- There are many things that impact our mental health, school, home life, social media, current events.

It can be overwhelming at times and it's completely normal to feel anxious from time to time.

But if it impacts your daily life, then there might be a bigger problem to deal with.

Hi, I'm Griffin, and this is Mind Frame.

We are redefining the conversation about mental health and wellbeing.

Today's topic: anxiety.

We all know life can be stressful.

I'm getting anxious just thinking about it but there are healthy ways to cope with stress.

So let's dive in.

To help normalize anxiety, let's first explore the science behind it.

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health disorders.

Anxiety happens when a part of the brain, the amygdala, senses trouble.

When it senses a threat, real or imagined, it releases two hormones into the body.

One is cortisol, also called the stress hormone.

Another is adrenaline, which makes the body strong, fast and powerful.

This surge of hormones is what is commonly called the fight or flight response, and it has been keeping us alive, well, as long as humans have been around.

It's what healthy brains are supposed to do.

So occasional anxiety is a normal part of life.

Just because you feel anxious before a big test doesn't mean you have an anxiety disorder.

People with anxiety disorders have frequent, intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations.

Anxiety disorders involve repeated, sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear.

According to the CDC or the Center for Disease Control, nearly 9.5% of young people have an anxiety disorder.

This might not seem like a lot but that is 5.8 million people.

That's more than the entire population of Ohio's major cities combined.

So there are plenty of people like us dealing with this sort of thing.

Actually, according to medical experts, there has been a drastic increase in anxiety disorders.

Dr. Kelly Blankenship, who works for Dayton Children's Hospital, says the aftermath of the pandemic and increased use of social media haven't helped the situation.

- There has been since COVID an increase in anxiety for kids.

So we're actually seeing in middle schoolers and high schoolers about twice the number of kids with anxiety symptoms than we've seen per prior to COVID.

COVID was a really scary time for everybody.

We also know that people like to post their best lives on social media, right?

So you don't post, you know, something bad going on in your life.

You post the great things, you post the stuff that's gonna really probably make other people jealous and other people are posting the things that are gonna make you jealous.

And so that can really affect mental health.

Social media has really normalized really kind of bad, scary coping skills.

So in a lot of ways, social media has normalized cutting.

Social media has normalized the idea that if, gosh, I had a horrible day, you know, I might as well just go kill myself.

You'll see that a lot on social media and it's really normalizing those behaviors.

- That's not good.

If social media is normalizing these behaviors, then we have to normalize the conversation about mental health and seeking help.

Let's reframe things for a second.

If we were talking about something like high blood pressure or migraines, we'd probably all be down with taking medicine to help, right?

Well, we need to look at mental health disorders the same way.

Before we can get help though, it's important to recognize the symptoms.

- Symptoms of anxiety can differ depending on who you are.

But a lot of middle school kids, when they start to have anxiety, they'll start to worry about things that they didn't use to worry about.

So maybe you would get nervous before a test.

Maybe that's normal for you, but now all of a sudden, days before, you're feeling really, really anxious about that test and you can't get that anxiety out of your mind.

It can also be difficulty focusing because you're so worried, you can't stay focused on material.

It can be difficulty sleeping because at night you're anxious and you can't sleep.

Some kids will get headaches and stomach aches and sometimes kids will get irritable.

- Hmm, I don't know about you, but learning about the symptoms just brings up more questions, like what can we do to prevent it?

Is it preventable at all?

Or once we see symptoms, are we just supposed to cope with it the best we can?

To answer these questions, we caught up with social worker De'Asia Thompson who has some great tips for young people who are living with anxiety.

- To help students manage stress, time management is a really important factor, so we wanna make time for the things that are important to us, whether that's after school activities, our homework, our friends, family, all of that.

So trying to find good routines that work for your day-to-day is important.

You can also do deep breathing.

If you are finding yourself getting anxious, you can do journaling activities.

You can make sure that you're exercising and make sure that you are taking time to eat right and getting enough rest.

Stress is a normal part of life and we all experience it and sometimes it pushes us to do our best.

So with that, I would say make time for the things that are important.

Take care of yourself mentally and socially and physically and then utilize your coping skills when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed out.

- We probably hear some of these things all the time and sometimes it's easier said than done, especially when life can be so busy.

But it's important to take care of ourselves.

There are plenty of resources available to help if you or someone you know is experiencing anxiety.

But I have to say it again, the first step is to talk about it.

Every school has trusted adults you can go to for help and they can point you in the right direction.

Who knows, they may even relate to what you're going through, because guess what?

Adults deal with anxiety too.

Until next time, be well, and let's take care of each other.