How Can Meditation Help Teens With Anxiety?

When you have a teen that suffers from anxiety, it’s hard to know what the best course of action is. Teens today deal with more stress than the previous generation, and they often don’t know how to properly cope with it. Meditation can be a huge benefit for teens with anxiety, as it helps change the brain to wire new proper neural pathways. 

By getting the brain into the parasympathetic state, the autonomic nervous system can help regulate the body’s processes even better. Not only can meditation help teens deal with anxiety, but it can also help them focus their attention, deal with conflict, and live in the present moment. How can meditation help teens with anxiety?

Promote a Sense of Calm

Meditation can help produce a calm mind through a state of deep relaxation. When teens start to meditate, it may be more difficult or feel strange, but as time goes on it will get easier. While meditating, you help focus your mind on one thing instead of the jumbled mess of your thoughts. Focusing on calming thoughts helps to promote a sense of calm in anxious teens, signaling that everything is going to be ok. 

Use Meditation Apps or Guided Meditations

There are many meditation apps available for smartphones, which may be extremely beneficial for teens starting to meditate. If your teen prefers a guided meditation track, Youtube has plenty that can be specific to any issues your teen may want to focus on. There are even apps available that can help with proper breathing techniques, which can also help calm the mind and body. 

Focus Concentration 

As your brain practices regular meditation, it starts to change. Meditation can help the brain improve concentration and focus, which may provide benefits to how teens do their homework and perform on tests. When teens start doing meditation, it may be better to start with a five or ten-minute meditation and gradually increase the time. With regular practice, teens can meditate for longer times and reap even more benefits. 

Increase Self Esteem and Maturity

Teens that deal with anxiety generally have low self-esteem and are insecure. Those qualities are generally accompanied by over thinking and they are focused on the bad and negative things about themselves, their life, and situations. Studies have found that meditation increases general health, social skills, maturity, and self-esteem. Many teens, especially those with anxiety, can benefit from increased self-esteem. 

Repetition of Positive Thoughts Decreases Anxiety

Meditation builds confidence and decreases anxiety in teens because it stops negative self-talk. When you listen to an affirming thought meditation, you’re repeating positive phrases and qualities in your head, and your brain starts to listen and believe it. Instead of the loop of negative thoughts that can often replay in a brain with anxiety, the repetition of positive thoughts is now ingrained in your brain. Meditation can be very freeing, as you can realize that you don’t have to listen to those negative thoughts and can change your thinking to positive thoughts. 

Check out Meditationly 

If you or your teen is interested in visiting a meditation center near you, check out our handy directory. We’ve put together a list of mindfulness centers throughout every state in the United States. Whether you choose group meditation or guided meditation, it’s a great tool for helping teens with anxiety. Let’s set our teens up for success by helping them properly deal with anxiety so they can live happy and successful lives!