With the high stress, high demand world we live in, the experience of burnout is not limited to adults. When you combine the demands of academics, extracurricular activities, social pressures, both on and offline, you have a recipe for complete and total burnout. As a licensed therapist who specializes in working with teens, I see this every day in my practice. The intensity and disconnection of the pandemic has made teens even more vulnerable to the effects of stress. In this blog, I’ll explore how teens experience burnout, its causes, signs, and how the effects of the pandemic continue to reverberate, increasing chances of mental health challenges. 

When you combine this developmental reality with the real stress that teens have been under since the pandemic, it is understandable that they can become easily overwhelmed by emotions. There’s even a recent study that showed teens’ brains aged faster in the first year of the pandemic due to increased stress.

So how do we help our teens at such a crucial time? How do we help teens cope with anxiety and depression? Teens need us now more than ever to guide them through how to cope and help them to feel they’re not alone. Here are some tips to help your teen when they are overwhelmed by big emotions: