Welcome to the LCPS Mental Health and Wellness "Navigating the Path to Student Wellness" Virtual Conference. We look forward to seeing you on January 30, 2021 for a day of connection and learning.
In this engaging session, learn how anxiety and stress affect the brain, influence behavior and emotion, and impact well-being. Through experiential session activities and take-home resources, become equipped to help your child reduce anxiety, manage stress and build resilience. The incidence of anxiety is significantly increasing, especially with the COVID pandemic. But there is hope -- one can learn to manage anxiety. In this engaging session, occasionally including horses and a brief herd observation activity, our presentation connects with the conference theme of improving mental wellness in students through anxiety and stress management and resilience-building. Parents learn how anxiety impacts the brain, influences behavior and emotion and affects well-being. They also learn early warning signs and symptoms of anxiety, and how it manifests in family, social and academic settings.Recognizing warning signs enables caregivers to redirect and support the youth in their lives. Anxiety has a huge impact on the emotional, cognitive and psychosocial development of our youth. Research-based information helps participants understand how regions of the brain are impacted by anxiety. Anxiety activates a fear response in the amygdala (lower brain region), signaling the fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system to release a surge of cortisol, affecting physiological state and then emotional and behavioral response. While anxiety can be debilitating, it can also be managed, by stimulating the brain’s neocortex (frontal lobe). Recent Stanford University research underscores this, where teens showing greater social interconnectedness in the neocortex were less likely to experience pandemic-related depression and anxiety. Throughout the presentation, participants are introduced to adaptive and supportive resources -- a brief mindfulness video; Mitigating a Panic Attack handout; Select Guided Imageries handout -- that can be utilized to help youth manage stress, enhance emotional regulation, strengthen interpersonal relationships and build resilience.