The Teenage Brain
Teens & tweens, those energetic, creative, curious, ravenous and sometimes confused humans. As they transition between child and adulthood, it’s not always smooth sailing. Heck, I remember it being downright rough. Challenges such as starting a new school, making new friends, figuring out social connections, dealing with bullying, tests, exams, pressure to achieve, learning difficulties, nutritional or hydration issues: all these things add to the daily stressors of a growing body in a state of flux. This is why we cannot overlook this demographic when it comes to health and wellness. Being fully connected to your body, your environment and your sense of self can be a major game-changer in these sometimes vulnerable periods of growth and development. Chiropractic can help keep your kids be more ‘Switched On’.
We all know that on a physical level, driven by hormones, adolescent bodies are going through immense developmental changes at a rapid speed. This in itself can bring new challenges to overall self-image, co-ordination, balance and posture.
There is a huge correlation between posture and the body's ability to deal with stress.1 We have all heard about ‘Tech Neck’ and we are now seeing it in kids from a very young age. Having forward head-carriage, rounded shoulders or slumped posture is physiologically telling your body to POWER-DOWN and protect itself.2 This can have an impact on the health, growth and development of your child. Research has shown3 that good posture can be the key to building:
· resilience to stress
· higher self-esteem
· better mood regulation
· reduced feelings of fear
· more optimal breathing patterns
Does this sound like it could help someone you know?
And it’s not just hormones. The adolescent brain literally goes through a period of re-wiring and re-organising during this time as it is working out its identity and place in the world. For some kids this is relatively easy, for others it may be a time of stress and angst. The upstairs part of the brain behind the forehead is called the pre-frontal cortex. It is the reason why we humans are who we are. It drives our personality, our ability to plan, how we make decisions, problem-solving, and how to see consequences of our actions. During puberty the pre-frontal cortex takes a bit of a back seat for ‘re-wiring & renovations’.
This means that the average teenager is most likely functioning from the limbic area, the downstairs section of the brain. This is where the amygdala and hippocampus are located. The amygdala is like the brain’s smoke detector and the downstairs brain is where your feelings are. This section of the brain is also focused on such simple things as heart rate, breathing, sleeping, and hunger as well as keeping us safe and making sure our basic needs are met. As the limbic brain charges up, kids tend to become more reactive, sensitive, emotional and have more extreme responses to different situations.
Imagine you are late for work and you have misplaced your keys. You are getting more wound up and less rational as you keep going back to the same places over and again to look for them. You panic – you are no longer thinking with your cortex, you are thinking with your emotions. Now remember how you feel if somebody tells you to “CALM DOWN”. Not exactly calming. The teenage brain is still in the process of wiring up the calming, rational connections to the cortex. Their ability to stay cool and see consequences of their actions might be as tricky as your ability to stay calm when you are already late for work.
Another neurological principle is that when connections 'fire together they wire together'. Adolescence is a crucial time to develop good habits around activities like thinking positively, eating healthily and regular exercise, as it programs these habits to continue into adulthood. We know that the brain can change throughout life but it is much easier to get the wiring right at the start, during teenage years. It takes a bit more hard work to rewire as adults.4
A chiropractic adjustment ensures effective brain:body connection and communication.3
This is vital, because the brain needs to accurately perceive what is going on in the body in order to figure out exactly what it needs to do to keep you laughing, thinking, moving, sleeping, digesting and doing everything that makes you, you.
Recent studies3 show that chiropractic care can not only help with co-ordination, balance and muscle strength, but it even makes positive changes to the pre-frontal cortex.5
A well-adjusted teenager benefits the balance and ease of the whole family.
1. Moustafa, I. M., Youssef, A., Ahbouch, A., Tamim, M., & Harrison, D. E. (2020). Is forward head posture relevant to autonomic nervous system function and cervical sensorimotor control? Cross sectional study. Gait & Posture.
2. Morningstar, M. W., Pettibon, B. R., Schlappi, H., Schlappi, M., & Ireland, T. V. (2005). Reflex control of the spine and posture: a review of the literature from a chiropractic perspective. Chiropractic & osteopathy, 13(1), 16.
3. Haavik, H. (2014). The reality check. A quest to understand chiropractic from the inside out: Haavik research-heidihaavik.com.
4. Adolescent Brain Development. (2018, July). Retrieved from https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/
5. Lelic, D., Niazi, I.K., Holt, K., Jochumsen, M., Dremstrup, K., Yielder, P., Murphy, B., Drewes, A.M. and Haavik, H., (2016). Manipulation of dysfunctional spinal joints affects sensorimotor integration in the prefrontal cortex: A brain source localization study. Neural Plasticity, 2016.