Stress over a long period of time, without the possibility of getting out of this situation, inevitably leads to physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, in short, to what the German-American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger called, as early as 1970, burnout. Usually, this physical and mental exhaustion occurs at work, so it mainly affects adults. However, lately it has also started to appear in children and adolescents. Doctor Ioana Silion, psychiatrist at Digital Clinics, explains to us the connection between burnout in teenagers and stress plus substance use.
If you have a teenager at home who seems physically and mentally exhausted, whose behavior has changed recently, do not hesitate to request an appointment for an online consultation to receive expert guidance and help.
One of the main causes of burnout in children and adolescents, identified by mental health specialists, is the pressure that parents, school and society put on them. To be the best, to succeed where perhaps they, as parents, failed, to always be competitive, etc. Sometimes the competition between children extends from school to the extracurricular activities that parents want for their children. "To practice various arts, to go to various sports activities, if possible as many as possible, and on top of that, parents want to see performance in their children, a goal that is very difficult to achieve. Often, the efforts and sacrifices that children make take a back seat to the achievements that parents want from their children. I'm talking here about school and extracurricular competitions, many of them hard, with a lot of difficult material, or with physical demands that are too high for the child's strength. And the demands increase as the child reaches middle school, then high school and college. Children develop more slowly intellectually and in personality than is required of them by school, parents and society. No one thinks that, in fact, the prefrontal cortex - responsible for motor functions, planning, impulse control, memory and language, reasoning - develops a little later, around the age of 20-25. However, children and young people are faced with the fait accompli, to rise to the level and requirements that parents and society impose!", says psychiatrist Ioana Silion.
Considering society's requirements and the discrepancy between them and young people's capabilities, they often end up being disappointed, they no longer perform as their parents and society want from them and conflict between generations appears.
Exhaustion and fatigue of children and adolescents is manifested by increased irritability, irascibility, reactivity. They quickly come into conflict with parents, peers, teachers, in short, with those who are usually most at hand. Encouraged by society and school to express their differences of opinion, they begin to become extremely conflicted. The disappointment between what they feel inside and the interest to what adults ask of them is big. As a result, children and young people subjected to these pressures become anxious, depressed, they tend to avoid situations in which they do not feel comfortable, sometimes avoid going to school, withdraw socially and begin to become apathetic and lose interest in what is happening around them.
As a consequence of conflicts with those around them and maladjustment, teenagers choose environments in which they apparently feel better. From here to the interest in substances that "help" them get out of the conflicting states they are in is only a small step.
Alcohol is the most handy. At first for recreational purposes, young people choose alcohol as a kind of mechanism and means that helps them reject the stress, the anxiety they feel. "Young people are looking for all kinds of solutions to get out of the state of anguish and tension that the school, the academic environment in which they live in, currently subjects them to. The personalities of children and adolescents are not completed. They don't have enough life experience to be able to decide what is good and what is bad, and they end up in environments where access to alcohol is easy", explains Dr. Ioana Silion.
Initially an anxiolytic, alcohol lowers inhibitions and gives a feeling of well-being, young people become more euphoric, communicate more easily with others and start consuming alcohol recreationally. But "alcohol gives tolerance and creates addiction, and young people have to increase the amount to get the same effect, and after a while, addiction and the adverse effects of alcohol set in - the ability to concentrate decreases, attention, vigilance, memory decrease, missing classes, conflicts with parents escalate. Added to all this is often the use of light drugs that teenagers can easily get at parties.
In addition to alcohol, not infrequently, in stressful situations, teenagers end up using their parents' psychotropic drugs. They are masters at disguising their initial behaviour, and the lack of vigilance of parents can contribute to addiction to those drugs in the case of children and adolescents who abuse them. Sometimes young people turn to beta-blockers to reduce their anxiety, they also combine substances with each other or add alcohol to them, and the effects have very serious consequences
Adolescents may experience acute intoxication, heart rhythm disorders, life-threatening disinhibited behaviours, respiratory disorders, depending on the drugs used. Insomnia, dizziness, migraines, stomachaches, headaches, vertigo also occur.
For the treatment of burnout syndrome, cognitive behavioural therapy managed by a psychiatrist/psychologist is the one that reduces patients' symptoms by changing the way of thinking and tactfully approaching stressful situations.
The digitisation of medicine, online medical appointments has major benefits as many patients visiting psychiatrists welcome discretion. Parents whose children or teenagers seem to have manifestations of those described above can turn to a psychiatrist or a psychologist from home, because only the specialist's intervention can shed light and offer a way of treatment.
Independent telemedicine platform Digital Clinics has dedicated an entire campaign to this topic, so people who are experiencing such issues or have younger family members suffering from burnout can call with confidence and request an online consultation with a mental health specialist.
Prevention is always the best solution in the case of any physical or mental illness. And in the case of burnout, we can prevent its occurrence if we do not put unnecessary pressure on our children and young people.
That is why it is very important in the relationship with them to:
- set them limits and realistic goals, avoiding overload at home and at school;
- prioritize the important activities and not ask them to have, in addition to school, a busy schedule with all kinds of sports and arts that probably don't even interest them, leaving them more time for rest and play
- adopting a healthy diet
