In my therapy sessions with teens, I’ll often introduce the visual of a “mood meter, with a scale of 0 to 10. Zero is “the cool zone” or BLUE, the calmest mood, whereas 10 is “the hot zone” or RED—the worst imaginable mood. When clients tell me where they fall on the scale, I move my left arm up or down. If a client is getting activated or hurriedly giving lots of details about a story, I may shift the language and use color words RED, YELLOW, BLUE (as well as hand movements) to convey their emotional intensity.

When used regularly, I’ve found that a mood meter is a helpful way for teens to regulate their thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and behaviors. Teens can check in with themselves and ask “What am I feeling right now, and where am I on my mood meter?” You can also pose this question to the teens in your life. They might respond with something like, “I’m so angry about what happened. My shoulders are getting tense and I’m clenching my hands. This feels like an 8. I’m definitely nearing my RED zone.”

By labeling our feelings and sensations in the moment, we’re slowing down our reactivity and, stopping impulsive behaviors, and preventing negative consequences while moving towards making more conscious choices. We’re allowing a pause to happen, which gives us time to think through next steps. With clients, I demonstrate this pause by breathing audibly—inhaling, and exhaling—while sitting back in my chair with my shoulders back and my chin up. I tell them that before we react, it’s helpful to think about how to approach the issue at hand, to first answer the questions, “What’s the best way for me to handle this? What are my choices here? How do I want this to go?”

This problem-solving approach can help decrease the amount of time clients spend in a higher mood rating, decrease how often they feel reactive, and reduce elevated reactions if they’re triggered in the future. With practice, clients can stop and think, “I’ve been through this before.”

We learn to regulate our mood by becoming familiar with our triggers, developing different coping strategies that help us at each stage of our mood meter, and better matching our reactions to specific situations. Just like that, a mood meter can connect us to our feelings, thoughts, physical sensations, and behaviors and help us feel better sooner.

Breaking up is hard to do especially if you are a teen or a young adult. It is natural, even expected, to go through a range of painful emotions including shock, despair, anger, sadness, loneliness, and confusion. Poor adjustment to a breakup for teens is linked to depressive symptoms, anxiety, and rumination.

A breakup is often experienced as a huge loss. You may sense the loss of your routine, the loss of your identity as a “we” or an “us,” and the loss of your past and the future you thought you would have together. As teens, you are more susceptible to having challenges during a breakup as your brains are still developing and your bodies are changing quickly.

It’s common to feel sad and down for a while after a breakup. Major depressive disorder, or clinical depression, is different than normal sadness. Stressful life events, like a breakup, can trigger depression, especially if it came as a shock or after a betrayal. If your sadness is constant, is lasting at least 2 weeks long, and affects all aspects of your life (school, work, home, and other relationships), you may want to be evaluated for a Major Depressive Disorder by a Doctor or a licensed Mental Health Professional. It’s important to know what symptoms to look for and what symptoms to share with the trusted adults in your life.

To have clinical depression, you need to have several of the following:

* A depressed mood
* An “empty” feeling
* Angry outbursts, irritability, or frustration, even over small matters
* Tiredness and lack of energy
* General feelings of guilt or worthlessness
* Helplessness
* Hopelessness
* Loss of interest in things you previously enjoyed
* Reduced appetite and weight loss or increased cravings for food and weight gain
* Sleep problems including insomnia or sleeping too much
* Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions, and remembering things
* Slow moving or talking
* Restlessness
* Unexplained physical problems back pain or headaches
* Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, or suicide

When to seek help:

If you feel depressed, make an appointment to see your doctor or mental health professional as soon as possible. A doctor can evaluate if you need medication to treat your depressive symptoms. A therapist will use evidenced-based therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Dialectical Behavior Therapy to help you challenge the negative thoughts and replace them with more realistic and adaptive thought processes. If you think you may hurt yourself or attempt suicide, call 911 in the U.S. or go to your local emergency room immediately.

If you’re having suicidal thoughts:

* Call your doctor or mental health professional.
* Contact a suicide hotline: In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or use the Lifeline Chat. Services are free and confidential.
* U.S. veterans or service members who are in crisis can call 988 and then press “1” for the Veterans Crisis Line. Or text 838255. Or chat online.
* The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S. has a Spanish language phone line at 1-888-628-9454 (toll-free).