How Does MDMA Affect Teenagers
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A teenager is not a small adult, and that simple fact is the key to understanding what MDMA does to young people. The teenage brain is still being built. The parts that handle planning, judgement and self-control are among the last to finish growing, and they keep developing well into the twenties. The teenage body is still growing too, and so is the teenager’s emotional life: moods swing more widely, friendships matter more, and the need to fit in can feel overwhelming. When a drug like MDMA arrives in the middle of all that building work, it does not meet a finished system. It meets a system under construction, and the disruption it causes can reach further and last longer than it would in an older person.
MDMA is a stimulant that floods the brain with chemical messengers, most notably serotonin, which shapes mood, sleep and appetite. The rush of energy and closeness that people describe comes from that flood, and the low mood, tiredness and anxiety that follow in the days after come from the shortage that follows it. For a teenager, whose brain chemistry is already shifting and settling, that swing is harder to absorb. This article explains, in plain words, how MDMA affects teenagers: the developing brain, mood and sleep, memory and school, friends and pressure, and the body under strain. It is general information only, not personal medical advice. If you are worried about a teenager, or about your own use, a qualified health professional or a drug support service is the right place to turn.
A Brain That Is Still Being Built
The teenage brain is a work in progress, and that is not a weakness. It is the reason teenagers can learn quickly, adapt to new things, and feel the world so strongly. But it also means the brain is more sensitive to anything that disturbs its chemistry. During the teenage years, the brain is busy strengthening the connections it uses most and trimming away the ones it does not, a process that shapes how a person will think and feel as an adult. The area at the front of the brain, which handles planning, weighing consequences and resisting impulses, is one of the last areas to mature. That is why teenagers can be brilliant at learning and at the same time poor at judging risk. It is not a flaw in their character. It is the stage their brains are at.
MDMA interferes with this building work by flooding the brain with serotonin and then leaving it depleted. Serotonin is not only a mood chemical. It helps regulate sleep, appetite, memory and learning, and in a developing brain it also plays a part in how connections between brain cells are formed. When a drug forces a huge release of serotonin and then leaves the system drained, the brain’s normal rhythm is broken. The immediate effect is the rush people seek. The longer effect is a brain that has to recover its balance, and in a teenager that recovery happens in a system that is still learning how to balance itself. Research that follows young people over time has linked early drug use with poorer memory and attention later, and while no single study proves a simple cause for every person, the pattern is consistent enough to take seriously.
The point is not that one use ruins a brain. The point is that the teenage brain has more to lose from disruption than an adult brain, because it is still laying down the foundations. A teenager who uses MDMA regularly is asking a developing brain to cope with chemical swings it was never designed for, and to do so at the exact age when memory, judgement and emotional control are being built for adult life. That is why health guidance treats drug use in teenagers as more serious than the same use in adults, and why the risks are described as higher, not lower, for young people.
The Crash: Mood in the Days After
Ask anyone who has used MDMA about the days after, and the story is usually the same: the high is followed by a low. The energy drains away, the mood sinks, sleep is broken, and ordinary things feel flat and grey. This is often called the comedown, and it happens because the brain has used up much of its serotonin and needs time to build it back. For a day or two, sometimes longer, the person feels tired, irritable, anxious and low. Food tastes dull, music sounds flat, and the world feels a little colourless. For an adult, this is unpleasant. For a teenager, whose moods are already less steady, it can be much harder.
Teenagers are still learning how to handle their feelings. A bad week at school, an argument with a friend, or a disappointment can already feel enormous at that age, and the emotional tools for coping with those feelings are still being learned. Add a drug-induced crash on top, and the low mood can feel overwhelming. Some teenagers describe feeling empty or tearful for days after use, without quite knowing why. Others become snappy and withdrawn, arguing with family over small things, or shutting themselves in their room. The crash does not only affect the person who used the drug. It affects the whole household, which has to live with the silence, the slammed doors and the sudden tears.
With repeated use, the pattern gets worse. The lows become deeper, and they last longer, because the brain has less and less time to recover between uses. Some young people begin to rely on the drug to feel good, because ordinary life feels flat by comparison, and that is the beginning of a cycle that is hard to break. Over months, regular use is linked with higher rates of anxiety and depression, and while the relationship runs in both directions, because anxious and unhappy teenagers are also more likely to try drugs, the evidence is clear that the drug itself adds to the problem. A teenager who already struggles with low mood is taking a drug that makes low mood worse in the days after, and that is a dangerous combination.
The crash also damages friendships, which are the most important thing in most teenagers’ lives. A young person who feels low and tired for days after use starts cancelling plans, ignoring messages, and staying in their room instead of meeting friends. The friends notice, and they drift away, or they assume the person no longer likes them. The teenager, feeling low, reads the distance as rejection, and withdraws further. It is a lonely cycle, and it is one that the drug itself creates: the high promises closeness, and the crash delivers isolation. A teenager who uses MDMA regularly can end up lonelier than they were before they started, surrounded by people at parties and alone in the days between them.
Memory, Attention and School
School is where the effects of MDMA often show up first, and teachers are frequently the first adults to notice that something has changed. A teenager who used to follow lessons easily begins to lose track in class. They forget homework, they struggle to remember what they studied the night before, and their concentration slips away in the middle of a task. This is not laziness. MDMA affects the brain’s ability to form and hold memories, and it does so in two ways: directly, by disturbing the chemistry that memory depends on, and indirectly, by wrecking sleep, which is when the brain stores what it has learned during the day.
Sleep matters more for learning than most teenagers realise. During deep sleep, the brain sorts through the day’s experiences and moves the important ones into long-term memory. A night on MDMA, followed by a day or two of broken sleep, robs the brain of that sorting time. Lessons that should have been stored are lost, and the teenager sits in the next class with a gap where the learning should be. Over weeks of regular use, those gaps add up. The student falls behind, and falling behind makes school feel pointless, which makes it easier to give up on studying altogether. It is a quiet slide, and by the time exam results arrive, the damage has been done for months.
The effects on attention are just as real. Teenagers who use MDMA regularly often report that they cannot focus for long, that their mind wanders, and that they find it hard to finish things they start. Reading a chapter feels like wading through mud. Revision feels impossible. These are the same difficulties that adults report after heavy use, but in a teenager they land at the exact moment when school demands the most focus: the years of exams, choices about the future, and applications for jobs or further study. A few bad terms at that age can change the options a young person has for years afterwards, and that is a cost that is easy to underestimate until it is too late.
Exams make the problem sharper still, because exams cannot be postponed until the brain feels ready. A teenager who has spent the term tired, distracted and low walks into an exam hall with less in their memory than they should have, and the result reflects that, not their real ability. They may know the subject, but the knowledge is not there when they need it, because it was never stored properly. The disappointment that follows can be crushing, and it can confirm a belief that school is not for them, when the real problem was the drug. A young person who decides they are not clever enough, when the truth is that they were too tired and too distracted to learn, has been misled by the drug twice over: once when it stole the learning, and again when it stole the confidence.
Friends, Pressure and Taking Risks
MDMA is rarely a solitary drug. It is usually taken with friends, at parties, festivals and late-night gatherings, and that social setting is a big part of its pull for teenagers. At an age when belonging matters more than almost anything else, being offered a pill by friends can feel like a test. Saying no can feel like saying you are not one of the group. Saying yes can feel like acceptance. That pressure is powerful, and it is made stronger by the fact that teenagers are already more likely to take risks than adults, because the part of the brain that weighs consequences is still developing while the part that seeks reward is already running at full speed.
Under the influence of MDMA, judgement becomes weaker still. The drug lowers caution and makes risks feel smaller than they are. A teenager who would normally think twice about walking home alone late at night, getting into a car with someone who has been drinking, or trusting a stranger at a party, may not think twice at all. Decisions about safety, about who to trust, and about how to get home are made in a state where the brain’s warning system is turned down. The dangers that follow are not only about the drug itself. They are about everything else that can go wrong when a young person stops being careful in a place full of strangers.
There is also the question of what is actually in the pill. Substances sold as MDMA are often mixed with other chemicals, and a teenager has no way of knowing what they are really taking. A pill that looks like MDMA can contain other stimulants, or substances that are far more dangerous, and the effects can be stronger and less predictable than expected. This is not a problem that careful buying can solve, because street drugs are not labelled, tested or regulated. A young person who takes MDMA is taking a gamble on the contents as well as on their own body’s reaction, and that gamble is one that teenagers, with their weaker sense of risk, are least equipped to judge.
The Body Under Strain
MDMA is a stimulant, and it puts the body under real strain. The heart beats faster, blood pressure rises, the body runs hotter, and the muscles stay tense. The jaw clenches and the teeth grind, often for hours, leaving a sore jaw and headaches the next day. Sweating is heavy, the mouth dries out, and the appetite disappears. Nausea is common, and some people feel sick or shaky as the drug wears off. For a teenager, whose body is still growing and whose heart and temperature control are still maturing, that strain is harder to carry than it would be for a fully grown adult.
The most serious physical risk is overheating. MDMA raises body temperature, and in a hot, crowded room where a teenager is dancing for hours, the body can struggle to cool itself down. Sweating helps, but only if the body has enough fluid, and teenagers who are dancing and distracted often forget to drink, or drink too little. When the body overheats, it can become a medical emergency, with confusion, collapse and, in the worst cases, damage to the organs. This is not a rare warning that only applies to other people. It is the risk that causes the most serious harm from MDMA, and young people, who are more likely to be in hot, crowded settings and less likely to pace themselves, are among the most exposed to it.
Mixing MDMA with alcohol makes everything worse, and teenagers are more likely to mix than adults, because drinking and drug use often happen at the same parties. Alcohol adds dehydration, it dulls judgement further, and it makes the heart work harder. It also makes it harder for a person to notice when something is going wrong with their own body. A teenager who has been drinking as well as taking MDMA is less likely to recognise the warning signs of overheating or distress, and less likely to ask for help in time. The combination is more dangerous than either substance alone, and it is a combination that turns up again and again in the stories of young people who have come to harm.
The general health of a teenager who uses MDMA regularly also tends to slide. Appetite disappears during use and stays low for a day or two afterwards, so meals are skipped and the body goes without proper food at the age when it needs it most. Sleep is broken for days, and the tiredness that follows makes exercise and fresh air feel like too much effort. Colds and other minor illnesses seem to come more often, because a tired, underfed body fights infection less well. The teeth suffer too, from the jaw clenching and the dry mouth, and a sore jaw can make eating painful for days. None of these things is dramatic on its own, but together they leave a young person run down, pale, and tired in a way that teachers and parents can see even when they do not know the cause.
Why the Risks Feel Smaller to Teenagers
One of the hardest things about MDMA and teenagers is that the risks feel small to the people taking them. Teenagers often feel invulnerable. Bad things happen to other people, in other places, not to them and their friends. When a group of friends uses MDMA and nothing terrible happens, the lesson they take away is that it is safe, and each safe night makes the next one feel safer still. What they do not see is the slow damage: the memory that is a little worse, the mood that is a little lower, the schoolwork that is slipping. Those changes are quiet, and they are easy to blame on anything else, a bad term, a difficult teacher, a run of bad luck.
Social media adds to the problem. The pictures and videos that circulate after a party show the dancing, the lights, the closeness, the good time. They do not show the comedown, the sleepless nights, the arguments at home, or the exam that went badly because revision never happened. A teenager looking at those pictures sees only the fun, and the fun looks worth it. The harm is invisible, because nobody posts a photograph of their low mood on a Tuesday morning, or of their jaw aching, or of their mother crying because she does not know what is wrong with her child. The full story is never told in the pictures, and that makes the drug look far safer than it is.
Adults do not always help, either. Many parents know little about MDMA, or they assume their child would never touch it, or they are afraid to raise the subject because they do not want to plant the idea. Schools may cover drugs in a single lesson that feels distant from real life. The result is that teenagers often learn about MDMA from their friends, who know the least about it and are the most likely to play down the risks. A young person who has never had an honest conversation with an adult about what MDMA actually does is making their decision with half the facts, and that is a poor way to make any decision, let alone one about a drug that affects the brain.
The first use often happens in a setting that makes the drug look harmless. A festival, a big party, a night where everyone is laughing and dancing and nobody seems to be in trouble. The music is loud, the lights are bright, and the people who have taken MDMA look happy and full of energy. Nothing in that scene warns the teenager watching it that the same people will be low and exhausted for days afterwards, or that their memory will be worse at school next week. The harm is not visible in the moment, and that is exactly what makes the first use so easy. A teenager who only ever sees the good hours, and never sees the bad days, is judging the drug on half the evidence, and the half they are missing is the half that matters most.
What Carries Into Adult Life
The teenage years shape the adult that follows. The habits formed at sixteen or seventeen, the friendships, the results at school, the way a person learns to handle feelings, all of these carry forward. When MDMA becomes part of those years, it leaves marks that do not disappear when the teenage years end. A young person who has used the drug regularly may arrive at adult life with a weaker memory, a tendency towards low mood, and a habit of reaching for a substance when feelings become hard. None of these things is a life sentence, and people recover, but recovery takes time, and the years lost to the drug are not given back.
School results are one of the clearest examples. The grades a teenager earns decide which doors open next: further study, training, a first job. A student who falls behind because of drug use may find those doors closing, not because they are not clever enough, but because the years when it mattered most were spent tired, distracted and low. Friendships change too. The friends made around drug use often fade when the drug use stops, and the friendships that could have lasted, built on shared interests rather than shared nights out, may never have had the chance to grow. Family trust is another casualty. Parents who have discovered drug use, and the lies that often go with it, can take years to trust again, and that loss of trust changes the relationship long after the drug use ends.
The earlier someone starts, the longer the exposure, and the more years there are for the harm to add up. That is the simplest reason why MDMA is more dangerous for teenagers than for adults, and it is the reason health guidance is so firm about young people. An adult who starts using at thirty has a finished brain, a settled life and a shorter window of risk. A teenager who starts at sixteen has a developing brain, an unsettled life and a decade of risk ahead. The drug does not care about age, but the body does, and the younger body pays the higher price. That is a fact worth knowing before the first pill, not after the tenth.
My Take:
I will be honest about where I stand on this. I do not think teenagers who use MDMA are bad young people, and I do not think they are foolish. I think they are young people making a decision with half the facts, under pressure from friends, in a world that shows them only the fun side of the drug. Most of them have never been told, plainly and without a lecture, what MDMA does to a developing brain. They have heard warnings, but warnings are easy to ignore when they sound like they were written by someone who has never been to a party. What they have not heard is an honest account: this is what it does to your memory, this is how you will feel on Tuesday, this is what it does to your schoolwork. I think that honesty is what is missing, and I think it would change minds.
The developing brain is the part I feel most strongly about, because it is the part that teenagers cannot see and cannot feel. A teenager can feel a sore jaw. They can feel a headache. They cannot feel their brain finishing its growth, and they cannot feel a drug disturbing that growth. That invisibility is what makes the risk so easy to dismiss. But the brain is the most important thing a teenager owns. It is the tool they will use for every exam, every job, every relationship and every decision for the rest of their lives. Asking a developing brain to cope with chemical floods and crashes is like asking a half-built house to survive a storm. It might stand, but it will not be as strong as it should have been, and the weakness will show up later, in ways that are hard to trace back to the cause.
School is the place where I see the cost most clearly, because school is where a teenager’s future is decided, day by day. A student who cannot concentrate, who cannot remember what they studied, who is too tired and low to revise, is a student whose options are narrowing, and they may not even realise it is happening. I think about the teenager who fails an exam they could have passed, and the course they cannot take, and the job they cannot apply for, and I think about how much of that loss began with a pill at a party. It is not fair, and it is not the teenager’s fault alone, because nobody told them the full price. But it is real, and it is lasting, and I wish more people said so out loud.
Parents are the people I think about next, because they are often the last to know and the first to blame themselves. A mother notices her child is quieter, or angrier, or struggling at school, and she wonders what she did wrong. A father sees the grades falling and assumes laziness. The truth is usually simpler and sadder: the teenager is using a drug, and the drug is doing what it does, and nobody in the house knows. I do not think parents should blame themselves. I think they should trust what they see. If your child has changed, if the mood has darkened, if the schoolwork has slipped, if the sleep is broken and the friends have changed, then something is happening, and it is worth a calm, honest conversation. Not an interrogation, and not a shouting match, but a real talk, with listening on both sides.
I think the way adults talk about drugs needs to change, because the current way is not working. Lectures do not work. Scare stories do not work, because teenagers can see when a story has been exaggerated, and once they spot one exaggeration, they stop believing the rest. What works, in my view, is honesty: plain facts, told without panic, by someone the teenager respects. This is what the drug does. This is how you will feel afterwards. This is what it does to your memory and your schoolwork. This is why the risks are higher for you than for an adult. And then, crucially, listening to the teenager’s answer, instead of talking over it. A teenager who feels heard is far more likely to listen than one who feels lectured, and that is a truth about young people that adults forget too often.
Friends and pressure are the part of this story that I find hardest, because belonging matters so much at that age. A teenager who says no to a pill is not only refusing a drug. They are risking the feeling of being outside the group, and at sixteen, that can feel like the worst thing in the world. I understand that, and I do not think it is weak to feel it. But I also think teenagers deserve to know that real friends do not need a drug to stay friends, and that the group that only accepts you when you take a pill is not a group worth belonging to. That is easy for an adult to say and hard for a teenager to believe, which is why it needs to be said by someone the teenager trusts, and said more than once. The pressure does not disappear after one conversation. It has to be answered again and again, and the teenager needs to know that saying no is an option that will be respected, not mocked.
I am often asked what a teenager should do if they have already used MDMA and are worried. My honest answer is: talk to someone, and do not carry it alone. That someone could be a parent, a teacher, a school counsellor, a doctor, or a drug support service. It does not have to be a confession, and it does not have to lead to punishment. It can simply be a conversation that starts with, I have been using something, and I am worried about how it is affecting me. That is a brave thing to say, and it is the first step towards getting help. The longer a young person carries the worry alone, the heavier it gets, and the harder it becomes to stop. Asking for help is not a sign of failure. It is a sign of sense, and it is the single most useful thing a teenager in this position can do.
I also want to say something about hope, because this article has been full of warnings and I do not want to leave the impression that the damage cannot be undone. Young brains are still growing, and that growth is also a strength, because it means the brain can recover. A teenager who stops using MDMA gives their brain the chance to rebuild its balance, and memory, mood and sleep usually improve over weeks and months. Schoolwork can be caught up. Friendships can be rebuilt. The body recovers. None of that happens overnight, and it does not happen without effort, but it does happen, and it happens more easily the earlier someone stops. The worst decision a young person can make is to believe that it is too late. It is not too late. The brain is forgiving when it is given the chance, and the chance starts with stopping.
The mood crash is the part I would most want teenagers to understand before they ever try MDMA, because it is the part that surprises them most. They expect a good night, and they get one, but they do not expect the days after, when the world feels grey, when they snap at their family, when they cannot sleep properly, when they feel empty for no clear reason. That crash is not a flaw in the person. It is the drug doing what it does, draining the brain’s chemistry and leaving it to recover. Knowing that in advance changes the decision, because the decision is no longer about one night. It is about one night plus three bad days, and when you put it that way, the night looks less appealing. I wish someone had put it that way to every teenager before their first time.
I think it is worth saying what a good night can look like without MDMA, because teenagers are sometimes told to say no without being told what yes looks like instead. Music, dancing, friends, laughter, staying out late, all of it is possible without a pill, and the morning after is better too: a clear head, a proper night’s sleep, a mood that belongs to you rather than to a drug. I am not pretending that a night without drugs is the same as a night with them. It is not the same, and teenagers know it. But it is real, it is yours, and it does not send you a bill in the days that follow. That trade, a slightly less intense night for three good days afterwards, is one I think most teenagers would take if someone laid it out for them honestly.
I think about the future these young people are heading towards, and I want it to be a good one. Teenagers deserve a fair start, and a fair start means a brain that has been allowed to finish growing, a memory that works properly, and school results that reflect what they are capable of. MDMA takes a little of each of those things, and it takes them quietly, without asking permission. That is why I feel so strongly that the facts should be shared early, honestly and without judgement. Not to frighten teenagers, but to equip them, so that when the pill is offered, they have something solid to weigh it against, and the choice they make is a real choice, made with the full picture in front of them.
If you are a teenager reading this, I would say one thing directly to you. You do not need a drug to have a good time, to feel close to your friends, or to be accepted. The closeness that MDMA creates is borrowed, and it fades within hours, leaving you lower than you started. The closeness that comes from real friendship, from shared jokes, shared music, shared days, lasts far longer and costs nothing. Your brain is still building itself, and it is doing a remarkable job. Give it the chance to finish. You have your whole life ahead of you, and the choices you make now will shape it in ways you cannot yet see. Make them with the facts in your hands, not with a pill in your pocket.
If you are a parent, I would add this. The most powerful thing you can do is not to police your teenager, but to keep the conversation open. A teenager who believes they can tell you the truth without being shouted at is a teenager who will tell you when something goes wrong. A teenager who fears your reaction will hide it, and hiding is where the real danger begins. So talk about drugs before there is a problem, calmly, honestly, and without panic. Ask what your child has heard, and what their friends are doing, and listen to the answer without interrupting. You may not like what you hear, but hearing it is far better than not knowing. The conversation you have now may be the one that saves your child from a decision they would regret.
Finally, I would say this to anyone who works with young people, teachers, youth workers, coaches, and all the rest. Teenagers are watching what you do far more than they are listening to what you say, and they can tell the difference between someone who cares and someone who is going through the motions. If you can be the adult who tells the truth about drugs, plainly and without judgement, and who listens when a young person speaks, you may be the person who changes a life. That is a big responsibility, and it is also a great opportunity. Young people are not waiting to be lectured. They are waiting to be told the truth by someone they trust. Be that person, and the facts in this article will do the rest.
There is one more thing I want to add, about the words teenagers hear most often: everyone is doing it. It is the argument that turns up at every party, and it is the argument that is hardest to answer in the moment, because it feels true when everyone around you is doing it. But it is not true. Most teenagers do not use MDMA. Most teenagers go to parties, dance, laugh and go home without taking a pill, and they have just as good a time. The group that uses the drug is loud and visible, and the group that does not is quiet and easy to miss, but the quiet group is bigger. I think teenagers deserve to know that, because it changes the pressure completely. Saying no is not standing alone. It is standing with the majority, and the majority simply does not make a noise about it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is MDMA dangerous for young people?
MDMA is more dangerous for young people because their brains and bodies are still developing. The teenage brain is still building the areas that handle planning, judgement and self-control, and MDMA disturbs the brain chemistry that this building work depends on. Teenagers are also more likely to take risks, more sensitive to peer pressure, and more likely to use the drug in hot, crowded settings where overheating is a danger. The same drug that an adult’s finished brain can recover from more easily can leave a developing brain with longer-lasting effects on memory, mood and learning.
Can MDMA harm a developing brain?
Yes, it can. The teenage brain is still forming connections and strengthening the areas that control memory, attention and decision-making. MDMA floods the brain with serotonin and then leaves it depleted, which disturbs the normal chemistry that a developing brain relies on. Research that follows young people over time has linked regular use in the teenage years with poorer memory and attention later on. A single use is unlikely to cause lasting harm on its own, but repeated use during the years when the brain is still growing carries a real risk of effects that last into adult life.
What should parents know about MDMA?
Parents should know that MDMA is often used at parties and festivals, that it is usually taken with friends, and that the signs of use can be easy to miss. After use, a teenager may be tired, low in mood, irritable or withdrawn for several days, and their sleep and appetite may be disturbed. Schoolwork may slip, old friends may be replaced, and the teenager may become secretive. The most useful thing a parent can do is keep the conversation open, ask calm questions without anger, and listen to the answers. If you are worried, a doctor, a school counsellor or a drug support service can help, and asking for that help early is always better than waiting.
Can MDMA affect school performance?
Yes, it can, and school is often where the effects show up first. MDMA disturbs memory and concentration, and it wrecks sleep, which is when the brain stores what it has learned. A teenager who uses it regularly may find it hard to follow lessons, forget homework, and struggle to revise for exams. Over weeks and months, those small losses add up, and the student falls behind. Because the teenage years are when exam results decide future options, even a few terms of poor performance can narrow the choices a young person has afterwards.
How does MDMA affect teenagers?
MDMA affects teenagers by flooding the brain with serotonin, which creates a rush of energy and closeness, and then leaving the brain depleted, which causes low mood, tiredness, anxiety and broken sleep in the days after. It disturbs memory and concentration, which harms schoolwork, and it lowers judgement, which makes risky decisions more likely. Physically, it raises heart rate and body temperature, causes jaw clenching and teeth grinding, dries out the mouth, and can lead to dangerous overheating in hot, crowded places. Because the teenage brain and body are still developing, these effects can reach further and last longer than they would in an adult.
Does MDMA change teenage mood?
Yes, it changes mood in two ways. During use, it lifts mood sharply, creating feelings of energy, warmth and closeness. In the days after, as the brain’s serotonin runs low, mood drops, and the teenager may feel flat, tearful, irritable or anxious. With repeated use, those low periods can become deeper and longer, and regular use is linked with higher rates of anxiety and depression over time. The mood changes do not only affect the teenager. They affect family life too, because the people at home have to live with the silence, the arguments and the withdrawal that follow each use.
