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How can teachers manage the headlines of rising anxiety? With author Nicola Morgan

Supporting mental health in secondary schools with books for teenagers

October 3rd 2024

Staff in secondary schools, as well as parents and community leaders, are rightly concerned about the mental health and wellbeing of the young people they teach or support. In 2023, 1 in 5 children and teenagers (aged 5 to 16) were identified as having a probable mental health problem. The complex picture of this generation's mental wellbeing has garnered well-meaning reporting as well as questions about how we can best support young people.

Schools are seen as part of the solution to alleviate youth mental health problems, and they are the place most likely for teens to turn to for support. Understanding the increasing pressure staff may be experiencing related to student wellbeing, author Nicola Morgan offers her thoughts and advice in response to the worrying headlines.

Author of books for teenagers to support mental health

Nicola Morgan | Author

Nicola Morgan is a well-known advocate for adolescent mental health and wellbeing and an expert in how their brains work and learn. She is the award-winning author of many non fiction books for teens and gives talks all over the world. Topics of her books for teenagers include teenage brains, stress, anxiety, peer pressure and friendships, human behaviour, life online, body image and sleep. In 2018, she was awarded the School Library Association’s prestigious award for Outstanding Contribution to Information Books.

The headlines

Hands up who is not worried by the headlines suggesting worsening mental health amongst young people? Thought not.

We should all be worried. Either because the headlines are right or because they are wrong. Think about it: whether there is or isn’t an increasing wave of poor mental health, headlines about it are themselves worrying.

Teachers are the front line. Most of you are not trained in psychotherapy, counselling or mental health, beyond what you learnt in teacher training or CPD. Yet you are faced daily with anxious or distressed minds; you do your best and seek advice where you find it.

Disclaimer: I am also not trained in psychotherapy, though I have a Diploma in Youth Counselling. My advice comes from an unusually wide reading of an unusually wide range of topics within psychology, neuropsychology, mental health, wellbeing, adolescent brains and how we learn. I don’t know everything about anything but I know enough about enough. And I have spoken in hundreds of schools and to thousands of humans in them.

I have also written a lot of pshe books for young people. They are probably in your school libraries. You can read them, too!

Meanwhile, let me offer four nuggets of advice to help you support your students.

Nicola Morgan's 4 tips for supporting teen mental health

Anxiety and stress are not problems

Mostly, we feel anxious or stressed because there is something to feel anxious or stressed about. Adrenalin and cortisol suffuse our body, prepping us for action. That’s good when action is needed: for a test, performance, challenge, or danger.

Problems come if we too often feel anxious or stressed when there’s no need. That’s common – but still not an illness (though it can occasionally become one). It just requires practising a few easy (honestly!) strategies. My book No Worries offers so many that you can feast from a rich menu and build tools for your whole life, whatever age you are.

Some people need therapy but most don’t

The vast majority of the young people you will come across are not ill. A few are and they need professional help. But most, including some you may think are, aren’t.

They may be very distressed, but that doesn’t mean they’re ill. We can respond to someone’s distress by wrapping them up and not expecting them to thrive. Or we can offer them empathy with respect, showing them that we believe they can thrive despite their challenges, their fears, their feeling of helplessness.

When we ask the question, “How do you feel?” we must be careful how we do it and what we do with the answer. Feelings are an immensely important signal. But they are not always best responded to by focus and rumination; a better response is very often to acknowledge the feeling, then get on and do something: living, not dwelling.

Avoid avoidance

When we fear something we know we should do, the worst response is to avoid it. We never become less fearful by not doing the thing we fear.

We become less fearful when we learn to do it, to manage and reduce negative emotions around it. Public speaking is a good example, as most people find this nerve-racking. You only ever become less nervous by doing it and doing it again. You learn powerful truths when you tackle what you’re afraid of. You learn that you can; you experience the benefits; you feel good about yourself. You feel better and stronger. You are better and stronger.

Helping young people rise to their challenges may be the greatest gift you can give them. Rising to your own challenges is the greatest gift you can give yourself.

Look after yourself before you look after others

It’s that old adage about putting on your own oxygen mask before putting on your child’s. As teachers and as parents, you are giving, giving, giving. This means you quickly exhaust yourself and do less of a good job. So your first duty is to nurture yourself.

My best advice on this (and you can do this with young people, too) uses the image of keeping your “body battery” charged. Some things drain your battery and others charge it. We all have a pretty good sense of whether our body battery is high or low and a pretty good sense of what will recharge us. For some that might be having a laugh with friends; for others it might be having time alone, for a walk, a bath, reading a book, listening to music. But every day – several times – ask yourself, “How is my body battery and does it need charging?” Then act on that as soon as you can.

In short

I don’t know if those headlines are mostly right or mostly wrong. But I worry about all the worrying. I believe I best serve you by offering strength and strategies, not hand-wringing or too much rumination.

Let’s focus on what we can control and teach our young people to do the same. We are capable of so much more than we think we are. The human brain is a wonderful thing but sometimes it worries too much.

We – you! – can do this. And so can our amazing young people.