• Children & Anxiety project
• What is the ‘Stressed Out’ project?
• What is anxiety?
• Types of Anxiety
• Getting help and support
• Personal Experiences
• Young people and anxiety: research
• Resources

Children & Anxiety project

The 'Children and Young People with Anxiety' project began in late 2007. Anxiety UK received a number of calls from concerned parents with regard to how best they could support their children, and protect them from passing on their anxiety issues. We also had a number of calls from young people, who were unsure of how to get help, support or therapy. It seemed that their was a gap in services aimed at young people with anxiety with many being unable to access CAMHS or specialist services. We are lucky enough to have Dr Samantha Cartwright-Hatton, a leading expert in child anxiety, as one of our patrons and she acted as a consultant in the initial stages of the project.

From this initial meeting the project developed. It began with 2 workshops, based in London and Manchester and was aimed at anxious parents. Following on from this a series of 5 workshops across the UK were held. The workshops were aimed at Therapists and Professionals working with children and young people in a variety of settings, the workshop was based around the MacQuarie University 'Cool Kids' workbooks - an evidence based CBT program, and were hosted by Professor Ron Rapee from MacQuarie University, Sydney.We had fantastic feedback about the content and quality of these workshops. The final stage of the project was to produce a booklet for parents and young people, along with a DVD aimed at schools. These are now available to download or purchase from our children and young people pages at http://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/resources_schools.php . We would like to thank the Lewis Family Charitable Trust for all of their help and support on this project, without them the project would never have been undertaken.

What is the ‘Stressed Out’ project?

The Stressed Out project is designed to support young people who are experiencing anxiety and stress. It is a part of ANXIETY UK (ANXIETY UK), a registered charity which was established to help and support people with anxiety, anxiety disorders and related conditions. There are a number of services that are specifically designed for young people which you can access by becoming a member of ANXIETY UK. If you do not wish to become a member, you can still access information and support through our email support service and national helpline.

It can often be difficult to discuss how you feel with other people, especially if you think that no one else feels the same, or that they won't understand. You may feel that you don't fully understand what is happening to you, which can make it very hard to explain to others exactly what you are going through. Often, experiencing anxiety can leave you feeling tired, upset and frustrated. This can make you feel that you are unable to cope or that there is nothing that you can do to improve the situation.

Anxiety can affect us all in very different ways. Experiences of anxiety can vary greatly from person to person and no two people are the same. If you feel that any of the experiences or symptoms described on these pages apply to you, then we may be able to help.

What is anxiety?

First of all, anxiety is completely normal! It is something that we all experience to some level. Anxiety is useful to us as it tells us that something is dangerous and that we need to be careful. However, if anxiety gets out of control or stops you from doing everyday things, then this can lead to us feeling unhappy, upset and frustrated.

Here are some examples of how you might feel if you are anxious:

• Worried
• Upset
• Feeling sick
• Feeling shaky / dizzy
• Feeling like you might faint / pass out
• Thinking unpleasant thoughts
• Thinking that you might ‘go crazy’

When anxiety gets really strong, you might experience what we call a ‘panic attack’. This is when your body is getting ready to fight, freeze or to run away from the situation that we are viewing as dangerous. This is known as the fight, flight or freeze response. Again, it can be quite scary to experience, although we know that it will not hurt you.

One of the ways to reduce the anxiety that you are feeling is to understand it better. By understanding how anxiety works, you can then understand why you feel that way (so that it is not so scary!). The picture below can help to explain what happens when we get anxious.

The ‘fear of the fear’ often makes us feel worse as we are literally on edge waiting for bad feelings to happen; we stop doing things that we link with the negative (bad) feelings or thoughts. This is called avoidance. The more that we avoid the thing that we link with feeling bad, the more we think of it as being dangerous.

This means that the next time we have to face the situation or event, our body tells us that it is dangerous and the fight, flight or freeze response kicks in. We feel that we either need to run away from the ‘dangerous’ thing, fight it or we feel that our body is frozen to the spot.

Either way, our body is not happy when we feel all of these horrible feelings and think horrible things. By understanding why we feel this way, we can then take away the ‘scared’ feeling because we know that it is just our body reacting to something that it thinks is scary, even though it is actually harmless. No-one ever died from having anxiety!

Statistics on anxiety

1. 13.3% of 16 - 19 year olds and 15.8% of 20 - 24 year olds have suffered from a neurotic episode
2. 1.7% of 16 - 19 year olds and 2.2% of 20 -24 year olds have suffered from a depressive episode
3. 0.9% of 16 - 19 year olds and 1.9% of 20 - 24 year olds have suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder.

Singleton, N. Bumpstead, R., O'Brien M. Et al (2001) Psychiatric morbidity among adults living in private households, cited in Pugh, K. McHugh, A. McKinstrie (2007) Stressed out and struggling: Two steps forward, one step back?

Types of Anxiety

There are lots and lots of different types of anxiety; you may find that you experience any one of the following conditions, or all of them together! Nobody's experience of anxiety is the same as the next person's. Don't worry if you think that what you are feeling isn't exactly the same as what is described, there are many more types of anxiety and you can be certain that other people are feeling the same way.

Here are a few different types of anxiety that you may feel:

Exam Stress/Anxiety Everyone feels stressed during exams. This usually means that you feel tired, under pressure, confused, worried that you won't do well... more	School Phobia Many people experience a complete sense of dread when it comes to going to school.... more
Separation Anxiety Separation anxiety is a term used to explain a feeling of anxiety or stress when you are away from your parents/family/guardians... more	Selective Mutism (SM) This is when you cannot speak in certain places such as school or when you have to meet people that you don't know... more
Specific Phobias One of the most common ways that young people experience anxiety is through a specific phobia... more	Social Phobia People who are affected by social phobia may worry about entering into social situations and what people may think of them.... more
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) This is the feeling of being anxious about almost everything and anything... more

Getting help and support

The good news is that anxiety is treatable! This means that there are things that can be done to reduce feelings of anxiety. The first step is to speak to someone that you trust about how you are feeling. This could be a teacher, a parent, a relative or another adult that you trust. Talking to someone will reduce the pressure of anxiety and stress, it may also help you to realise that you are not alone in how you are feeling.

Talking to others

Often, because the anxious feelings and thoughts are so bad, we don't want to tell anyone how we feel as we believe that they might not understand or they might laugh at us. However, this is the best way to get help to change how you feel. By looking at this page, you are already aware that you are not happy with how things are. Talking to someone about how you feel can help.

• Choose someone that you trust for example, a parent/ family member/ teacher etc.
• Tell them how you have been feeling and try to give them an example so that they understand clearly.
• If you are finding it hard to talk about this, try writing them a letter or showing them this page.
• Remember: It is ok to be upset and it is ok to ask for help

Once you have spoken to someone, they will be able to get help for you.

You can also call ANXIETY UK Helpline number: 08444 775 774 to talk to someone in complete confidence.

Email support

Many people want support to help them decide what information they need to manage their anxiety. If you are affected by an anxiety condition and want to email us for information or to point you in the best direction to get some help, please use the following form. The service is free and we will not tell anyone about the information that you put into the email. This service is not a counselling service but we can point you in the direction of further help and support. Don't be worried about anything that you write in the email - all of the volunteers who answer the emails are trained to deal with anxiety and also have personal experience themselves so they understand what you are feeling. You can email us on support@anxietyuk.org.uk or directly through the website.

Write us a letter

You can write in to ANXIETY UK to find out what help and support may be available to you. If you would like to contact us by post, you would need to write in to the address below:

ANXIETY UK
Zion Community Resource Center
339 Stretford Road
Hulme
Manchester
M15 4ZY

Professionals

Sometimes, although we are trying to reduce our anxiety by undertaking certain activities on our own initiative, this might not be enough to help us cope with the anxiety and we may need to gain the help of a professional. A professional is someone who can discuss how you are feeling and help you to put things into place to make it better. All of the professionals you may encounter have to make sure that they keep all of the information that you tell them private so don't worry about anyone finding out.

The following professionals are ones which you may come into contact with:

Counsellors

A counsellor is someone who you are able to talk to about how you are feeling with your anxiety. They will provide you with a safe place to talk about your experiences. Most counsellors will help you to look at where these feelings have come from and why you may be feeling that way. Going to see a counsellor does not mean that you are ‘mad’ or that you will ‘go crazy’! Lots of people see counsellors to help them with all sorts of problems. Friends finding out that you are seeing a counsellor is often a very big worry for many young people. What will they say? Will they think that I am weird? Will they tease me? Will they understand?

The best thing about seeing a counsellor is that it is completely confidential. This means that the counsellor is not allowed to talk about what you say to them to anyone. Therefore, the only person who can tell the people at school that you are seeing a counsellor is you.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapists (CBT)

This sounds like a very complicated therapy but actually it is very simple! ‘Cognitive’ just means our thoughts and the things that we are thinking, whereas ‘Behaviour’ means exactly what it says on the tin, it is the acts that we carry out and the things that we do. This type of therapist will look at how you are feeling in the ‘here and now’ and how the problem can be managed more effectively. They will look at getting you to practice certain behaviours and thoughts to try to improve what you are feeling. Often the things that you are asked to practice are the opposite to what the anxiety wants you to do. This makes it a bit harder but it is like riding a bike- the more that you practice, the less you fall off!!

Clinical Hypnotherapists

Hypnotherapy is not about getting you up on a stage where you will be made to do all sorts of silly things in front of an audience! It is completely different to stage hypnotism and clinical hypnotherapists will aim to make you feel relaxed and safe whist they use visualisation techniques (e.g. asking you to picture events going well and places that you feel safe) to improve your anxiety.

Remember: Anxiety is treatable and it doesn't have to keep making you feel unhappy. Things can change and you can control your stress and anxiety.

Personal Experiences

Do you suffer from anxiety and want to share your experience with other young people? Send us your experience and we will put selected ones here.

Young people and anxiety: research

Student social anxiety: an exploratory web survey. Click here to download the study.

Credits

ANXIETY UK would like to thank Christina Elena Romero Vacas for creating the artwork for the Stressed Out project.