Anxiety and Stress Relief for Kids and Parents:

As anxiety therapists, Compassionate Counseling St. Louis works with a lot of kids, teens, and parents on ways to best reduce their stress levels. One really cool technique for this is called EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques. Here in St. Louis, we have a great therapist who is trained and certified in this model. I’m so excited to share Alison’s answers with you today!

Why did you choose to become a Certified EFT Practitioner in St. Louis?

I've been offering EFT services online for many years now, but was really missing having face-to-face interactions with people, so have affiliated with the St. Louis Wellness Center to offer in-person individual sessions along with group tapping classes.

What kind of treatment do you provide?

I am a Certified Emotional Freedom Techniques practitioner. Emotional Freedom Techniques is usually referred to as EFT or Tapping. EFT is often called emotional acupressure. It's a highly effective form of stress relief where you use your fingers to tap on specific acupressure points on the face and the upper body to neutralize the emotional intensity associated with specific memories or events, beliefs, or fears. It's also very effective at reducing or eliminating physical symptoms since almost all pain has an emotional underpinning. EFT has now been studied a lot and more than 100 published studies show that it is at least as effective as other "gold standard" therapies including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and EMDR, and can sometimes get results more quickly. EFT quickly reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, it shifts brain wave frequencies, increases heart-rate variability, decreases danger signals from the brain, and can literally change our brains so that something that was associated with a troubling emotion can be associated instead with calm. It's a true mind-body modality.

Mindfulness should be more than an “every now and then” kind of thing.

If you only practice mindfulness when you’re already upset, you may calm down in the moment - but it’s harder to reach for the skill when you need it. It’s much more effective to set up a daily practice, and really reinforce this skill.

The foundation for all of this? Being in the moment.

So today, let’s practice just sitting.

I always recommend thy parents help to build a meditation practice together with their kids.

The trick is, though, like all other skills, meditation becomes so much easier with practice. That calm centeredness is much easier to recall and use when you’ve actually had some regular meditation practice.

Deciding between meditating in a class vs. trying meditation at home?

So, for those deciding between classes and at home, I would recommend at least trying a class to see if guided meditation feels easier than alone. Sometimes we get focused on stopping our thoughts (which is impossible) rather than just letting out thoughts gently pass us by, and a good meditation coach will help you still your thoughts in a non judgmental way, and will give you tips you can use at home.

The whole family can benefit from meditation and mindfulness practice, but it might be easier to do it together in your own space.

You can also try online or different apps for meditation

The more tips the better, right?

Mindfulness, yoga, and scheduling it in. Relaxation is great, but it's important to practice throughout the day. When you operate with anxiety, the baseline of your stress level is typically pretty high. You may have a small "window of tolerance," meaning stressors that seem small to others feel very big to you. So, let's look at my top three recommendations, which I share with all of my clients.

We can't always predict when there will be a change to our schedule, our plans, or our life. But it's important to recognize that pre-schoolers may have a particularly hard time with changes both expected and unexpected. Read below for a few tips on how to set your preschooler up for success. 

What goes into building health family habits? Communication, scheduling, and taking time out to enjoy one another. As a parent, you may be wondering about ways that you as a family can work together to support your children. Below are a few healthy family habits that I recommend families incorporate - especially if they have a child or teen experiencing anxiety, anger management issues, or other outside stressors.

We've come to the end of our 6 week series, so now is a great time for reflection. What was your purpose in picking up this mindfulness practice? Was it to practice anxiety management through meditation? Were you looking for tools to help your child with their anger? Figure out what the root of this was. And, while we can't change people around us - and we can't change what our children do or don't do - we can demonstrate healthy listening and coping skills for them.

Our minds are always churning out lots of thoughts. So it can be helpful, during a meditation practice, to table these thoughts for later. In this week's post, I discuss a visualization tool: thought bubbles. When you allow your thoughts to drift away, you can focus more on your stillness, calming your brain and your body. A critical tool for kids, teens, and parents!

Week 3 and we're halfway there! Today we practice mindful breathing - a fundamental skill so basic you may think you already know it, but trust me - there's room for improvement. Also included in this week's lesson, tips for training your children how to intergrate mindful breathing into their life as well. 

Week 2 of our mindfulness series, and we're exploring how to scan your body for emotions. It's important to be aware of where you hold stress, anxiety, or frustration, as everybody's body is different. And when you're able to identify these trigger points, it's much easier to find 1. where you should focus during your relaxation practice and 2. where you need to check in to make sure your emotions feel controllable. 

"Mindfulness" is probably a word you hear a lot, especially if you're looking for anxiety or anger management strategies. In this upcoming six week series, you'll find out the purpose or mindfulness, how to integrate it into your day-to-day life, and fundamental strategies for using it. This week, we're all about just finding a seat. 

How to Teach Mindfulness Like a Therapist. Mindfulness is the act of being aware and present within each moment. It's a pretty buzz-y word right now - almost any classroom teacher, dance instructor, or coach is going to talk a little bit about incorporating mindfulness. Why? Because research has shown that mindfulness helps decrease stress, increase focus, and even helps improve relationships.