{"id":4807,"date":"2019-08-15T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=4807"},"modified":"2019-08-12T10:22:32","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T15:22:32","slug":"teens-who-recognize-their-emotions-manage-stress-better-we-can-help-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/teens-who-recognize-their-emotions-manage-stress-better-we-can-help-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"Teens Who Recognize Their Emotions Manage Stress Better. We Can Help (Maybe)."},"content":{"rendered":"

Why ar\"\"<\/a>e teens so adolescent?<\/p>\n

Why are they so infuriatingly wonderful? So wonderfully infuriating?<\/p>\n

Researchers have offered an intriguing suggestion:<\/p>\n

Children<\/strong> can tell you what they’re feeling with confidence. They believe they can experience only one emotion at a time<\/em>, and so they label it with certainty.<\/p>\n

Adults<\/strong> can also tell you what they’re feeling with confidence. They know they can experience many emotions at once<\/em>, and they have lots of experience figuring out the combination that they feel right now.<\/p>\n

Adolescents<\/strong> — sometimes — don’t really know what they’re feeling. Like adults, they know they can experience many emotions. But unlike adults, they don’t yet have much experience describing combinations<\/em>. And so, unlike children, they’re uncertain what they’re feeling.<\/p>\n

We’ve blogged about this research here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Individual Differences Matter<\/h2>\n

So, adolescents don’t distinguish among complex emotions as well as adults do.<\/p>\n

Of course: individual teens develop along different paths. Some differentiate among emotions better than others.<\/p>\n

Researchers at Emory<\/a> wanted to know: do those differences have meaningful effects?<\/p>\n

In particular, they asked this intricate question: does a teen’s ability to distinguish among negative emotions have an effect on their experience of depression<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

In other words: do the hassles and stresses of life lead to depression more often<\/em> among teens who distinguish among negative emotions less skillfully<\/em>?<\/p>\n

To answer this question, Dr. Lisa Starr and her team interviewed 225+ teens, and then had them fill out online diaries for several days. They then followed up with those teens up to a year-and-a-half later<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In other words, they got LOTS of data spread out over LONG periods of time.<\/p>\n

Given all the variables at play, it’s not surprising that the results here are complex: probably too complex to explore in detail. (Click the link if you want the nitty-gritty.)<\/p>\n

But the headline is clear: teens who distinguish among negative emotions effectively<\/em>\u00a0can manage life stress better<\/em> than those who don’t.<\/p>\n

To say that the other way around: teens who struggle to distinguish among negative emotions are likelier to experience depression as result of life’s hassles and stresses.<\/p>\n

What Can We Do?<\/h2>\n

Students benefit from skill in distinguishing among negative emotions. In fact, those who lack those skills face a higher chance of depression.<\/p>\n

So: what can we do to promote those skills?<\/p>\n

I’ve asked lead researcher Dr. Starr that question. She pointed me to this study<\/a>, which suggests that mindfulness training might have some benefits.<\/p>\n

That suggestion lines up with this recent meta-analysis<\/a>, showing that mindfulness can indeed help people manage depression.<\/p>\n

Of course: we shouldn’t rely too heavily on just one study. I hope this question leads to greater exploration soon.<\/p>\n

Given the scary numbers about adolescent depression, we should do all we can to manage this problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research identifies a potential source for depression in teenagers. We might be able to help…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72,38,59],"class_list":["post-4807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-adolescence","tag-emotion","tag-mindfulness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4807"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4886,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions\/4886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}