{"id":525952,"date":"2022-07-06T12:58:03","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T16:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=525952"},"modified":"2022-08-29T14:10:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T18:10:03","slug":"synergistic-mindsets-growth-adolescent-stress-management-525952","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/synergistic-mindsets-growth-adolescent-stress-management-525952\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping teens channel stress, grow in resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psychologists develop a tool to help teens turn everyday stressors that could lead to anxiety and depression into a positive force instead.<\/h2>\n

\u201cAdolescents today are more stressed than ever, exhibiting record levels of stress-related internalizing symptoms, such as anxiety and depression,\u201d says Jeremy Jamieson<\/a>, an associate professor of psychology<\/a> at the University of Rochester<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are solid reasons for teens to worry. A global pandemic. War in Europe. Mass shootings, economic insecurity, and staggering college costs in the United States.<\/p>\n

And then there are the ordinary, day-to-day stresses that teens have faced for generations, such as how they\u2019re perceived by their peers, coaches, teachers, and potential romantic partners, and increasingly, how they\u2019re faring in a competitive and demanding academic landscape.<\/p>\n

Jamieson, who heads up Rochester\u2019s Social Stress Lab<\/a>, specializes in the study of these ordinary stressors, which he says have grown substantially with greater academic pressures, and even more so, with the rise of social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor adolescents, social hierarchy, social comparisons, and peer evaluations have always been important, but now it\u2019s there all the time,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople are receiving a daily stream of likes, dislikes, and comments via social media, which makes for a constant state of social evaluation. It\u2019s one of the most damaging things we\u2019ve seen for adolescents.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there are good reasons to limit one\u2019s use of social media, peer evaluation is a fact of life, as are challenges in school and at work. And they all can bring on stress.<\/p>\n

Conventional thinking often equates stress with something \u201cbad,\u201d but as Jamieson says, \u201cstress is a normal and even defining feature of adolescence\u201d that allows teens to acquire a wide variety of complicated social and intellectual skills as they transition to adulthood and eventually join the labor market.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor those of us who study stress processes and psychophysiology, stress is just any demand for change\u2014it\u2019s neither good nor bad,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Yet, how we respond to stressful situations can lead us either to depression, or toward resilience.<\/p>\n

30-minute module promotes two new, interrelated mindsets<\/strong><\/h3>\n

That basic concept\u2014that how we respond to stress can weigh us down or help lift us up\u2014informs a training module developed and tested successfully by Jamieson and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin<\/a>, Stanford University<\/a>, and the Google Empathy Lab<\/a>. (The researchers caution that the tool is not suitable for those whose stressors are the result of trauma or abuse.)<\/p>\n

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Takeaways for teens about stress responses<\/h2>\n