Make Anxiety Manageable

What is Anxiety?

3 Components to an Anxious State

1. Perception that a threat exists

2. Hope that danger can be averted

3. Inability to control the threat

What Causes Anxiety?

Whether modelling or genetics program us for anxiety, children with anxious parents tend to be more anxious. Those who live in dangerous environments or feel unsafe maintain a more honed defensive system.

While mental health professionals cannot easily identify the causes of anxiety, they can trace them to biological and environmental factors, traumatic events, physical illnesses or imbalances, or learned behaviors.

Biological contributors to anxiety include genetic predisposition, brain chemistry (endocrine system imbalances), or physical illness (Reilly, 2015).

Students learn anxiety from people around them and from being in stressful situations. Environmental factors that contribute to anxiety include trauma, abuse (sexual, physical, verbal, or emotional), death or loss, relationship problems, or environmental change.

In 1984, researchers Michael Cook, Susan Mineka, Bonnie Wolkenstein, and Karen Laitsch (1985) found they could teach rhesus monkeys with no prior exposure to snakes to fear them by having them observe monkeys who demonstrated fear of snakes. Similarly, students can develop learned anxiety from parents, siblings, or peers. If a parent demonstrates a fear of the ocean, for example, her child has an increased likelihood of developing a fear of water.

How Often Does Anxiety Occur?

During the course of our lives, approximately 30% of us will experience clinical anxiety at some point (Craske & Stein, 2016). One fifth of you reading this have clinical anxiety at this time, and if you're female, you're almost twice as likely as a male to have it. According to Jonathan Dalton, Ph.D (lecturer and psychologist for the Lab School of Washington), half of those with anxiety will develop it prior to age 11, and one tenth of all children will have an anxiety disorder prior to age 18. 20-40% of students with learning differences will also have anxiety. Further, only 18% of those with anxiety get treatment, compared to 79% of those with ADHD (Dalton, 2015).

Types of Anxiety:

• Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

• Separation anxiety disorder (SAD)

• Specific phobias

• Social anxiety disorder (or social phobia)

• Selective mutism

• Panic disorder

• Agoraphobia

Prevalence of Anxiety

Gender is one of the greatest biological risk factors for anxiety; when compared to boys, girls are more than twice as likely to suffer from anxiety (McLean, Asnaani, Litz, & Hofmann, 2011). In addition, children who have one parent with anxiety or another mental health disorder are twice as likely to have anxiety when compared to their peers; children who have two parents with anxiety are five times more likely to experience anxiety (Rapee, Schniering, & Hudson, 2009).

How BES Teachers Support Students with Anxiety

Tier 1: Universal Prevention

At this level, classroom environment and rules can help students develop strategies for dealing with stressors inherent to learning. Teachers will be most involved at this level and will adjust the environment and classroom policies to support most students' needs. Examples of preventions strategies at this level might be reading stories about dealing with anxiety; conducting mindfulness exercises, such as guided relaxation or guided imagery; exposing students to graduated stressors; incorporating outdoor physical breaks; or involving a growth mindset classroom environment, where learning practices are emphasized over learning products.

Tier 2: Selected Intervention

Students at Tier 2 have not yet shown symptoms, but their circumstances put them at elevated risk for a disorder. This might be a student who has lost a parent, been in an accident, or suffered a trauma. Tier 2 interventions could also be invoked to prepare students for state testing or a change in environment (such as transition to middle school). Often school counselors handle selected intervention strategies.

Tier 3: Indicated Intervention

Students at Tier 3 show initial anxiety symptoms. These students might show signs of escalating or non-age-appropriate separation anxiety; social withdrawal; physical symptoms, such as headaches or stomachaches; school refusal; or phobias. These students should be referred to our school's clinical team, but they will also benefit from the measures that we've put in place for Tier 1 and Tier 2 students.

ABCs of Anxiety

• Affect: recommend a physical examination to rule out physical causes and to identify anxiety as the cause.

• Behavior: gently encourage participation, sometimes by offering accommodations.

• Cognition: confront the fear as a remote but valid concern. When addressing anxiety cognitively, it is important to be authentic and rational. Downplaying a student's fear can impact his trust, which would eliminate the teacher as a potential resource for the student.

• Dependence: cultivate a growth mindset in the classroom environment- encouraging all students to take academic risks and embrace potential failure- to support students' growing independence. When a teacher recognizes this behavior, a good first step is scheduling a conference with the student's parent(s) and include the school counselor.

• Excess and Extremes: Help the student recognize a range of options. To help a student gain perspective, a teacher might ask the student to consider in-between options. Teachers can also help students recognize that another student's success doesn't diminish their own success or potential.

• Function: Provide an orderly, predictable, and safe environment. Best practices include the use of wait time as students articulate their ideas. Common accommodations include providing extended time for testing and assignments.

Anxiety and the Brain

Anxiety is an offshoot of the fight-flight-freeze response, which is the way the body prepares for a perceived danger. The response begins in the brain. The amygdala is the part of the brain where sensory images (sound, sight, smell, touch, taste) are connected to fear. If the amygdala perceives danger, it messages the hypothalamus, which triggers the autonomic nervous system to spur the body into action to compat, run from, or play dead in the face of the threat.

When Stress Overstimulates Cortisol Production

All of these reactions occur because cortisol is produced in the adrenal cortex in response to stress. Normally, cortisol is released in the morning, giving us the energy to wake from sleep and go about our daily routines. Cortisol works by suppressing the immune, digestive, and reproductive systems, as well as bone and muscle formation, to channel glucose (energy) into our blood. This supplies the energy we need to hunt, gather, learn, work, and go about our daily lives. Gradually, over the course of the day, its production diminishes, allowing the body to rest and regenerate. Stress triggers cortisol production because the brain is signaling to the body that it has work to do.

While these instantaneous responses to danger were useful for survival, we weren't meant to maintain that state in the long term. We need to digest food, get oxygen to all parts of our body, use our peripheral vision for hunting and gathering, and use our brains for more than escaping danger. When stress overstimulates our cortisol production, sleep is dysregulated and blood pressure is elevated; we crave food but are unable to digest it properly. The body tries to store excess glucose in the liver and muscles, but eventually this imbalance twill affect health and energy levels.

While cortisol actually increases memory function, it suppresses memory retrieval. Further, researchers have found that our ability to self-regulate our stress response is a good predictor of memory retrieval (Munoz, 2013).

==> If we can teach children ways to self-regulate their anxiety, we can support their ability to perform academically. <==

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