Complaining & Girls' Anxiety

We all have friendships based around a variety of things: shared activities, interests, or just flat out mutual liking. Sometimes friendships can become centered around complaining, and research covered by CBS News has shown that adolescent girls who have friendships like these often have an increase in their own anxiety levels. I think it would be easy to propose a quick solution like not talking about problems so often, but I think a better solution is to think about how adolescent girls, or even the rest of us, talk about and process our problems. We can use simple complaining, or we can make meaning out of our lives and experiences in a way that puts us more in touch with ourselves, rather than increasing our externally focused stress.