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Mental Health expert Brian Costello brings some life hacks to help teenagers deal with anxiety

Have you ever wondered why your brain decides to overthink things and make your heart race, your face flush, your breathing go all over the place, and cause you to feel horrible inside your own skin?

Would it surprise you if I told you that it’s actually trying to make you feel better?

Anxiety has one job; to keep you safe. When it works well, anxiety is the emotion that warns you about anything that might hurt you, or cause you any type of harm.

Imagine that inside your brain there’s a little version of you constantly watching and scanning for anything that it thinks might hurt you in anyway. It scans for spiders, it scans for moments when you might be embarrassed, it scans for bullies, and failures, and judgement, it scans for everything. It’s like a danger radar, always on the lookout for a wee blip of anything that might make you feel bad.

And when it finds it, the only way it can tell you that this bad thing has been spotted, is to yell at you to run away from that thing and to get as far away from it as you can. If you don’t or can’t get away from the thing, you get hot, you sweat, you overthink, your heart rate goes crazy, you might go really red in the face, you feel tight and horrible and sometimes even a bit sick. This is, if you ask me, a design flaw. It would be much more helpful if we could be fitted with a small red light that would come on to gently warn us that we are approaching danger rather than all these horrible feelings but it is what it is and we need to deal with it.

So, if it’s not going to stop on it’s own, how do we take charge of our mind and body and switch it back off again? Here’s three amazing brain and body hacks that can help you feel much better anytime your danger radar finds something to worry about;

This one sounds cool but it looks ridiculous but I promise it really, really helps. This technique ‘switches on’ a part of your body called the Vagus Nerve (which runs from the neck to the abdomen) and will help you to get really calm, really quickly.

Here’s what to do; (after washing your hands) put your thumb in your mouth and close your lips around your thumb so that no air can get out. Now blow as hard as you can for as long as you can (your cheeks will puff out and your face will go red) and then, when you can’t hold it anymore, let that big breath out and breathe normally. Almost instantly you’ll feel calmer as your Vagus Nerves send calming messages to all the different parts of your body.

*Please check with your doctor if you have any underlying health conditions

This technique switches your brain into calm mode and causes your body to release all sorts of calming chemicals into your body (and it doesn’t make you look as silly as the last one).

Can you start noticing and paying attention to all the things you aren’t looking at right now? For example, without moving your eyes away from this screen, can you see the roof of the room you are in or the sky if you are outside? Can you see the floor, or your desk, or even your own legs? What can you see right at the very edges of everything you are looking at right now? Keep doing this for at least 30 seconds and notice your breathing getting calmer and your mind beginning to go quiet as your body floods with calming chemicals.

Every feeling has its own special way of breathing, even anxiety. Anxiety breathing is normally quite fast and right at the top of your lungs so when you breathe like that your brain knows to stay anxious. That means, if we change how we breathe we can change how we feel.

Square Breathing is called square because you’re going to do 4 things for the same length of time, like a breathing square. What you do is you breathe in while you slowly count to 4 (not too slowly or you will fall over!), then hold that breath in for another count of 4, then breathe out for 4, then hold that breath out for 4, then breathe in for 4, then hold for 4, then…you get the idea. Practise square breathing for 2 minutes and it will cause your body to switch back into a calmer and better way of feeling and help you feel better almost immediately.

Each of these techniques takes a little bit of practice and they are amazing ways to help yourself feel calmer in any anxious situation you might find yourself in. But remember, the best way to deal with any mental health issue is to talk to someone that can help you; a teacher, your parents, your doctor, a mental health professional or any trusted adult. Remember, if you ever feel anxious, your mind isn’t broken it’s actually trying to protect you from something it thinks is going to hurt you. It’s OK to ask for a bit of help to teach your mind that it’s not doing a very good job!