What is the problem?
Mental health awareness has been on the rise in recent years with the help of the mainstream media and seamless digital communication, but more so in the benefit of adults (Moukheiber).
Teenagers don’t receive the same recognition of their mental health, and as a consequence, anxiety leads as the most-common mental illness in adolescents, with depression following as the second.
Survey trends in the U.S. also show a rapid increase in these diagnoses in the past 10-20 years (“Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health”; Monroe).
With this growing issue on the rise, new developments must be made in the interest of solving it.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a disorder that develops from being exposed to overly-stressful situations or traumatic events, or for no identifiable reason. Anxiety can result from anything, from early-childhood traumas to recent or current ones.
There are seven main types of diagnosable anxiety disorders, the most common one in adults being Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).
Teenagers are often more susceptible to developing Social Anxiety Disorder, in which anxiety has a direct link to social interactions or expectations.
Depression is a mental health illness or mood disorder that causes long or short-term bouts of sadness or hopelessness that impair daily life and activities (Torres).
There are generally nine types of diagnosable depressive disorders, the main one being Major Depressive Disorder.
Well over 16 million adults in the U.S. alone have been diagnosed with this depression (“Facts & Statistics”).
Depression
Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in the U.S, affecting 18.1% of the population annually (“Facts & Statistics”)
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Survey trends in the U.S. also show a rapid increase in these diagnoses in the past 10-20 years (“Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health”; Monroe).
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Anxiety tends to predispose people to depression.
Both Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder, another well-known type of depression, have little to do with an individual's current social or physical environment; it is often either genetically inherited or developed from a highly stressful event(s) earlier in life.
Depression can contribute to risk of suicide and problems with learning, energy, motivation, and memory (such as dementia in later years) (Onwere).
The typical symptoms of this condition consist of fear, frustration, restlessness, nausea, trouble concentrating, headaches, and even shortness of breath.
During a highly-stressful situation, the body releases “fight or flight” hormones that raises adrenaline levels to help generate a fast response (“Stress”). With chronic anxiety, though, people can go days experiencing this response and not find a clear way to halt it, and it becomes a positive-feedback loop.
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OCD, PTSD and phobias are also well-known disorders directly linked to past-traumas or early development.
Different individuals undergo depression in different ways, and may even experience symptoms during a specific time of the year due to hormonal changes or vitamin D deficiencies (ex: (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
Traumatic situations, like losing a loved one or being a victim to bullying, can also influence one’s depressive mood (Pietrangelo).
For more information, check out my research paper!
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It holds more detail on this subject, and how depression and anxiety have multiple types of treatments. I discuss the effectiveness of these treatments, and even conduct an interview with an integrative psychiatrist from East Lansing.
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Western medicine has evolved in the past 50 years; find out how!