New app helps teens calm anxiety

Anxiety disorders affect one in eight teens.

There are medications and therapies that can help alleviate symptoms, and now there’s even an app that can help.

The MindShift app aims to teach young adults how to combat everyday anxiety, panic, conflict and worry. Teens can input their symptoms and the app will create a plan to help reduce stress.

Created by two non-profit organizations, Anxiety BC and BC Mental Health and Addiction Services, the Mindshift app gives users the ability to customize tools like mindfulness, visualization and positive thinking.

The free app also includes articles, questionnaires and a tracking system to analyze results over time.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/07/27/new-app-helps-teens-calm-anxiety/

Being depressed and angry as a teenager can affect your love life 25 YEARS later

• Negative emotions people experience as teenagers have a lasting grip
• They can affect major life events such as child-rearing and marriage
• In the long term, they can lead to divorce and domestic violence

Depression and anger that people experience as teenagers can taint their love lives even 25 years later

Teenage blues and anger can taint a person's love life a quarter of a century later, according to a new report.

A study is helping to crack the code to happiness by exploring the long reach of depression and anger over more than two decades.

The study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, followed 341 people for 25 years.

It found that negative emotions they may have suffered as young adults can have a lasting grip on their relationships well into middle age.

The fact that depression and anger experienced during the teenage years clung to people - even through major life events such as marriage, careers and having children - was surprising.

University of Alberta researcher Matthew Johnson, said: 'We assume, or hope, that high school experiences fade away and don't necessarily resonate 25 years later. 

‘The fact that symptoms of depression and expressions of anger can endure over many large events in life shows how important it is to deal with mental health early. 

‘Sometimes, problems don't just dissipate. How you grow and change over those early years becomes crucial to future happiness.’

The research, drawn from a larger study which began in 1985, surveyed 178 women and 163 men through their transition to adulthood from age 18 to 25.

 

It then studied them again on their perceived stress levels at age 32, and on the quality of their intimate relationships at age 43, to find out whether anger or depression they may have felt as young adults was still affecting those bonds.

People who experienced a lot of negative emotions when they are teenagers can be more likely to divorce.

The findings point to the importance of recognising that early mental health does influence couple relationships and that, in turn, can have social costs later on - such as divorce and domestic violence.

As individuals, people can help themselves by ‘recognising the fact that where they are in their couple relationship now is likely shaped by earlier chapters in their lives,’ Dr Johnson added. 

‘It's not only your partner's current behaviour or your current behaviour shaping your relationship, but the story you bring with you.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2623324/Being-depressed-angry-teenager-affect-love-life-25-YEARS-later.html

Teenage girls are more prone to depression because their hormones affect blood flow to the brain

• Scientists at University of Pennsylvania found puberty marks change in blood flow to the brain with girls seeing a higher blood flow than boys
• Females are known to be at higher risk of depression and anxiety
• New study found parts of the brain with highest difference in blood flow were parts associated with higher cognitive functions
• Area affected involves emotions and regulates control of social situations
• Researchers say it could explain why females are more prone to depression

Teenage girls could be more prone to depression and anxiety disorders because they experience greater blood flow to the brain, a new study has found.

The sex hormone oestrogen drives more blood to the heads of young women compared to men - and that could explain disparities in psychiatric disorders.

Blood flow is known to be higher in adult women than men, but a study now shows it is markedly different during adolescence when teenagers are going through puberty.

Professor Theodore Satterthwaite, of the University of Pennsylvania, said: 'In general, females have a higher prevalence of anxiety and depression and in males higher prevalence of schizophrenia.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania say greater blood flow to the brain in adolescent girls could explain why females are more likely to suffer depression and anxiety disorders

'The parts of the brain that saw the highest difference of blood flow were in parts of the brain associated with higher cognitive functions.'

He added the area affected was important as it involves 'emotions and regulates and controls social situations'.

Professor Satterthwaite and his colleagues used MRI scans to analyse the development of brain blood flow in 922 young people aged between eight and 22 to find out when such sex changes emerge.

Previous studies have shown brain blood flow falls during adolescence. But by about the age of 15 it began to decline more rapidly in males than in females, and by late puberty it rose in females but continued to decline in the males.

The results published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest the gender difference may originate during puberty, and may have implications for understanding psychiatric disorders that often manifest later.

The psychiatrists added: 'Puberty is the defining biological process of adolescent development, yet its effects on fundamental properties of brain physiology such as cerebral blood flow have never been investigated.'

The study found the areas of a girl's brain that saw the highest increase in blood flow was that which deals with emotions and controls social situations

It is the first time to the researchers' knowledge that such different patterns of development have been linked to the effects of puberty.

Prof Satterthwaite said: 'These results may have important implications for neuropsychiatric disorders with adolescent onset and strong gender disparities such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia.'

Sex differences in brain structure are well documented and are increasingly tied to developmental effects related to puberty.

In particular, several studies have found puberty in females and rising oestrogen is related to increased grey matter in structures such as the hippocampus.

Added Prof Satterthwaite: 'The present results have potential relevance to a wide range of psychiatric disorders that often manifest following puberty and have marked sex disparities including depression, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia.'

He added that future research could test whether increased brain blood flow in girls after puberty may be linked to the greater risk for mood and anxiety disorders, and a lower risk of schizophrenia.

Boys are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia which is linked to the male sex hormone testosterone.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2639701/Teenage-girls-prone-depression-hormones-affect-blood-flow-brain.html