Why do we have anxiety?
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This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids from Vermont Public. I'm Jane Lindholm. On this show, we take questions from curious kids all over the world, and we invite guests on to help us with the answers. Sometimes there are easy answers, and sometimes the answers are hard. It's especially hard to have concrete answers to things that deal with our feelings and our own experiences as individual people.

But there are emotions and experiences that are pretty common, that all of us have to one degree or another. And today we're going to talk about a feeling that is truly universal. Anxiety.

We've invited a guest on who you may remember from a previous episode all about friendship. I'm Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore, also known as Dr. Friendtastic. Eileen, or Dr. Friendtastic, is a clinical psychologist, someone who helps people with their mental health. She works with kids, so she deals with a lot of the same questions you send us about being scared or sad or other things that are bothering you.

And she also has a podcast where she answers questions from kids, kind of like our show. So today we're going to have Dr. Frentastic tackle your questions about worry and anxiety. My name is Bennett. I'm seven years old. I'm from New York. Why do we worry? My name is Lainey. I'm nine years old and I live in Dublin, Ireland. Why do we worry and how do you deal with it? My name's Tate.

I'm 10 years old, and I live in Barrington, New Jersey. Why do we get anxious? I'm Dorothy, and I'm 8 years old. I live in Melbourne, Australia. And my question is, why do we get anxiety? Hi, my name is Maya. I'm 12 years old, and I live in Canada. Where does anxiety come from? That word, anxiety, are all of you familiar with that? It might be a new word to some of you. So I asked Dr. Frentastic to define it.

Anxiety is that feeling of worry or tension or fear as we anticipate what is coming ahead of us in the future. And the future could be in 10 minutes, or it could be in two weeks or next year, or maybe in the distant future. Sometimes we feel anxiety or worry in our brains, and sometimes we feel anxiety in our bodies. It's a little bit different for everybody, but what are some of the ways we might feel

feel anxiety or worry in our bodies. I'm so glad you brought that up because that's often how kids realize that they're feeling anxious. So they might notice that their heart is beating quickly, or they might just feel tense in all their muscles.

So sometimes kids get a headache or a stomachache that is really their body's way of saying, I'm feeling tense. I'm feeling worried. I'm feeling overwhelmed in this situation. And you mentioned also that anxiety can show up in our brains. And that is absolutely true. So when we're feeling anxious, we have that circle spiraling in our head about what if, what if, what if, what if.

And when you hear that what if question, that's a pretty good clue that you're feeling anxious. Anxiety is normal and natural. It's something all humans feel and it's something we're designed to feel. Do you know evolutionarily why as humans we developed to have this feeling?

Sure, it makes sense that we should be on alert if we are facing a dangerous situation. So maybe we need to run away from it, or maybe we need to go hide somewhere, or maybe we need to freeze like a bunny, you know, when they're in danger, they freeze. So all of these responses can help us survive a dangerous situation. Anxiety is part of who we are as humans.

Absolutely. And it's helpful, just like every emotion, positive or negative. We have them because they're useful. So anxiety, let's say you're anxious about a test.

Well, that could help you study for the test so that you're more prepared for that. Let's say you're anxious around a dog that you don't know. Good. Don't go close to that. That's your brain and your body warning you, hmm, there might be danger here. So be careful or get ready or get help. All of those are very useful signals.

The problem is when we start acting like things that are not dangerous are really dangerous, we get a false alarm signal of anxiety. And that happens when, for instance, we're going to a party and we don't really know anyone. Well, there's no real danger there. We're not being chased by a bear or something like that. So

That is kind of a false alarm. We might be worried because, oh, I don't know those people. I don't know if I'm going to have fun here. What if they don't like me? But we can also

Think about the idea that this is an opportunity for me to get to know new people and to have fun. And at the very least, I'm going to learn something. Maybe I like this group. Maybe I don't like this group. Okay, that's useful information. But there's no real danger there.

So one of the things that I emphasize to kids in my practice is that anxiety is not a stop signal. It's a sign that we're doing something new and challenging. Great. That's fantastic. I hope you have that many, many times because that's how we grow. So how do we talk to ourselves then about how to recognize when we're feeling anxiety and what to do about it?

So I think it's really important to notice our feelings. They're a source of information about ourselves and what's going on around us. We want to think of them kind of like smells.

We don't have to be afraid of a smell. They can be mild or they can be strong. They can be pleasant or unpleasant, just like a smell. But just try to say, hmm, what is going on here? What is my body and brain trying to tell me? And maybe it's just saying that this is new or challenging. Dr. Frentastic says if you start to feel some anxiety or worry, you can think of yourself a little bit like an athlete.

A little bit of anxiety, but not too much, can be a good thing. Imagine a baseball player and this player is completely relaxed and like they're checking their fingernails and they're looking up at the sky. If that baseball player hits the ball, it's going to be a little plop, you know, because they're just holding the bat loosely.

Another baseball player might be standing there tightly clutching the bat and the elbows are next to his body and his knees are tightly together. And if he hits the ball, well, that's going to be another plop. So the idea is that very low levels of anxiety and very high levels of anxiety are

don't help us perform at our best. But the middle baseball player, this guy is not relaxed. He's crouched over the plate. His elbows are up, his knees are bent, and he's ready to knock it out of the park. So many, many, many scientists have found that that medium level of anxiety actually helps us perform.

So for instance, if you're going into a test or a party or a new sports event and you're feeling a little bit of nervousness, fantastic. That's going to help you focus. That's going to help you have the energy to do your best. That's going to really equip you to do what you need to do in that new or challenging situation. So good. I'm glad to hear that.

Coming up, what do you do if you're feeling like the really tense baseball player? How do we help ourselves stay calm? And when do we need to talk to adults about feelings that are starting to be overwhelming? This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids. I'm Jane Lindholm. Today we're talking about anxiety with Eileen Kennedy Moore, also known as Dr. Friendtastic.

we've been learning that anxiety is natural. But too much anxiety can make our lives really hard. So how do you know when anxiety is too much? If it's happening a lot, if it's making you really upset, if you find that it's getting in the way of doing things that you want or need to do, definitely talk to your grown-up. That's really important. And

What our goal here is not to get rid of anxiety. We need anxiety. We need that warning system in our head and our body.

But we also need to not be afraid of it. Thoughts and feelings are never dangerous. If you're starting to feel like you're not able to do new things, or you're having trouble falling asleep, or you're not able to do things you used to be able to do, or you're just getting that feeling in your brain where you can't stop worrying or wondering, but what if? Then you need to tell someone.

The adults who care about you can help you work through these feelings and approach challenges in a healthy way. Or they can connect you with someone like Dr. Friendtastic, a psychologist or a counselor, someone who's gone to school to learn how to help kids figure things out. Dr. Friendtastic says adults are great at offering perspectives on the thing that's making you feel worried. And you can do some of that work yourself, too. Your grown-up will be able to tell you,

I think you can handle this. I know you're scared, but I really think that you can do this. So talking to a trusted grownup can really help you get some perspective on that. Another thing you can do is ask yourself what I call the worry questions. So the first worry question is, how bad is it? Whatever the thing that you're worried about.

And when I ask this question, it's not, do you like it? Of course you don't like it, it's bad. But how much will it permanently change your life in a bad way? Now with kids in my practice, I sometimes talk about the badness scale. So on one end of the badness scale is you have to cut your fingernails. I mean, that's annoying. I don't like cutting my fingernails, but it's not gonna change my life permanently in a bad way. And in the middle,

Like if we give that a one, let's give a five points score to you have to move and leave all your friends. Wow, that would be really hard. But you still have your family with you. And maybe you could call your friends or do a FaceTime or something with them. And maybe you could come back and visit. So and you would also make new friends. So that would be really hard. It would definitely change your life. But you would handle it.

And then the worst thing that I can imagine is a 10, and that would be death. So when you are having that situation that you are afraid of, you could ask yourself on a scale of fingernails to death, where is this thing that I'm afraid of? And usually it's like a one and a half.

Or maybe a half. Maybe it's even not as bad as fingernails. So that's the first question you ask yourself. How bad is the thing I'm worried about? She says question number two is to ask yourself whether or not the thing you're worried about could actually happen. Like, do we think this is going to actually happen? And this is where kids often get tangled because they have such vivid imagination. They can imagine it and it feels real.

But just because you can imagine something doesn't make it real or likely. So there are some extra questions here. How many times has this happened to you in the past year? How many times has it happened in the past five years? Do you know personally somebody who has had this happen?

If it hasn't happened to you and it hasn't happened to anybody that you personally know, that's just imagination. And then the third question is the trickiest one, because this is the one where we ask, could or should I do something about it? Now, some kids are afraid of catching a terrible disease.

Now, you could live all by yourself on a desert island and you wouldn't catch a bad disease from someone. Good idea? No, of course not, because then you're giving up everything that you love and you enjoy doing. So that is not worth it. And sometimes we want to ask, are you the best qualified person to deal with this thing?

So some kids are afraid of criminals and terrorists and bad guys. Now, I have not had any training in dealing with bad guys, but there are people who that's their whole job, like the police or the FBI or people who know about these things. So I think we should let them worry about the bad guys and

And you and I will decide, not my job. This is not something I could or should do something about. And sometimes there's a fear that we really can't do anything about. Like maybe it's a fear about a hurricane. And that would be very scary and it would be very difficult. But then we come down on our ideas that,

In life, and I truly believe this, there are more good things than bad things that happen. And we get through the bad things with the help of people who love us. And that is a real comfort to know that mostly we're going to face good things. And when we have a bad thing, somebody we love is going to help us get through it. So the questions are how bad, how likely, could or should I do something about it?

Those questions are helpful. Let's get some other ideas from Dr. Friendtastic about ways to boost our self-confidence and push through feelings of anxiety. Sometimes I ask kids, what is the definition of bravery? And usually kids will say, not being scared. Uh-uh. Being brave means doing something even though you're scared.

One thing that can be useful for yourself or for your kid is to keep a little notebook of things that you do that are brave. In my practice, I actually get those cheap little four by six photo albums and they fit four by six index cards and I'll draw medals for the kids and we'll enter things like, I talked to the kid next to me on the bus, even though I was scared.

And what happens when we fill the little photo album with pictures of medals of things that they did, even though they were scared, is they come to have a different view of themselves as someone who is able to do things, even though they're scared. So we really want to just move forward. We notice the feelings of anxiety. We acknowledge them.

But we don't see them as a stop signal. We see them as this is me doing something new and challenging. Yay me.

You don't have to do it all alone. Like one of the things I often say is we don't get points for doing life the stupid hard alone way, right? Get help. You can do it with somebody. Maybe the first time you're going to walk into that party with a friend. And if you keep doing that, then maybe you'll be brave enough to do it on your own. Or we also have to be careful about anxiety discharges.

Telling us to do things that are not helpful. For instance, let's say you're nervous about that math test. You know what would not be helpful? Staying up all night and fretting about it.

So that's not going to help you to do better. And on the badness scale, if you do badly on a math test, how much is that going to permanently change your life? Okay, it's worse than fingernails, but not by much. And then you'll talk to the teacher, you'll talk to your parents, you'll study differently, you'll figure it out. So we're all just trying to figure it out. Don't think that I can only do this if I'm not anxious.

Be brave. Do something even though you're scared. And that's how you get stronger. Dr. Frantastic has one more thought to leave you with. One of the most important things to understand about anxiety is that avoidance makes anxiety grow. So the more you avoid a situation, the more you stay away from it, the scarier it's going to feel and the harder it is for you to face it next time.

This is something that parents struggle with a lot because we don't like to see our kids feeling upset or uncomfortable. So it's very, very tempting to keep them away from the scary situation. It's very tempting for kids to just stay away from the situations that scare us. But that's really putting limits on yourself. It's really stopping you from growing. Avoidance makes anxiety grow.

One of the things I talk about a lot is the idea of getting into a pool, a swimming pool. So what happens when you first get into that pool? You go, oh my goodness, the water is so cold, it's freezing. But what happens if you stay in the water? Does the water temperature change? No, it doesn't. What changes is what's called your perception of the water, how you view it. And if you stay in the water, you get used to it.

Now, there's a second part of this idea, which is that no amount of standing by the edge of the pool is going to help you get used to the water.

If you want to go in toe by toe, that's fine. I am definitely a toe by toe person myself. But you want to try getting into the water. You don't have to leap in full body, but maybe stick a toe in the water. And that's how you can learn that you can tolerate it. You can put up with it. You can get through it. And I wish you many, many, many experiences of that.

It's tough growing up. Sometimes we do have to push ourselves. And you know what? Adults feel anxiety too. Ask the adults in your life what they do to push themselves through things, even when they're nervous, worried, or anxious. And ask your adults if you're having some trouble figuring out what's a real danger and what you can do. It's okay to need some extra help with that. And you don't need to suffer with these feelings alone.

Don't let anxiety or worry prevent you from having new or fun experiences. That's it for this episode. Thanks to Dr. Friendtastic, Eileen Kennedy Moore. Her podcast is called Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic. Now, if you have a question about anything, have an adult record you asking it. It's easy to do on a smartphone using an app like Voice Memos. Then you can email the file to questions at butwhykids.org.

We can't answer every question we get, but we love hearing from you and it helps us guide our shows. But Why is produced by Melody Beaudet and me, Jane Lindholm at Vermont Public. Our video producer is Joey Palumbo. Did you know we release a new video episode every other week? They're short and they're really fun and you can find them on our YouTube channel, But Why Kids.

Our theme music is by Luke Reynolds and we're distributed by PRX. We'll be back in two weeks with an all new episode. Until then, stay curious. From PRX.