A new type of “game-changing” mental health therapy can help teenagers stop overthinking, a new study suggests.
Overthinking, also known as rumination, is known to be one of the biggest risk factors for depression and anxiety – studies show it affects about 44 percent of American teenagers.
These thought patterns include obsessing over the future, but also regretting events and behavior from the past.
The latest study used brain scans to show that a certain type of cognitive behavioral therapy can reduce connectivity between parts of the brain associated with obsessive thinking and break the negative thought loop.
Ten to fourteen sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy that focused on rumination reduced the teenage participants’ focus on negative experiences, which caused them to experience severe anxiety and fear.
Experts have found strikingly positive results for a new type of cognitive behavioral therapy that can change connections in the brain to reduce symptoms of depression
The findings – prepared by psychiatrists at Ohio State University and the University of Utah – expanded on previous research by British and American scientists that showed adults with depression benefited from the approach. These findings were described as “groundbreaking” by the scientific website Science Daily.
Depression affects 21 million American adults and nearly 4 million adolescents. It is one of the most expensive diseases to treat and the biggest risk factor for suicide, the fourth leading cause of death among young adults worldwide.
Current treatments, including antidepressants and standard cognitive behavioral therapy, only work for a third to half of teenagers.
An estimated 55 percent of adults treated for depression experience recurrent episodes.
Nearly a third of all American high school students report suffering from poor mental health. Young women suffer the most: in 2021, 40 percent report emotional or psychiatric problems
Dr. Rachel Jacobs, a professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University who conducted the first series of studies on this intervention in 2016, said: “As a clinician, I have consistently observed that standard CBT tools such as cognitive restructuring do not provide young people with the tools gave a hand to break.” “to get out of painful mental vicious circles” that contribute to the experience of depression.
“If we could find a way to do this, we could potentially help young people stay healthy during the transition to adulthood, which has become even more important since we’ve seen the impact of Covid-19 on mental health.”
Researchers believe that introducing rumination-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (RF-CBT) in combination with traditional therapy could significantly reduce the number of millions of young people who eventually become chronically depressed.
One in THREE people have ever had clinical depression
A record one in three people have experienced clinical depression at some point in their lives, and the percentage of adults diagnosed with depression is 29 percent, almost 10 percentage points higher than in 2015.
They enrolled 76 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 with a history of depression and divided them into two groups: 39 underwent RF-CBT and 37 did not.
Each participant underwent a brain scan before and after the study and took a survey to measure the frequency of rumination.
At the end of the intervention, 35 of the 39 RF-CBT patients experienced a decrease in their rumination scores, with an average decrease of about 18 percent.
Meanwhile, 28 of 36 people who received standard depression treatment saw their scores decrease, and the average decrease was much smaller: less than two percent.
In addition, MRI scans also showed improvements.
However, the study did not measure changes in depression or anxiety levels.
Specifically, the researchers found a reduction in connectivity between the left posterior cingulate cortex – responsible for memory, including imagining the future – and two other regions: the right inferior frontal gyrus and the right inferior temporal gyrus.
These zones control various cognitive functions, including working memory, impulse control and decision making, as well as our ability to create and store visual memories.
Previous research has shown that reducing connectivity between these regions reduces the types of repetitive thought processes that cause mental health problems.
Dr Ed Watkins, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Exeter, who developed RF-CBT, said: “For the first time, this paper shows that the version of rumination-focused CBT we developed at the University of Exeter lead to changes in cognitive behavioral therapy.” .Connectivity in brain areas in adolescents with a history of depression.
The CDC found that one in 10 American high school students attempted suicide in 2021, up from 8.9 percent the year before. Women were the hardest hit: 13.3 percent attempted suicide that year
“This is exciting because it suggests that this cognitive behavioral therapy may help patients more easily control rumination or make it less of a habit.” We desperately need new ways to reduce rumination in this group and things to improve the mental health of our young people.”
Their results were published in the journal Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science.
Mental health care for young people experienced a decline during the pandemic due to prolonged isolation from school and social activities.
A 2021 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than a third of high school students reported poor mental health during the pandemic and 44 percent reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless.
Recent figures reflecting the general population show that the overall suicide rate in the US will peak in 2022 – an increase 16 percent since 2011.
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
