A recent survey has found that millennials, people age 18-33, are reporting the highest levels of stress and depression of all Americans.
USA Today is reporting that the survey, conducted among 2,020 U.S. adults age 18 and older by Harris Interactive for the American Psychological Association, found that younger Americans are reporting the highest levels of stress.
Rating stress levels on a 10 point scale, with 10 being the greatest amount of stress, the average was 4.9 for all ages except millennials whose ratings averaged 5.4.
When asked what is the source of their stress, millennials, cited work (76%), money (73%), relationships (59%), the economy (55%), and family responsibilities (56%).
Thirty-nine percent of millennials said their stress levels increased in the past year with 52 percent saying it has kept them awake at night.
“Younger people do tend to be more stressed than older people do. It may be they are more willing to admit to it. It may be a phase of life. They just don’t know where they’re going in life,” says Mike Hais of Arcadia, Calif., a market researcher and co-author of two books on that generation, including 2011’s Millennial Momentum.
“Millennials are growing up at a tough time. They were sheltered in many ways, with a lot of high expectations for what they should achieve. Individual failure is difficult to accept when confronted with a sense you’re an important person and expected to achieve. Even though, in most instances, it’s not their fault — the economy collapsed just as many of them were getting out of college and coming of age — that does lead to a greater sense of stress,” he says.
Not surprisingly, this age group more than any other reported being told by a health care provider that they are suffering from depression. Nineteen percent of millennials received this diagnosis compared to 14 percent of Generation Xers (age 34-47), 12 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 48-66) and 11 percent of those age 67 or older.
Millennials also led in the category of those diagnosed with an anxiety disorder; 12 percent of millennials compared to eight percent of Gen X, seven percent of Boomers and four percent of the oldest age group.
The good news in the survey is that there has been an overall decline in the way Americans are coping with their stress levels.
“Since 2008, eating to manage stress dropped from 34% to 25% in 2012. And drinking alcohol as a stress reliever dipped from 18% to 13%,” USA Today reports.
The most common coping mechanisms among millennials are listening to music (59%), exercising or walking (51%), eating (36%), and playing video games or surfing the Internet (41%). Millennials also showed the highest levels of spending time with friends and family as a way of coping with stress, but there are also new ways that are starting to get implemented, for example, some people have found that by using weed vape juice for stress they can relax a lot more.
Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School in Boston said even though young people have high rates of anxiety and depression, those rates tend to go down in middle age and then rise again in the late 70’s. And today’s doctors are also more likely to discuss mental health with their patients than they have in the past.
“Anybody who has anxiety or depression today would be more likely to be told they have it than if they went to a doctor 20 years ago,” Kessler said.
If there was ever a time to give a word of encouragement to a young person in your family or social circle, this is the time to do it!
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