As the founder and chief visionary officer of Natural High, formerly the Sundt Memorial Foundation, Jon Sundt helps teens to stay away from drug use by encouraging them to pursue passions that excite them. Jon Sundt has found evidence for the effectiveness of this technique in several studies, including a social experiment conducted in Iceland.
In the early 1990s, Icelandic teenagers were among the heaviest drinkers and substance users in their peer group. American psychology professor Harvey Milkman, a professor at Reykjavik University, endeavored to find out how. He believed that adolescents started and continued using drugs because their habitual response to stress predisposed them to risky behaviors, including drug use and criminal behavior, which altered their brain chemistry.
Milkman and his team believed that if they taught young people how to alter their own brain chemistry through positive behavior, they could reduce the incidence of substance use. They started Project Self-Discovery, through which they began teaching skills such as dance, music, and martial arts to teenagers who had experimented with drugs or gotten involved in criminal activity.
While teaching these skills, program leaders also presented life and coping skills. They helped the participants to change their perceptions of themselves, their futures, and others around them. Most importantly, they presented these lessons in a way that was relevant and engaging to teenagers.
Researchers also found that time spent with family strongly and inversely correlated with drug-using behavior. A publicity push increased the amount of time that parents spent with their children, and a cure was introduced for 13- to 16-year-olds.
Since the team implemented those initiatives, Iceland has seen an increase of 20 percent or more in the number of 15- and 16-year-olds who spend time with their parents and/or participate in organized sports during the week. Meanwhile, the rate of substance use in this age group has dropped significantly. Daily smoking habits decreased from 23 percent to 3 percent and monthly episodes of drunkenness decreased from 42 percent to 7 percent, while cannabis use over the course of a year decreased from 17 percent to 5 percent.
