Speaker in Mt. Lebanon provides ideas for coping with stress

This may not come as a surprise, but studies show that teenagers represent the most anxiety-ridden group in the United States.
Besides the traditional pressures to achieve academically while maintaining satisfying social lives and finding time for sufficient sleep, today’s teens also face stressors related to social media and threats of violence in schools.

“So our kids are more stressed out than ever,” Christopher Willard said during a recent program at Mt. Lebanon High School. “We’re less and less teaching them how to manage their stress.”
He provided plenty of insight and suggestions for addressing the situation during his presentation, based on his book “Growing Up Mindful: Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens and Families Find Balance, Calm and Resilience.”
Mindful awareness, he explained, is rooted in focusing on the present instead of the often-negative thoughts of the past or especially what might happen in the future.
Willard, a clinical psychologist and educational consultant who instructs at Harvard Medical School, shared an example of what he called his “inner monologue” during high school:
“OK, it’s Monday, and there’s a test happening on Friday. And I’m going to fail the test. I’m going to fail out of school. And I’m going to die alone under a bridge, and no one’s going to come to my funeral.
“If I step back from the story,” he continued, “and just focus on the present moment – there’s a test on Friday; what can I do to study for the test? – and get rid of that whole horror story, then I’m not stressed out. I can just do the work.”
Instilling such sensibilities in children, Willard explained, works best with buy-in from their elders.

Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Christopher Willard speaks at Mt. Lebanon High School.
“The best way to create mindful kids is to surround them with mindful adults,” he said. “The best way to create stressed-out, miserable, unhappy, burned-out kids to surround them with stressed-out, miserable, unhappy, burned-out kids adults. It’s really that simple.”
Throughout his program, Willard led audience members in several mindfulness exercises and said one of his favorites involves the feet, drawing from a question a friend once asked:
“If your anxiety’s in your head, what’s the farthest away place from your head?” Willard said. “Just take a breath, and follow your attention down into your feet. Are your feet warm or cool? Are your shoes tight or loose? Is the ground hard or soft? Does your left foot feel a little different than your right foot? Pretty soon, after we’re just focusing on our feet for a moment, what are we not thinking about?”
As far as devoting time to such activities, he provided some ideas:
“We can find these little moments in the day. First thing in the morning, let’s listen to 10 sounds when you wake up, if your kids aren’t jumping on top of you. When you’re walking to school or walking to class, just feeling your feet on the ground.
“It’s all those moments when you pull out your phone and just start mindlessly checking out Facebook or whatever,” he said. “These are moments when you could be listening to sounds, focusing on your breath, noticing the colors in the room, feeling your feet on the ground. And they do start to add up.”
Willard emphasized that mindfulness does not involve pretending everything is fine, but working on ways to cope effectively with life’s difficulties.
“It really does make our brains more resilient, to be able to deal with whatever stresses come our kids’ way,” he explained. “We can’t protect them from everything, but we can start to give them the skills to learn how to be more resilient.”
For more information, visit drchristopherwillard.com.