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Two teenagers, with the goal of becoming happier in the new year, did an experiment to see which expert-approved happiness habits helped them the most. From the study, they found that even the easiest and simplest tasks greatly increased their overall mood. 43 They started out with tasks such as making their bed. They found this habit gave them a sense of organization and productivity in the morning. Being active also helped with their mood, as dopamine releases in your brain when doing physical activity. They also found that taking time for their passions daily helped with their overall happiness. Focusing on the good by practicing gratitude and giving compliments released happy hormones.

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Happiness is something people can control, however many factors in your life have an effect on it, such as personality. If you are naturally grumpy, living a happy life may be more difficult. However, it is important to strive to be happy, because it can help you to be healthier, live a longer life, learn better, become more successful and reach goals easier. Happiness can increase by finding your strengths and using them in your daily life. 77 Achieving things and feeling proud of yourself while increasing your self-esteem, along with having healthy relationships will increase overall happiness.

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We all want to be happy. But we sometimes think of happiness as a thing that happens to us - something we have no control over. It's easy to link the idea of happiness with the situation we're in. We might tell ourselves, "If only things were different, then I'd be happy."

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Happiness and Wellbeing for Pre-Teens and Teenagers

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Happiness and Wellbeing for Pre-Teens and Teenagers

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An important part of happiness in teens and preteens is being in touch with emotions and having healthy social and emotional connections. Having clear rules and boundaries from others can help them feel safe and have the amount of privacy they need. For parents to help their teen be happy, they must praise their child and give them attention, while still encouraging them to be the best version of themselves and always try new things. Help them to have good habits and lifestyles, such as getting good exercise and eating healthy often. Have family rituals and traditions that bring family members closer together, and make sure contentions are quickly addressed and resolved.

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Happiness and wellbeing for pre-teens and teenagers

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Happy teenagers have warm relationships, try new things, have goals and focus on positive things in life. Get tips to boost teenage wellbeing and happiness.

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High School Popularity May Not Lead to Happiness

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High School Popularity May Not Lead to Happiness

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Studies have shown that popularity does not make teenagers happier. Instead, the happiest teens have been found to have just a few, close friends. Focusing on maintaining high-quality close friendships would make teens happier rather than focusing on maintaining peer preference. Having a strong, relationship that is reciprocated helps teens to be emotionally stable, having someone to always rely on. In the study, they asked a group of students the top ten and bottom ten students they would like to hang out with. They then interviewed the students picked the most, seeing if they were happy being popular or not. While they believed they were happy, there was a lot of stress to maintain a good image, while others did not have to.

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Teens with close friendships experienced mental benefits short and long term.

— -- Although high school students may think popularity is of the utmost importance, a new study found that it may not lead to long-term happiness.

What mattered more, according to the study published in the journal Child Development, is whether the teens had close friendships they maintained over time.

"Youth with higher levels of attachment to their best friends appear to have better psychological health, psychosocial adjustment, and even a more adaptive stress response during adolescence," the study authors said. "In general, adolescents with high-quality close friendships report higher rates of overall happiness than those without."

The study looked a group of students from the same school over time, to study the correlation between adolescent friendships and long-term mental health. Researchers at the University of Virginia began following the 169 high school students from diverse racial and economic backgrounds from the age of 15, over a 10-year period through young adulthood. They asked questions and conducted in-depth interviews to assess their feelings about their own social anxiety, social acceptance, self-worth and symptoms of depression.

The study used its own unique measures to assess these areas of mental health, however, so the findings may not be typical of the general population or follow the usual diagnostic criteria for depression or anxiety.

The students in the study were each asked to identify their closest friend, who was also interviewed to assess the strength of their friendship.

To assess popularity, researchers asked classmates to list the top and bottom ten peers with whom they would want to spend free time. In this case, popularity was measured by which students received the highest percentage of "most liked" rankings.

Teens who put an emphasis on "gaining or maintaining their peer affiliation preference rather than focusing on forming stronger close friendships" did not fare as well in the long-term. The authors said those teens may be have been more focused on status and short-term rewards or relationships, which do not have the same positive long-term emotional benefits as being in a reciprocal, positive friendship.

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High school popularity may not lead to happiness, study finds

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Teens with close friendships experienced mental benefits short and long term. - -- Although high school students may think popularity is of the utmost importance, a new study found that it may not lead to long-term happiness. What mattered more, according to the study published in the journal Child Development, is whether the teens had close friendships they maintained over time.

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Recent studies have shown that only 5% of teens get a healthy amount of sleep and exercise. In order to help raise this number, parents should encourage their teens to implement healthy habits in their life. First, parents should set strict rules around a bedtime, making sure no screens are used before going to sleep and that the child gets enough sleep. Finding a hobby that involves exercise can also help, allowing them to have passions and get exercise at the same time. Encourage your child to get outside in nature often. Make sure mealtimes are screen free and that there is plenty of quality family time. Also be sure to limit their time in front of a screen.

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default - Stanford Medicine Children’s Health

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When teens skimp on sleep and spend too much time sedentary, it can affect their overall health, their behavior, and even how well they do in school.

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Why Your Teen Should Replace Screen Time With Green Time

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Why Your Teen Should Replace Screen Time With Green Time

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Studies have shown that spending a long time in front of a screen each day greatly negatively affects a teen's mental health, especially on social media apps. Lowering the amount of screentime a teen used had no effect on the teen, however when they increased the amount they normally used, it had a significant negative impact. Researchers concluded that teens should be spending no more than two hours on screens. However, they found that adding exercise while still decreasing screen time positively affected the teen. These researchers encourage all teens to do a digital detox and really put in the effort to stay away from screens to protect their mental well-being.

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Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about how Instagram was affecting teen mental health. In particular, some internal studies at Facebook (which owns Instagram) appeared to confirm that when teen girls used the site, they suffered poorer body image and were at increased risk for depression and eating disorders.

But is social media use itself at fault for making teen mental health worse? While some studies suggest it is, others paint a more nuanced picture, finding it difficult to pinpoint problems with screen time itself versus other factors sometimes associated with social media use that may reduce teen well-being-like cyberbullying or social isolation. Plus, current conclusions are often based on data from a single point in time, which makes it hard to prove that extended screen time actually causes poorer mental health.

Now, findings from an international study on teens add more to this debate and point toward potential guidelines for screen use. Focusing on over 577,000 adolescents from 42 countries across Europe and North America, the study's results suggest that we might not have to worry about screen time in smaller doses, until it reaches a certain harmful level, and that exercise can play a protective role no matter how much time a teen spends on screens.

For the study, researchers used large-scale surveys four years apart (in 2006, 2010, and 2014). Teens between 11 and 15 years old reported on how much of their free time they spent regularly on screens, watching TV or YouTube videos, gaming, checking social media, chatting or emailing with friends, and surfing the internet. They also reported how many days a week they exercised, how satisfied they were with their lives, and about their mental health, noting how frequently they felt emotionally down, irritable, angry, or nervous, and how often they had difficulties falling asleep, dizziness, headaches, stomachaches, and backaches (physical symptoms associated with poor mental health).

Analyses showed that lower amounts of screen time had no effect on teen well-being. Girls who spent less than an hour on screens and boys who spent less than 90 minutes on screens were not negatively impacted by it. But at higher amounts of screen time, their life satisfaction dropped significantly-they were less happy with their lives, and it got worse the more time they spent. If screen time went above 105 minutes per day for boys or 75 minutes per day for girls, their mental health also got worse.

According to the lead author, Asaduzzaman Khan of the University of Queensland, Australia, these findings support the earlier guidelines issued by the American Pediatric Society, which suggests that teens not spend more than two hours on screens per day.

"If screen time goes beyond about two hours per day, there's a detrimental relationship with mental health," he says.

On the other hand, he adds, his study also found that teens who got more regular exercise had greater life satisfaction and fewer physical complaints for both genders. Not only that, the effects were largely unrelated to how much time a teen spent on screens, so that if teens exercised more, it could potentially undo the damage to their well-being that went along with even six or eight hours of screen time.

Khan says that this suggests a two-pronged approach to improving teen well-being.
"If we want to improve kids' mental health, we need to target both behaviors-to minimize screen time and maximize physical activity," says Khan. "If we are targeting just one behavior, then it might be a missed opportunity."

In the study, the greatest life satisfaction was reported by boys who had one to two hours of screen time a day and were active seven days per week, while girls who exercised every day and had less than an hour of screen time fared best-in line with Khan's suggested fix.

But Khan warns parents and others not to be overly concerned by his results...yet. There are limitations to the study, including uncertainty about the effects of different types of screen time on mental well-being. For example, it may be that scrolling through social media has a very different impact on well-being than playing video games, or that girls do better with one type of digital entertainment than boys. Some of his more current research (not yet published) supports this idea, he says, though clearly much more needs to be done before we can know all of the nuances of this.

Still, it does suggest that parents might want to encourage their teens to lessen screen time in favor of more exercise if they can. He suggests parents consider employing online tools that can alert teens (or anyone) when they've reached a reasonable limit on their screen time-such as after they've watched an hour of YouTube videos. Or it's a good idea, he says, to take planned breaks from all screens from time to time-a sort of "digital detox."

While it makes sense to promote this idea to teens, it may be easier said than done to change a teen's use of digital media-especially now, when COVID-19 has forced many teens online more than ever. Khan also notes that it's hard to impose restrictions on teens unless parents are role-modeling good behavior themselves.

"If I'm watching Netflix for five hours, it's nonsense to assume that my teen is going to go outside and do activities there," he says. "Parents and kids need to work together on this and figure out how to replace some of their screen time with 'green time.'"

Schools can also help improve adolescent well-being, he says. Too often, schools rely heavily on digital tools to teach or communicate with students, while not providing enough access to outdoor physical activities. Programs that encourage more exercise-like organizing bike riding commutes to school-could be a plus.

In the meantime, he and his colleagues hope to publish their next study, which may help provide more finely tuned recommendations on screen time, helping pediatricians and parents alike to make smart choices around children's well-being.

"We are very close to the time when we can make more precise guidelines that consider not only how overall time on screens impacts mental health, but how exposure to different types of screens affects it in different ways," he says. "That will help practitioners, parents, and kids understand what limits to set."

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Why Your Teen Should Replace Screen Time With Green Time

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A large new study looks at how much exercise and screen time teens get and how it relates to their mental health.