bed or couch
- Start concentrating on a specific muscle group, such as the muscles in your fingers or toes.
- Tighten those muscles and hold that tension for about 10 seconds.
- Release the tension from the muscles. Pay attention to how relaxing it feels to release that tension.
- Repeat this action of tensing and releasing muscles in your calves, thighs, abdomen, chest, back, and neck.
- Breathe slowly and deeply during this exercise.
3. The Power of Mindfulness Meditation
- Find a quiet place to sit or lie down that is free of distractions. Turn off your cell phone, pull down the shades, and adjust the room’s temperature to your comfort level.
- Concentrate on your breathing. Focus on inhaling and exhaling slowly and evenly.
- Let go of thoughts about the past or worries about the future. Focus on a soothing image, such as a quiet lake on a sunny day or the cool shade within a forest.
- Accept any thoughts, feelings, or sensations that arise during meditation without labeling them pleasant or unpleasant. Nurture a sense of nonjudgmental awareness of your inner thoughts and feelings. Let them appear and fade away naturally.
- Get in the habit of practicing mindfulness meditation, even if it’s just for a few minutes each day.
4. Creative Expression as Therapy
Writing, art, music, and other forms of creative expression provide a safe outlet for expressing and processing trauma-associated emotions. Externalizing these feelings through creative mediums offers anxiety relief for teens who have difficulty communicating unsettling emotions.
Creative expression encourages self-reflection and introspection by making it easier for teens to explore their emotions in a non-threatening manner. Moreover, creating art often leads to insights into troubling experiences that help teens understand how to deal with traumatic experiences and their aftermath.
Maya’s Story
Maya lost her older brother in a car accident when she was 16 years old. She had been close to her brother, often relying on him for support and advice when things became overwhelming at home. Grief-stricken, lost, and feeling hopeless, Maya had no one to talk to about her brother’s sudden death. Unable to cope with the loss of their son, her parents withdrew into their own emotional cocoons.
One day, Maya’s homeroom teacher suggested she talk to the school counselor. Reluctantly, Maya begins visiting the counselor, who tries unsuccessfully to get Maya to talk about her feelings. After a few counseling sessions, the therapist offered Maya various art supplies and asked her to create something representing her emotions.
Maya pushed a finger into a mound of clay, then two fingers. She took the ball of clay into her hands and began kneading it. Something about the clay’s cool, pliable texture provided a welcome distraction from her despair.
As she molded the clay, memories of her brother flooded her mind—his smile, his blue eyes, the way he used to tousle her hair. She began realizing that manipulating the clay made her feel less anxious, that somehow the clay was absorbing her grief and sadness.
When she finished molding the clay, Maya saw that she had created the likeness of a guitar, the instrument her brother had played since he was 13. It was then that Maya began crying for the first time since learning of her brother’s death.
Try experimenting with one or more of these teen coping mechanisms and find one that works for you. Remember, finding what works for you will probably be a process of trial and error. Be patient with yourself and explore different coping techniques that help address your trauma-based emotions.
Download or Share the 4 Teen Coping Mechanisms that Work (Infographic)
