Mind-body therapies can help teens with anxiety

Turns out, biofeedback, mindfulness, yoga, and hypnosis provide a promising approach to the very common problem of anxiety in adolescents.

Researchers at Wolters Kluwer Health stated that the currently recommended treatments for adolescent anxiety i.e. cognitive behavioral therapy and antidepressant medications have important limitations.

Anxiety and fear are typical reactions to the academic, social, and developmental challenges that are common during the adolescent years. Clinical or pathological anxiety is excessive, persistent, and disruptive. While anxiety is often situational and time-limited, many teens develop chronic anxiety lasting six months or longer.

Mind-body therapies encompass self-regulation and positive thinking to help promote self-control, physical health, and emotional well-being.

Biofeedback techniques enable individuals to increase self-awareness and physical control through feedback on biological measures whereas mindfulness techniques incorporate aspects of meditation, body scanning.

These therapies can also help to meet the "dire need" for affordable and accessible mental health strategies in pediatric primary care. But they note some persistent barriers to integrating mind-body medicine in primary care, including constraints on time, finances, and administrative support.

The findings appeared in the Journal of The Nurse Practitioner.

--ANI