The following is the introduction to my published research dissertation on how mindfulness affects preadolescent children playing sports. The link to the published work is here and available for free to the public:
How Mindfulness Affects Preadolescent Children Playing Sports – Faeder (2022)
In modern Western culture, it appears that the experience of stress is becoming commonplace (American Psychological Association, 2019). Young people, who may not have the social and emotional tools to approach the challenging feelings of stress in a healthy way, seem to be at the highest risk. Approximately 1 in 3 teenagers suffer from anxiety-related disorders during adolescence (McCarthy, 2019), a statistic that is trending upwards over the last 10 years.
Rollo May (1977), a renowned humanistic psychologist and philosopher, stated that stress is often experienced as the sensation of a directed pressure. This is akin to the original contextual utilization of the word as a mechanical engineering term delineating force placed upon an object. Human beings feel stress coming from a source, even when the origin of the source may not be known.
For May (1977), feeling stress is an inevitable human experience when interacting with the world. Poor stress management, however, can become the precursor to anxiety. May (1977) defined anxiety as a stronger sense of unease often associated with deeper existential threats to a sense of self. Learning to positively engage with stress through mindfulness training may be helpful to approach anxiety and other complex mental and emotional health concerns that may stem from stress (Faeder, 2020a).