Why exercise?

Good exercise, meaning a kind that suits YOU, can help reduce your stress and lift your mood. Exercise that you actually LIKE to do, and not one you feel you HAVE to do, is chemically as good for your nervous system as an antidepressant that doesn't cause you side effects. It is somewhat cheaper too ;-) But of course it is hard to get off the couch to go exercise when you do feel down and depressed and don't feel there's any point in doing much else. But knowing that you can help low mood pass might be useful.

Here's an encouraging  booklet that has some good information about exercise. 

Meltdowns

It helps if we look at children as people doing their best to be happy. And when things go off the rails, and they get frustrated, they might throw a tantrum, have a melt down, become dysregulated, come unglued, or in other words, feel overwhelmed and lose control.

It helps if in times like this, we help our children regain their 'senses', by connecting them to their senses. Children, and we all for that matter, have more than the five senses they talk about in schools. Watch this video to get to know two other very important senses that we have, that we need to feed, in order to stay grounded and calm.

And watch this one to learn a simple technique to help your child regain his sense of control in his body, first by practicing it after meltdowns, and then by just doing it at times throughout the day so your child can stay in his body and build resilience to stress.

Dealing with Teen Anxiety

Here's a resource for teens/adolescents who experience anxiety (fears, avoidance, nervous behaviour, obsessions, etc). At the bottom of the page you will see a link to pageful of resources and another to an audio file. Try them and let me know what you think:  mindfulness practices for youth