food and drinks? Teens love candy, soda, and processed foods. Although their metabolism can probably handle it while they’re young, all of that excess sugar is causing damage to their brains and teeth. Diets full of processed foods and re-fined sugars can cause damage to the body and brain by decreasing the body’s regulation in insulin, worsening a teen’s mood, causing depression, and promot-ing inflammation and oxidative stress. Processed foods are okay in moderation, but they definitely shouldn’t be a part of one’s everyday diet. I suggest that my patients try out a clean diet (cutting out all processed foods and refined sugars and replacing them with whole foods like fresh fruits, vegetables, seeds/nuts, lean meats, fish, etc.) for 2-3 weeks and document how they feel along the way. They will usually notice a difference in their overall mood and energy levels. much more connected than you may think. Teenagers are notorious for pulling all-nighters for last-minute studying or caffeinated internet browsing. Sleep issues are even more common in patients with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and ADHD. Insomnia can be both a symptom and a cause of mental illness. When one is anxious about something or experiencing neg-ative emotions, it can be challenging to relax and fall asleep. Studies have shown that depressed patients who experience insomnia are less likely to respond to treatment than those who don’t have sleeping problems. In a longitudinal study of 1,014 teenag-ers, it was found that insomnia developed before major depression did. The sleep problems preceded anxiety disorders 27% of the time, while they preceded depression a whopping 69% of the time. To increase the chances of a good night’s sleep: • Cut out stimulants such as caffeine, alcohol and nicotine • Put your phone away once you get into bed • Meditate before falling asleep to promote calmness • Participate in a regular exercise schedule to release built-up energy www.Cndoctor.ca during the day • Make sure that you’re sleeping on a good mattress. I suggest purchasing a tempurpedic mattress topper for back support and comfort. Chiropractic care Sleep: Sleep and mental health are Every day, teens are stressing their neck and back alone by constantly looking down at their phones or computers: in line at the grocery store, on the couch, in the kitchen, doing homework, etc. This is not only ruining their posture, but even worse, aggravating the cervi-cal-thoracic junction, which is at the top of the sympathetic nervous system. When their heads are down, their fight-or-flight response stays activated, and they cannot relax. Chiropractic adjust-ments can reset the proper alignment in the spine and calm down the sym-pathetic nervous system. Another way to fix their posture is to make sure their homework station at home follows the proper ergonomic guidelines to stay efficient and safe. Chronic or acute pain is one of the leading causes of suffering mental health. The mind and the body are connected, so when your body isn’t feeling well, neither will your mind, and vice versa.If a teen is suffering from chronic (over 6 months) or acute (less than 6 months) pain, it’s almost impossible to focus on anything else besides that. How are they supposed to meditate or exercise if they’re in pain every day? longer have the patience to sit down and watch a movie, or even a 20-min-ute-long television show. Instead, they scroll through video apps and watch 15-to-30-second-long videos for hours on end. This results in bigger issues like not being able to focus in school and not being able to drive without check-ing their phones. Social media addiction can also cause insomnia. Most teenagers use their smartphones as alarm clocks, so they keep their phone under their pil-low. Having their phone within arms reach will only cause temptation to stay online until 3 a.m., resulting in sleep deprivation, irritability and cognitive decline the next day. Divorced and inattentive parents Social media Today’s teens are unique because they are a part of the social media genera-tion. They’ve grown up with smart-phones in their hands – with them at all times. One huge issue with social media is the unrealistic life and beauty stand-ards that can take a toll on teens, spe-cifically girls. Social media influencers like the Kardashians have normalized cosmetic surgery and photoshopping their bodies to set today’s impossible beauty standards. This has resulted in low self-esteem, eating disorders, de-pression, and anxiety in adolescents. Another alarming issue that has come from social media is the dimin-ishing attention spans of teenagers who consume unlimited content. Teens no Divorce rates are at an all-time high. Divorces can be messy and traumatiz-ing for everyone involved, but specifi-cally teens. Their family unit, which was supposed to be a secure foundation to fall back on in times of need, has now been disrupted. Because divorces are usually complicated and chaotic, parents are too distracted by their own drama to be attentive enough to truly see how their kids are processing their emotions and coping. I believe most teens suffering from the emotional damage of a divorce should go to therapy to hear from an unbiased professional what’s truly go-ing on and what they can do to better communicate their feelings with their parents. Without properly processing the trauma caused, teens might resort to unhealthy coping habits.This amount of trauma and the unhealthy habits that come with it can result in severe anxiety and depression. What our teens need from us now more than ever is empathy, clear com-munication, attention, and natural solutions before we suggest drugs. We need to remember that the world our teens are growing up in today is a com-pletely different one from what we knew. There are so many new factors that we don’t understand, and we need to try harder to figure out why our teens may be acting strange. Instead of scolding and grounding them, we need to dig deeper and offer mental health resources and natural treatments. October 2020 Chiropractic and Naturopathic Doctor 19
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor October 2020: Page 19
