Anxiety abounds today, including among children.\u00a0 Is there any reason to doubt why it\u2019s rampant?\u00a0 Covid.\u00a0 The war in the Ukraine.\u00a0 Terrorist attacks in Israel.\u00a0 45 families marking tragic first-year Yahrzeits on Lag B\u2019Omer this week.\u00a0 Attacks in the local public transportation systems.\u00a0 A bomb scare at our own local JCC.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the list is limitless<\/p>\n
These outside forces clearly play a role in anxiety.\u00a0\u00a0 There will always be events over which we have little if any control that can precipitate anxiety, causing us to ponder unknown futures.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not my focus here.\u00a0 Rather, I am writing\/speaking about the \u201cnormal\u201d anxiety in our daily lives.\u00a0 There\u2019s passing a test:\u00a0 the first grader is focused on the spelling test while the 17-year old is preparing for the driver\u2019s license test.\u00a0 It\u2019s about going to school, overnight camp or flying for the first time or traveling to Israel for the seminary year or yeshiva learning.<\/p>\n
If you think about it, these are scenarios about learning and growing and doing new things that can only help us grow.\u00a0 This is wonderful.\u00a0 So why then is our society so riddled with anxiety?<\/p>\n
The level of anxiety is even more ironic because there exists a multi-billion dollar omni-present industry of tools to fight anxiety, including mental health professionals, holistic interventions, vitamins, minerals and herbs, self-help books and apps.\u00a0 Alas, anxiety is more all-pervading than ever before.<\/p>\n
Forgive me please because it\u2019s almost heretical, but I am suggesting embracing \u201cnormal\u201d anxiety as a vehicle for growth and change.\u00a0 In other words, let\u2019s make anxiety into something positive.<\/p>\n
My perspective, as in most things, is shaped by my upbringing.\u00a0 Growing up in South Africa, we were taught poetry and public speaking in elementary school, as young as 6 years old.\u00a0 Why poetry?\u00a0 Poetry can teach young readers about speech patterns which can then give them cues to words on a page.\u00a0 Rhyming can help children to identify sounds in words and to identify word families.\u00a0 Further, like any other form of reading, it can build vocabulary in kids because it introduces them to new words.\u00a0 When children read sentences and phrases that have a tempo, they are introduced to new words in new frameworks.\u00a0 Building a solid foundation in reading skills \u2013 both English and Hebrew \u2013 is important if one aspires to build a strong edifice of lifelong learning and education.<\/p>\n
In South Africa, furthermore, we had to recite poetry aloud and in front of our peers!\u00a0 Talk about terrifying.\u00a0 We had to concentrate.\u00a0 We had to prepare.\u00a0 We had to speak clearly.\u00a0 In front of our peers.\u00a0 And for the most part, this was successful for us.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because we concentrated.\u00a0 Because we prepared.\u00a0 Because we spoke clearly.\u00a0 We harnessed our anxiety and directed that energy to grow as readers and into public speakers.<\/p>\n
Reading aloud is one of the seven most important skills for promoting literacy because reading aloud supports oral development.\u00a0 It helps children to improve their literacy skills.\u00a0 When children read aloud, they think more deeply about the sound of the words they are saying.\u00a0 This automatically helps to advance their reading skills.<\/p>\n
By learning poetry, we expanded and strengthened our reading skills.\u00a0 We learned nuances in familiar words as well as new words.\u00a0 Because our brains were stimulated to think this way, we searched out new words to rhyme with our existing words.<\/p>\n
A commercial here for parents to read aloud to children and children to read aloud to parents.\u00a0 In both Hebrew and English.<\/p>\n
But I want to round back to the point and emphasize that we did not deny the anxiety.\u00a0 We identified it, yoked it and then directed it in order to grow.\u00a0 Anxiety informed our actions rather than our being handicapped by it.<\/p>\n
My wife reminisces that she and her 18 new classmates arrived on their first day of graduate school to a room with a table upon which there were 5 sets of colored cards, and on each card was written a unique word or phrase.\u00a0 Each group was formed when the like color-carded people found one another and self-introductions commenced.\u00a0 Each group was charged with developing and performing a 5-7 minute skit for their classmates.\u00a0 There were several purposes to this exercise.\u00a0 They began meeting their classmates.\u00a0 They collaborated in small groups.\u00a0 They directed their anxiety into something useful and creative, \u201celevating\u201d their anxiety from a stumbling block into something creative akin to painting a masterpiece.\u00a0 The imaginations of these 19 graduate students were unleashed \u2013 all because the anxiety made them sit on the edges of their chairs, ready to direct it into useful pathways.<\/p>\n
Recent research has shown that when we are anxious, there are higher levels of dopamine, the \u201cfeel good\u201d hormone.\u00a0 Dopamine is present when an experience is pleasurable or even the thought of it is enjoyable.\u00a0 Interestingly, dopamine is also present in emergency situations when we need to keep going even when there is longer gasoline in the proverbial tank.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s chronic anxiety that is wearying.\u00a0 And it is chronic anxiety that can mask normal, useful anxiety.\u00a0 When we can properly identify useful anxiety, we can separate it from its crippling cousin.\u00a0 If chronic anxiety is present, it is important to discuss this with your physician and\/or a qualified mental health professional who can help.\u00a0 This is where the multi-billion anxiety industry can be potentially useful to people.<\/p>\n
Again, I believe that if parents and children can work together to develop the emotional vocabulary to identify properly the pieces, their relationships will be strengthened plus our children will have greater ability to navigate this world and its nuances.\u00a0 They will have opportunities to gain the tools to handle the inevitable \u201cother\u201d anxiety that is bound to happen during the course of their lifetimes.<\/p>\n
Simply put, anxiety is not a stigma.\u00a0 Nor is it something to be anxious about.\u00a0 (Deliberately stated).\u00a0 Harnessed correctly, anxiety can result in a more resilient society.<\/p>\n
As always, daven<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Anxiety abounds today, including among children.\u00a0 Is there any reason to doubt why it\u2019s rampant?\u00a0 Covid.\u00a0 The war in the Ukraine.\u00a0 Terrorist attacks in Israel.\u00a0 45 families marking tragic first-year Yahrzeits on Lag B\u2019Omer this week.\u00a0 Attacks in the local public transportation systems.\u00a0 A bomb scare at our own local JCC.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the list is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133543,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\n