 All right. Hey Spartans. I am Sonya suck up and I'm going to be presenting some information to you all tonight on anxiety. I want to thank Miss Johnson and staff for reaching out and asking me to do this. I wish I could be there in person. If you all figure out a way to teleport or transport in a way easier way. Let me know. We can do more of these. But I'm very excited to be here tonight and let's go ahead and get started. Share this here. All right. So my credentials are licensed mental health practitioner and certified professional counselor. And what those basically mean is it just allows me to offer counseling and therapy to students faculty staff. Anybody that may need my service. And I am so very, very, very happy to be present in Boyd County supporting education and being able to work with kids and teachers. So this is a recent photo of me on a trip that I made to New York. And I think it's so funny because I did kind of a lot of touristy things and one of them was going to the Empire State Building. And the day that we picked it was rainy and snowy. And there was no view. There was absolutely no view on the lookout tower. And this is me just reminding everyone that even when you can't see the views life will go on it will be okay. It will be okay. All right. So let's dive in. We're going to talk about anxiety. So anxiety is essentially a mental and physical reaction to perceived threats. Those threats can be real or imagined. I think it's really important to know when we're talking about anxiety that it's a very real condition it's a very real thing that at some point in time I think everyone experiences and symptoms can range depending on what the person is experiencing. So but some symptoms can include uncontrollable worry, upset stomach, sleep problems, poor concentration, mental tension, avoidance of fear. Honestly, those symptoms can can be expanded. Avoidance oftentimes it presents itself as physical symptoms so upset stomach, headache, desire to want to go home, and avoidance of tasks, avoidance of things that may be anxiety provoking. So on the other side of the screen here I have this interesting upside down triangle looking thing. And a lot of my background is in trauma and understanding how trauma impacts the brain. And Dr. Bruce Perry, very, very formative man in terms of shaping my understanding of trauma in the brain. He developed this visual that I, I kind of use in all my presentations because I think it is so profound. And it is so important for us to understand how the brain is functioning to explain some of these symptoms that people experience. So I'm going to take a crack at explaining this to you all and I hope it makes sense. If not, shoot me an email and I'd be more than happy to expand on this. So we're going to start at the brainstem, the red part. This, this is the first thing to develop in the brain, and is the most essential for us to be alive, right. It performs all of those automatic functions that we don't have to think about so it reminds our heart to beat it reminds our lungs to breathe, regulates our body temperature, blood pressure, all of those really really critical parts to just simply staying alive. As we move up to the yellow area. This is called the mid brain, or sometimes the diencephalon. But this part of the brain is really helping us make sense of our environments, helping us kind of differentiate between what's happening on the outside world and the inside world. Other things that are really essential for that part of the brain are appetite and sleep we're going to talk about sleep in a moment, but very, very essential to meeting needs in that area of the brain as well. And then we move up to the green area in this area, you may have heard fight flight freeze, or the lizard brain, the limbic mid brain brainstem are often clumped together and referred to as the old brain or the lizard brain. Again, the functions of these parts of the brain is truly just survival, it is getting through. The brain part of the brain is where those essential elements that keep us safe reside. There's an important part called the amygdala. I always kind of refer to it as as the brave warrior in your brain, or the thing in your brain that's scanning for danger it's it's looking for perceived or real threat. And then if the brain responds to that, it will respond. So, what happens is let's say, let's say you're driving down the road, you're in Boyd County and you're driving down the road now the corner of your eye, you spotted ear. Okay, I know there's, they say you're not supposed to swerve, but it's, I always do I can't help it. Because the limbic part of my brain takes over. This is, whoa, danger, Sonia. I slam on the brakes, I try to avoid everything my heart is pounding outside of my chest, and my stomach drop drops to my toes. So, slowing that process down a little bit what is essentially happening is the limbic areas responding to true perceived threat, and immediately releases adrenaline to all of the functions in my body that is necessary for survival. It's sending adrenaline to my muscles to be strong. It's sending hyper focused my eyes to be able to truly see and and find a path towards safety. And it's, it's cutting out those functions that are not 100% necessary for survival in that moment moment. So it's slowing down or stopping digestion. Oh, and another thing it does is it speeds up your heart rate in order to increase your blood flow to your muscles get things working right. So if you can recall a time where you've experienced that you may be able to say, Wow, yeah, I definitely experienced some of those physical symptoms. And it takes a minute until my heart slows down and the tingling goes away from my muscles and my stomach doesn't hurt anymore. So that process is critical because it is for survival. But when we're talking about things in school, and how anxiety relates to school, the adults in the room can understand that school is truly a safe place for kids to be. It's an important place for kids to be. And if their limbic areas responding, such as we're seeing a deer out of the corner rides when we're driving. It's really important that that we're supporting students in being able to calm those perceived threats and help them perform at appropriate states of arousal right. So that's the limbic area. The finally the last area that makes us most uniquely human. It is truly the only area of the brain that we have control over is the cortical area. I always when I'm taught I teach this to kids a lot and I always kind of refer to this as the super smart part of the brain. So here we use logic and reason and abstract thoughts and it allows us to formulate opinions and the blue part of the brain is very essential to be online when kids are in school learning. Here's the tricky part though. The brain works from the bottom up. If there's something very, very active or escalated in the brain stone. The brain is going to go right down to survival mode. If there's something not making sense or a little wonky in the mid brain. Everything's going down to the mid brain. If we're having a perceived sense of threat. Everything's going to go down to the limbic mid brain brain stem. Everything restricts access to the cortical part of the brain. If you have, if you can think about a time with your children where they they've done something and you're like what were you thinking and they're like I don't know. I mean the truth is if it was an intense situation they probably weren't thinking because they were really restricted in their cortical region. So that's the ability to use to use logical thought rational thought. Those higher brain elements so that is kind of brain function and nutshell and how anxiety and its function can really get in the way of learning and can also get in the way of daily operational things that that we need in order to be really well functioning people. So we can't talk about anxiety if we don't just touch on test anxiety okay. Test anxiety is a very real thing. People may experience this in different levels and capacities and may have different symptoms associated. But when you take a step back and you think about it. Test anxiety has a lot of elements. So first of all if there is underlying anxiety to begin with this is a perceived threat. Correct. It's it's an intense situation. There are some expectations. But if there isn't perceived threat prior to that and it's just simply the idea of taking a test. You can understand that there's some pressure to perform well. Not wanting to fail the test not wanting to do poorly wanting to do well wanting to demonstrate master mastery of the skills. Some uncertainty. So we are we are creatures of habit. So a little tip that we'll talk about also is predictability knowing what to expect helps us calm down and not every test is the same. In fact every test we take has different content different covering different measures and the uncertainty of that can also cause some anxiety. There are other things that can go along with with test anxiety but I think we can all understand some of the reasons of why it happens in the first place. Some of the physical symptoms that people can can report is feeling really sweaty really hot mind going blank. I'm sure heart pounding outside of their chest again makes sense based on our previous conversation of what happens in the brain when we're we're experiencing a perceived threat. So I want to take a moment to explain to you this triangle here. This is oftentimes referred to as a cognitive triangle. And I'm not trying to steal this this comes from therapist aid from a from a graphic or a handout that I use quite often there. I want to talk you through this because it's it's very simple to explain to kids, and you can do really simple coaching with them. If they're experiencing anxiety or testing anxiety to help them feel a bit more calm. So I'm going to explain this quickly. So our brain works in a nutshell of having thoughts feelings and we do things right. And I simply define each of these so thoughts are things we think thoughts are not always facts. That can get us into trouble sometimes if we're thinking something and it feels like a fact but in fact it's not a fact. So thoughts are simply just things that we think feelings are the emotions that we have or the emotions that we experience and actions are the things that we do. Each one of these can impact the other. So I always use this this example with kids so it right away in the morning my alarm clock goes off and my initial action is to press the snooze button, so I am not ready to get up. And as I'm pressing the snooze button I'm thinking, Oh, I'm so tired and then I'm checking with my feeling and I'm feeling tired. And then I close my eyes and go back to sleep for like two minutes and then my alarm clock goes off again, and I can't press the snooze button, I have to get up so my action is so thinking again. You have to get up. My action is get out of bed, feeling still tired, and I go back to actions I start my morning routine. Predictability right and routine, and then I'm thinking, Okay, all right, all right, we're getting busy we're getting getting awake, getting oriented to what the temperature is and starting to think about what I'm wanting to be comfortable those types of things. And then by like midway through my morning routine I am starting to think about coffee. I am a coffee junkie so that inspires an action, go to the coffee pot turn it on feeling good. So, with that example you can kind of see how it flows back and forth and how they can, they can interact with one another. And what happens with anxiety is, I think, our feelings and our thoughts get really stuck, and can result in either overaction or underaction. So, for example, if we're thinking on a test I am going to do poorly, or I am not ready for this test, or I am going to fail this test. Just thoughts, not facts. And then that may lead to feelings of anxiety or fear, or feeling very uncertain. What I encourage you to do or to talk to kids about is to challenge those thoughts, thoughts are so powerful. Thoughts can literally change the way that we feel. So, for instance, if you're noticing that a student is feeling nervous, you might say something to them like, I see that you're feeling a bit nervous, I can see that you're a bit nervous. I need you to remember that you have studied hard for this, you have prepared for this, and you will do the best that you can, I know that. Right, you're offering them reassurance. You are challenging that thought in a moment, because where they were originally thinking I'm going to do poorly on this, you're giving them every reason why they will do okay. Right. And going back to only tell them what's true, don't tell them they're going to get a 100 if you know that they're not going to get a 100 right. So, challenging some of those anxious thoughts and encouraging kids to be open about their feelings. They can be nervous or anxious or worried are oftentimes really hard feelings to share, and they can be very isolating feelings. So really encouraging kids to be honest about how they're feeling and take time to role model that. I think one of the coolest things to witness is when kids have those aha moments where they see adults doing something, which gives the students and permission to do that as well. So that's a really supportive skill. I think that's just really really really powerful. And as parents you guys can role model that all the time, whether it's anxious or all the feelings, essentially, you get to role model appropriate ways of handling those feelings and being honest that everybody has these feelings, and it's okay, it's okay to share them, and, and you can get supported in these feelings. It's a good triangle and a nutshell and again it's it's challenging some of those really negative thoughts that lead to anxious feelings or uncomfortable feelings and reminding them to challenge those thoughts to be what is accurate and true and reflect the facts. So I want to talk for a moment about some buffers to anxiety. These can be generalized to anxiety test anxiety any type of anxiety you're experiencing. The first one is regulatory opportunity and what I mean by that is essentially anything that is patterned predictable routines. So, examples might be chewing gum listening to music walking running. What's really behind this is that when babies are in utero growing and developing their senses are still developing but the ways that they can understand and know that they're safe is by their mother's heartbeat. It's felt and heard. And so then when babies are born, what do we naturally do to suit them. We might rock them we might pat their back, we might feed them, all of those things are predictable, repetitive and routine. So, think outside of the box, I mean we all do things right. I bet right now the I could, if I were there scan the room and somebody's tapping their knee, somebody's chewing gum. Somebody's maybe got a pen and they're twirling it. We've all kind of got things that we do. I would share this one. I cannot have pens with plastic caps as evidenced by the little thing that's broken off of this one. So, this is just something that I have gravitated towards naturally didn't really don't realize I'm doing it. But when I have pen caps with the steel little clip thing. I don't know why I do this. I mean I know why I do this but it's just it's regulating for me it makes me feel calm and it's patterned routine rhythmic, it works. So creating a lot of opportunities for kids to experience and engage in those things. So that's just a fancy way of saying challenging those negative thoughts, and asking kids what they're thinking asking them what their, what their thoughts are that are making them feel worried or anxious. And then supporting them through that process of the so that's what your thought is, but what are the facts here and what do we know for certain. And then really really helping them come up with some positive thoughts for what the truth is. Save connection with people that we love. I read a really great book this summer I would encourage you all to pick it up audio audio book at whatever you can. It's called what happened to you is a Bruce Perry and Oprah book. Bruce just talks, basically throughout the whole book about how how loving connection is truly medicine. Spending time with people that we love and care about in a safe way is the best way to help us regulate as human beings and when I say regulate I mean, come back to this state of calm come back to this state of being okay. I mean, our brains and our bodies naturally want to be. And so if I'm saying that word that's what I mean. I'm routine, again, having some predictable elements to their their daily life routine is all about knowing what to expect that is calming. I 100% need that I if I don't have a planner and if or if I don't have a sheet in front of me telling me what my day looks like even though I might have the exact same Thursday that I've had for months now. Good little anxious like I just need to see it to know what's going to what's going to come next, and it's a very calming thing. Offering reassurance offering reassurance whenever possible, and offering realistic reassurance if you don't know that it's going to be okay. Do not say that go off of factual things that you know to be true that can be reassuring statements like we will get through this together. I use that one a lot with kids, especially when they're having really big feelings because it is true, I will be with them until that feeling passes and until they are okay. I will get through this together. I am here to root for you. I love you so much, I will be thinking of you. I know that you will do the absolute best that you can do those types of reassuring thoughts can really do wonders for for calming some of those anxious thoughts. This next one man will I catch a lot of flak for this. I'm truly truly setting some limits on technology, especially on social media and video games. I know there's just not a super ton of research out there on lots of technology time. But professionally my position is less is better, just because our brains and our bodies were not built for the constant inflow of stimulation that technology offers, and especially for young kids. It's a lot. It's a lot and in it in itself, just recently Facebook got in trouble because they somewhat acknowledged that I think was Instagram is damaging for teens mental health, and I 100% see that in my daily interactions with students so I'm not saying that they that students can't spend time on those things but really truly just setting some appropriate limits for the age of your child. Next one is mindfulness. I love it when I ask kids if they know what this is and their response is always the home, which yeah that that's mindfulness but mindfulness is just so much more than that mindfulness can can just simply be being able to notice what's what's going on inside and outside of your body. Just being having this, this level of awareness, where you are increasing your awareness, right. So mindfulness might be recognizing when your heartbeat starts to increase and taking some deep breaths, or noticing when you are feeling anxious and telling a trusted and caring grown up guys tons and tons of stuff on mindfulness on the old internet internet. If you're looking for something specific please reach out to me and I would love to guide you and getting getting those resources but really good stuff out there. And focusing on balance. You know, I don't know why I might know why but I don't know why a lot of people will always ask my opinion about, you know, the best way to raise kids. And I think it all comes back to balance right. I don't think it's super helpful to have kids involved in every single activity. But I also think that being involved in those activities some of those activities is very beneficial for kids. So really truly finding balance and, and what is necessary appropriate for your child. You are experts of your kids and, although I could tell you one thing about your child. You are the experts. So, so know that and advocate for that. And, you know, just, just find balance and ways that make sense to you, your family and your children. And then finally, this may be the most important one. And that is just getting those basic needs in food, water and sleep. Safe shelter to sleep is the most underestimated tool. In terms of combating any type of emotional or behavioral issue with with a child. Sleep is just such an essential piece of our well being. So, I'll use an example of when we go to sleep. It is like the street sweepers coming through, and it's getting rid of junk that we don't need. And it's filing away or putting in the filing cabinets things that are really important. And when the sweet, when the street sweepers don't come through, then things start to pile up, and it gets really messy, and it doesn't flow it's good. And all of a sudden your streets are packed full of stuff and nobody can get through and then people are getting angry and it's just not a good scene. There are a lot of adults too guys. When we are getting inadequate sleep, our temperaments directly impact how our kids will think and feel and behave. So sleep is so essential. If you have any questions regarding sleep, the American sleep foundation their website has a ton of really great information and resources I would encourage you to check that out. And you can always talk to your pediatrician, they're really great guides of if you have sleep questions or your child is having sleep issues or anything like that. Water, man, it is so important in order for our brains to be at peak performance we need, we need a certain amount of water right. So, making sure that we're getting hydrated, it's just really important. Making sure that we're getting fresh food, making sure that we're getting a good balanced diet we're getting some fruits and veggies and some treats, right it's all about balance, all about balance. There are many many other anxiety buffers out there. But these I think are just some of the most important ones that can be easily navigated with you and your in your children. So, I want to end with some resources. I was going to flood this resources like Sonia you're silly like they are not going to write all down. So if I had top three top three resources for you. One would be a book called Hey Warrior by Karen young I purchased this book, and it does such a great job of explaining anxiety to kids and helping them develop ideas of how to calm that limbic area of the brain to be able to work in a hierarchical region much better. Another sites that I strongly recommends for anything child related really is child mind.org. It's kind of my encyclopedia whenever I have questions or need some guidance on something I'm always looking something up on child minds. They have a really great section on technology as well so if you're looking for what would be appropriate limits for my student, they have all that information on there so be really good. The link is probably my favorite video for teaching kids how to take a deep breath. Deep reading is the number one hated coping skill that I teach the kids, but the reason why I continue to teach it is because it is so helpful when it can be done. And let me explain the science behind it. A really great deep breath is you're going to exhale, breathe out longer than you inhale. And the reason behind that is we have these kind of systems built into our body. So the sympathetic system is that green area fight flight you're slamming on the brakes when the deer is out of the corner your eye. We have the parasympathetic, which is the system in our body that helps put everything back in place it's helping us calm down. It's reminding our hearts it's okay we're safe or good. It sends cues to our stomach. It's okay you can you can digest food again because we're safe or good. So a deep breath is the number one thing that I think if I can teach everyone to do that as a society we would be much calmer. But this YouTube is a puffer fish and the puffer fish is taking equal equal counts breaths in and breath out which is which is fine. But I think it's just a really great visual to help people start getting in the practice of what a deep breath feels like what a good deep breath feels like it's super fun to watch kids are pretty entertained by this. So with that. If you guys have any questions, maybe offer those to Cindy and she can get them to me or city feel free to offer my email to folks I want to make sure that I'm answering any questions that that exist out there. I am in Boyd County every Thursday. And I'm pretty busy. So if you stop by, I can't guarantee that I'll get to chat with you. But anyway, again I want to thank Cindy and stuff for inviting me to come and do this and I hope this presentation was helpful and useful and in a good resource for you so thank you everyone and have a good rest of your evening. Bye.