Teen Girls Anxiety: Why Nothing Has Worked And What Actually Does

Teen girls anxiety and overwhelm often resist "traditional" strategies, here's why. 

In this episode, discover why almost all mental health tools were built on male biology.  

What you'll learn: 

• The 28-day cycle that changes everything about how she experiences stress, connection, and regulation, 
• Why the scroll is a message, not the problem, and what the nervous system is actually hungry for
• One simple observation to start this week 

And finally understand why nothing has worked until you shift from strategy to what’s actually going on for her. 

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If today's episode landed for you, if you heard something that made you think yes, that's my daughter, that's exactly what's going on, then I want you to know there's a place where we go deeper on all of this together. It's called WTF - What's The Feeling - and it's my membership for mums who are ready to stop firefighting and start actually understanding what's going on. You'll find the link here. Come and have a look. I think you'll feel right at home.

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Wish your daughter had her own podcast to help understand what’s going on? Send her to Girl You’ve Got This - available on all major platforms.

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See you next time! 💛

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hiya, and welcome to this podcast, The Teen Whisperer, with me, Rach Friedley. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a fair while, you may notice something a little bit different today. Obviously, here I am on video, which is a big thing for me, a big change. It's still the same me, this is definitely not me. I am not AI, this is me. The same passion for mums of girls, but something has shifted, and I want to tell you why. Over the past few months, I've done a lot of work, not on the podcast as such, but on my whole framework, myself, on what I actually believe in, and what I have always known, but just been that little bit too scared to actually put out there, and honestly, on why what I do is different from everything else out there. And the answer keeps coming back to the same thing: it's girls, not teens in general, girls, not young people, guess what? Girls. Because girls are not small boys, they don't have a smaller version of a male nervous system, they run on a completely different biological operating system. A 28-day cycle instead of a 24-hour one. Different hormones, different stress responses, different energy, different knees, week by week by week, month by month, and almost nobody in this space is talking about it. That's the facelift. That's the reframe. That's what you will hear woven into every single episode from here onwards. Not as a health lecture and definitely not as biology, just as a thing that finally makes sense. So whether you've been here from the beginning or whether this is the first time you found me, welcome or welcome back. I think you're gonna like where this is going. So you know this. You've tried everything. You've tried the conversations, you've tried the calm ones, you've tried the cheerful ones, you've tried the angry ones, the ones where you stayed completely measured, and the ones where you completely lost it, and then laid awake hours afterwards going over every single word. Could I have done this? What could I have done differently? Could I have fixed that? What look dig. You've read the books, you've listened to those other podcasts, you've joined the Facebook groups, you've bought the courses, you've implemented the strategies, you've spoken to the school, you've spoken to college, you've spoken to university, you've googled you've googled symptoms at midnight, and you've wondered whether to call the GP. You've sat outside her bedroom door and just waited, waited for what? I don't know, but you've waited, and she's still not okay. You're still not okay, and nothing, nothing has actually changed. So here's what I want to say to you today, right at the start, before anything else, before I teach you a single thing, before I explain a single concept, it didn't work because it wasn't built for her, it was built for someone else, and that is what this episode and this podcast from here onwards is gonna unpick. So I want to take a minute here because before we get into any of the biology and any of the framework, any of the tools, because I know what it feels like to have tried everything and still feel you're like you're failing as a mum. That feeling, that particular exhaustion, particular kind of loneliness where you don't want to worry anyone, but you're absolutely petrified underneath it all. This is the most common thing I hear mums from the hear from the mums that I work with. And the most unspoken. Everyone's got an opinion, you know those people, those well-meaning friends and family. Everyone's got advice, those professionals, and somehow none of it has landed. Or it lands for a week and then absolutely, then everything absolutely goes back to how it was. Or it works brilliant for somebody else, but does nothing for your daughter. And you start to wonder: is it me? Am I the problem? Did I do something wrong? Should I have done more sooner, differently? But here's what I need you to hear. You are not the problem, and neither is your daughter. You never were. The advice, the tools, the frameworks, and the strategies that were handed to you as the answer, almost all of it was built on the wrong body. So here's the thing that nobody ever says. And it's the thing that once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Almost everything we know about stress, the nervous systems, behaviour, mental health, almost all the research, the models, all the interventions was built on male biology. Male bodies, male hormones. Boys run on a 24-hour cycle. Testosterone peaks in the morning, dips throughout the day, resets overnight, job done. That's the cycle almost all stress research is based on. That's the cycle most therapeutic models were developed for. That's the cycle the school day is designed around. Your daughter works on a 28-day cycle. Whether or not she's menstruating, just gonna add that in there. Not a 24-hour one, a 28-day one. Her energy shifts, her mood shifts, her stress tolerance, the amount of pressure her nervous system can handle before it starts to buckle. Shifts. Her need for connection shifts. Her need for solitude shifts. Her appetite, her sleep, her capacity to learn, her ability to regulate herself, guess what? It all shifts, it all moves and shifts and changes across those four distinct weeks. And not one of the strategies anyone has ever given you was built around it. Not one. So when somebody hands you a technique and it works brilliantly one week and then blows up in your face the next, isn't because there's something that you did wrong. It's her butt that her body wasn't in a completely different space than when it was a week ago. And the technique had no idea. That is the first thing. The second thing is this. We've spent the last decade, possibly longer, trying to solve a tech problem with talk-based tools. And it has not worked. Not because the tools are bad, but because they're aimed at the wrong place. The scroll is not the problem. The dysregulated nervous system underneath it is. Her phone is not a habit she needs to break. It is a symptom of a nervous system running on empty. Reaching for the only available source of stimulation, connection, and regulation she can find. And in towns and villages and rural communities like where I live, where there is no bus, no youth club, and genuinely nothing to do after four o'clock, the phone isn't a habit, it's her only window to the world. You cannot take that away without giving her something better to reach for first. And almost everything you've been handed, screen time rules, the phone free bedrooms, social media bands, takes it away without replacing it. And so her nervous system, still running on empty, still hungry, still searching, just finds another way to cope. And usually that's a worse one. That is the second thing. So what does work? Do you know what? I'm so glad you asked. The whole body reset. This is the framework that runs through everything I do and everything on this podcast. And it starts with one foundational truth. You cannot think your way out of a nervous system problem. And this is why all those tech strategies do not work. Logic does not land when you're in mode. You have to move your way through it literally, physically, bodily, as I am right now on the ball, that is my chair. The nervous system is not a mindset, it is a physical system. It lives in the body, it responds to the body and it recovers through the body. So while the world has been handing our daughters journaling prompts and breathing apps and CBT worksheets, all of which have their place, I'm not dissing them here. The nervous system has been sitting there completely unchanged, still running the same patterns, still reaching for the same phone, because nothing has actually reached where it lives. This is where the whole body's reset comes in. It reaches where it lives. It does this through six things, which I'm gonna name now quickly, and we'll go deep on each one across the episodes to come. So the first one is sleep, not just the hours, the biology behind it. What dysregulation does to her sleep and what poor sleep does to her dysregulation. It's a loop, and we're gonna learn how to break it. Number two, you've got food, blood sugar, the gut brain connection, how what we what she eats shows up and how she feels. Nobody is connecting the dots for mums. We're gonna connect them. Movement, not PE, not a fitness plan, not sport as such, movement that discharges stress from the body, she says, bouncing again, because that is literally what it was designed to do. And what it looks like for a teenager who won't leave her room. We're gonna get into that as well. Breath, the most immediate reset she has, and not just oh, just breathe, as people say, no, about learning how to breathe, how to calm yourself down in the moment. It's not rocket science, and it is simple. It's the fastest way to tell the nervous system it's safe. Do it anywhere, anytime, any day, whatever. Barefoot contact and the senses. What we took away and what we kept when we kept her inside, cushioned her from the world and handed her a screen. What the body was designed to feel, what happens when it doesn't, this is what we'll get into. And connection, real connection, not likes, not streaks, the thing the nervous system is actually striving for and hungry for, and what it looks like and actually feels like in the body. All six of these fit within the girl, the girls are girls lens, because the way she needs movement in her energy week is different to the way she needs movement in her hiding week. The food that supports her through the volatile week is different to the food she reaches for when she's at homosocial. Sleep looks different, breath looks different, even connection looks different. And once you can see that, once you can read where she is in her cycle and understand what her body is actually asking for, the guesswork stops, the conflict reduces, and you stop taking it personally because it was never personal, it's just her biology. So this week I want you to take away one thing, and yep, that's literally what I'm meaning. One thing, not a strategy, not a conversation, one observation. I want you to start noticing the pattern, not to fix anything, just notice it. So over the next four weeks, keep a very simple note on your phone, in a notebook, wherever suits you the best. Of the days where she feels more like herself, more reachable, more up for things, and the days where she's more withdrawn, more tired, more reactive, and harder to reach. And don't say anything to her, don't change anything yet. Just watch and observe. Because what you're likely gonna see is a pattern, and once you see it, once you say, Oh, this is the week she disappears, or this is the week where it's always easier, everything changes, and by the way, it works for you too. You stop firefighting, you stop fighting the wave, you start reading it, you stop second guessing. That's where we're going. So here's what I want you to carry with you from today. Nothing has worked because it wasn't built for her. Not because you didn't try hard enough, not because she's broken, as people keep saying, not because you missed something and there's something wrong. Because the advice was wrong, the model was wrong, it was built on a body that isn't hers. And from here, every week, every episode, we're gonna build on something that actually is. So I'm so glad you're here with me on this podcast. It's friggin' awesome that you've joined me in this new revamped, reframed, whatever you want to call it, podcast. And if today's episode has landed for you and you want to go deeper with the community, the tools, the biology all in one place, that's WTF. What's the feeling is where we do that real work together. The link is in the show notes, and come find us when you're ready. So, yeah, if you like what you hear, please hit subscribe, leave me a review, and let's get this podcast out there to all mums of girls who need to hear this. So, yeah, have a wonderful week and see you next week.

unknown 14:55

Bye bye.