Some people think when a teen
gets anxiety or depression we've
got to get meds, we've got to
get medication involved or we
need to get counseling or we
need to get repentance in there.
There's no doubt that these
areas may eventually need to be
thought about but I would say
there are some basic steps that
we shouldn't miss out before we
go to these areas.
This came to me via a
psychologist friend, a Christian
whose a psychologist, I once
asked him what do you do for
people with depression or
anxiety and he said, "I give
them three pills." and I
thought, 'Oh no, this is like
the worst caricature of a
psychologist.' Neil laughed, he
knew what I was thinking, and he
said, "Good diet, good exercise,
and good rest.". Now he wasn't
saying that these areas in and
of themselves will cure all
depressions and anxiety but he
was saying that they can help a
lot in every case and in some
cases that's maybe all that's
needed at a lower level.
So what do you mean by good
diet? Well, eating healthier
foods there's amazing research
showing how some foods are real
causes of anxiety and
depression, they multiply
certain processes in our bodies,
chemicals, and others are really
good at suppressing these
processes. So finding the right
food to eat but also you think
of mental diet, what you're
letting in your eyes and your
ears through your devices and
things like that. If we're
playing violent video games all
the time or watching terrible
news stories of school shootings
all the time or just useless
stuff coming in and overdosing
ourselves on triviality and
superficiality. That's affecting
us, our mental diet has to be a
healthy diet as well.
So diet and exercise; he's very
strong, my friend, on daily
exercise of 20 to 30 minutes.
Ideally outside, not very easy
in Michigan where I come from in
the winter. But being outside
there's a big benefit from just
the sunlight and being outside
in the fresh air. If you can't
obviously inside is just good
enough. The environment you do
it in again is very good for you
mentally and emotionally to be
out beside water or green trees,
grass, nature. You think of
Jesus speaking to the people in
the Sermon on the Mount; he
said, "Look at the birds, look
at the fields, look at the
flowers." He's saying let nature
come in and all of that is
restful.
That brings us onto our third
area which is rest. So diet,
exercise, ideally outside,
ideally every day, and rest. So
sleep is massive, it's one of
the ways God uses to cleanse our
brains of really damaging
chemicals and teens sleeping
rates have dropped about two
hours in the last 20 to 30
years. That's two hours a day,
that's over a day a week of
sleep that they're losing and
that really affects your mental
and emotional health. So trying
to help them get good sleep
hygiene, take a day off each
week, you know a weekly Sabbath.
God made it for our health and
benefit.
So helping them, we don't need
to study today, just relax and
play. It'll make the other six
days a lot more productive. And
helping them even just to take
time off during the day so it's
not like dawn to dusk or to
sleep just packed, crammed, but
even just to get a half hour of
downtime, doing something silly
and that just lets the body and
the mind relax. These are the
three pills; diet, exercise, and
rest. Very practical ways to
help our teens with depression
and anxiety.