Why Gen Z Has the Poorest Mental Health of Any Generation

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Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this show, we explore the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level.

On today's episode, we'll be talking about a crazy trend of the poor mental health of Gen Z and how it compares to other generations, and also get to the number one thing contributing to mental health issues, depression, anxiety, identity issues in society today. And also on today's episode, I'll be breaking down this massive increase.

What are the causes and exactly what you can do about it to take your joy, your mental health, and your life to the next level? Hey, make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss an episode. You know, we're hitting cutting-edge information here, the latest news in the science behind health. Of Body, Mind, Spirit on this show. Okay.

So over the past 50 years and specifically over the past 10 years, we've seen issues that I've covered on the show before continue to increase. Issues like hypothyroid diagnosis, childhood obesity, testosterone levels plummeting in men. All of those things have continued to grow. But what's probably outpaced any health issue in recent years has been mental health issues with Gen Zers.

In fact, Gen Z reports by far having the worst mental health of any generation. In fact, listen to this. 42% Of Gen Zers have been diagnosed with a mental health condition. I want you to think about that for a moment. 42%, Almost half of this population has a mental health disorder. And only 15% of Gen Z said their mental, mental health was actually good or their well-being being excellent.

70% Of teens say that anxiety and depression are significant problems among their peers, according to Pew Research. Now, you can see here on these charts how this has continued to look over time. Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems? This was a recent survey done here by a large organization.

They found how often do you feel nervous, anxious, or on edge? Well, for Gen Zers, it's 61% of the time, millennials 53% of the time, Gen X 40%, and baby boomers only 28% of the time. So you're seeing a massive, massive difference between that population. Another one, feeling depressed.

42% Of, as I mentioned, Gen Zers are feeling depressed, hopeless, or down on a regular basis, every couple of weeks at least having these feelings. You can see Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X very similar, and then baby boomers very low again. And then here's another one that just breaks my heart: thoughts that you would be better off dead or thoughts of hurting yourself in some way.

18% Of Gen Zers on a regular basis believe they would be better off dead or think about hurting themselves on a regular basis. 10% Millennials, 6% of Gen X, and 2% of baby boomers. Now you may wonder, well, what is the connection here? Well, let me go over one more chart here first. Here's other. Just the trend you can see here in mood disorders.

You can see here where Gen Zers are, a steep, steep incline over just, you know, just in recent years. And then also you can see they're pretty stable, hardly changing at all for both Millennials and Baby Boomers there, and Gen Xers all kind of the same. Here's the reality: mental health issues used to be sort of taboo, but now it's everywhere and everyone is talking about it.

In fact, here's the thing that's really scary: it's almost become trendy cool to have a mental health disorder. It's sort of like, you know, if you want to be part of the popular crowd, well, hey, having a mental health issue is okay.

And we're condoning people who have serious identity issues or mental health issues as actually just being, hey, something that is something that's trendy and popular today. So we're having young people try and sort of fit in with that group. You know, it's almost like if you don't have a mental health issue, you're not normal.

You know, it's— this is good for promoting awareness and reducing stigma, but leads to the sensationalizing and romanticization of mental health issues. And, you know, TikTok is the worst of all this, and then other platforms aren't that great either, including Instagram. But TikTok trends and other social media platforms have absolutely fueled this.

So again, the one common denominator When you look at what are the biggest things causing mental health issues, I believe number one is the rise in social media use. Now, I also think a lot of this has to do with parenting. If you're a parent and you're constantly coddling, enabling your kids, making their life too easy, they're not— they have— they become weak.

If you make someone's life too easy, you make their life, uh, you, you, you, you, you weaken them mentally. You can weaken them physically. And so we need to do hard things in order to become strong. Wrong. Now here's the normalization. You can see here some of these pictures regarding mental health issues. Look at the, look at the, the slogans on this clothing.

You know, hot girls take Lexapro, live laugh Lexapro, um, bring a touch of cuteness to your decor and take, you know, 100 milligrams of this drug. Um, you know, there's a throw pillow that says Prozac 20 milligrams. That this is not like a cheap dollar store pillow. This is from Bergdorf Goodman. Okay, so they're really promoting these along the, you know, amongst the wealthy.

Um, you know, normalization of mental health issues. We've seen this on iPhone cases, like just it's saying just take a Xanax or hot girls go to therapy. I mean, the reality is culture is promoting, glorifying, and even praising mental health disorders rather than encouraging people to become mentally strong.

Now the US has reached its absolute peak in mental health issues, but also therapy sessions. And most people think, well, hey, if I have a mental health issue, I should probably go to therapy. The reality is, though, it might be making you worse. I want to watch this clip with you. It's a very short clip here by one of the world's leading experts when it comes to the study of mental health.

Watch this with me right now for a clip from the Joe Rogan Show.

I never considered that. Thinking about your problems all the time and talking about your problems all the time literally make the problems grow.

That's right. I mean, it's the number one symptom of depression is what they call rumination, this pathological obsessing over your pain.

Yeah.

That's why stuff like exercise— that's one of the reasons, aside from chemical reasons, one of the reasons that doing anything, you know, that running errands is good for your mental health, getting out of your house and accomplishing anything. Yeah, is good for you. But sitting around talking and thinking about your problems, that's a bad habit.

And the best cognitive behavioral therapists and others, you know, the dialectical behavioral therapists, the ones who do really well with depression, the first thing they do is try to break that, that bad pattern. But a lot of therapists just indulge it.

Wow, that's, that is so good and so true. This thing we call rumination, where you're essentially sitting in your bad feelings, it's a bad habit. If you are constantly thinking about how bad you have it, how much you're suffering, basically living in a victim state. It's going to ruin your life. It's going to ruin your mental health.

And what's happening today is we are telling kids, hey, go to therapy. They're going to a therapist talking about their problems and how bad they have it over and over and over again. And the therapist is just sitting there listening and saying, yeah, you do have it really bad. That's really rough. Basically just, you know, encouraging them.

Now listen, obviously the psychologist and myself and many others believe and know that We have to be able to talk about our feelings. We have to be able to express ourselves and feel heard and understood. But also, there's a point where we have to say, you know what, life isn't about me. And also realize that if by focusing on yourself constantly and your problems, it will only make you worse.

Now, I'll tell you, from running a functional medicine practice for years and taking care of tens of thousands of patients, one of the things that I discovered in taking care of people with everything from Lyme disease to autoimmune disease to chronic pain is that those patients who overfocused on their condition wouldn't heal as well.

They would, they would stay almost as if they were on a treadmill and wouldn't be able to move forward with their lives versus those people saying, hey, you know what, I've got this issue right now, but I'm going to do everything I can to be solutions-focused to help it. And then I'm not just going to sit in it constantly.

I'm going to go out there and do everything I can to focus on others, serving others, live my life despite of some of the restrictions. Right now, those people healed at a much greater degree. So whether you're struggling with an actual physical ailment or a loss in life or some sort of other issue, it doesn't benefit you to ruminate on the actual issue you're having.

You—.

Rather than being problem-focused, you want to be solutions-focused. Think of this: if you have a problem in life and you just keep focusing on I've got this problem, this thing not going my way, and that's what you focus on. You're, you're not actually focused on fixing it versus you saying, okay, you know what? I feel like I, uh, like I know I'm depressed right now.

I'm, I, I feel like my life isn't, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, people are maybe mean to me sometimes, or I didn't get this, uh, job raise, or school is hard right now. And you sit in that like, okay, there's a problem versus. You know, saying to yourself, you know what? Well, why do I feel depressed? Why do I feel anxious? Oh, well, it's because I'm not spending time with people.

It's because, you know, I still have this relationship issue with my mom and I need to go and ask for forgiveness. Oh, I, you know, I'm not using my gifts and talents to better the world. I'm not contributing to society. And then going out and pursuing doing those things. That's how you actually get to the root of the issue and start to improve your mental health.

The reality is, if you want to best support yourself and Gen Zers at improving mental health, There has to be a balance between love and self-discipline. There has to be a balance between, hey, I understand you're hurting and that's very hard, but also that's life.

And if you want to reach your optimal level and live the best life possible, when those sort of things happen or you have those feelings, you just need to be solutions-focused and go out there and do everything you can to live the best life possible. Hey, you know, you're going to have haters in life. You're going to have negative trolls on social media.

You're, you know, This is a hard thing you're going through, but you know what? You're powerful. You're strong. You're bigger than this. And I think encouraging people, letting them know that life isn't just about you, it's about others. It's about God. You're bigger than this. God is much, much bigger than this. It, it, that's the focus you want to have.

It's this combination of love, but also discipline and letting them know that, you know what? If you want to live a life worth living, you're going to have to go through hard, hard things. But when you get through those hard things, it's incredibly fulfilling. You know, listen to this. Since 2020, about 30% of American adults have seen a therapist.

And in 2021, about 42 million people received treatment or counseling for their mental health. But here's the thing, as I mentioned, something isn't adding up. More people are in therapy, but mental health is getting worse by every single metric.

Suicide rates have risen by about 30% since 2000, and almost 1 out of every 3 US adults now reports symptoms of either depression or anxiety, roughly 3 times as many people as in 2019. That's just 5 years ago. And you can see the change in mental health here where it's continued to get worse and worse every year.

And then less and less people are saying they actually have good or excellent mental health. Again, some shocking, shocking statistics here. From 2019 to 2022, use of mental health services jumped by almost 40%. Percent among millions of US adults. 1 In 5 has recently received some kind of mental health care, an increase of almost 15 million people since 2002.

And 1 in 8 US adults now takes antidepressants. And I'll cover this in future episodes. But yeah, SSRI drugs, antidepressant drugs do not get to the root of the issue ever. They never fix the problem.

And there are completely natural ways, such as spending time outdoors, connecting with loved ones, Taking vitamin D, taking St. John's wort, exercise, meditation, prayer, reading growth books, listening to fun music. I just named a few there. All of those are more effective long-term at getting the root of the problem than taking antidepressants.

And so part of the problem is this is a massive money-making industry. When you look at the mental health industry, you've got pharmaceutical companies profiting, you have Therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists also profiting off of the mental health disorders and social media companies.

And so there's really no reason for these trillion-dollar organizations to actually go and fix the problem. So they're continuing to feed into those issues, not giving them real natural solutions. The big problem, again, as I mentioned here, is social media, or one of the major issues. And Gen Z socialized is online rather than in person.

So what they're doing is, is they're getting a lot of dopamine. Well, you want to have balanced neurotransmitters. You want to have some dopamine. You also want to have serotonin. You also want to have oxytocin.

And so rather than getting a more of a balanced— let's say you're going on a walk with a friend or doing a fun dinner out, you're going to be getting all of those different neurochemicals that bring mental health to your system versus just dopamine all the time, like you're when you're on social media. And so, uh, today Gen Z, rather than connecting with people in person, does most of it online.

In fact, the average American has 7 hours of screen time a day. Gen Z has 9 hours. I want you to think about that. 9 Hours of screen time a day. That's more hours than they're sleeping. That's more hours by far than they're doing anything. 9 Hours. That, that, that is—.

Wow.

That is unreal how bad that is for somebody's mental health. And online lives, they actually make you physically sick, as I mentioned. Lots of dopamine and very little oxytocin. And Gen Z, they don't, you know, I, I think there are many kids today that don't understand what it means to have a real relationship due to, due to lives online.

I mean, they, they think that that is a real relationship, um, in terms of just, you know, posting things online and getting, getting likes or Or replies. You know, I think that also, as I think more about Gen Z as well, one of the things that's come up statistically is they are spending less time with God and also less time in religious services.

What this is going to do, again, part of this is they don't know how to connect with God and with other people. And so there really are, it's really a social disability as well that many of these Gen Zers have due to never really learning in the first place. You know, again, as I mentioned here, here's another big contributing factor: loss of religion. Attendance of religious services.

29% Of baby boomers attend weekly religious services like church or synagogue. 23% Of millennials. And only 13% of Gen Z attend weekly. And of course, that's much, much lower, less than half of baby boomers. 28% Of millennials consider praying regularly essential to their faith, while only 17% of Gen Z consider it essential.

As I mentioned earlier, I really think that what prayer is, is it's a two-way communication between you and God. It's a conversation between you and God expressing your gratitude and praise of God, having— making your requests known to God.

Having a conver— and then, and then sitting there in stillness and listening to see what the voice of God, which could be very similar to your conscience, says and what you start to really feel and see and hear spiritually and mentally of what God is impressing upon you.

But I don't think that Gen Zers really understand that because, uh, and many of them don't because they're spending so much time on social media, just absolutely sucked in. And, and they haven't really been able to build deep, meaningful relationships where you sit there and really listen to somebody and express back and forth and are mutually supportive in that way.

And here's another issue related to this. Gen Z, because they're less religious, they are replacing God with other things in their life. Listen, everybody has something they worship. Everybody has a god, whether it's the God, the God of the Judeo-Christian religion, or They worship idols, money, fame, politics, or our government today.

70% Of Gen Zers around the world say they're involved in a social or political cause. 70%. So 13% regularly attend religious services and are engaged in religion. 70% Of Gen Zers say they're involved in a social or political cause. In 2016, only 24% of American youth considered themselves politically active. By 2021, 36%. Now it's 70%. At the same time, rates of depression in youth are rising.

The percentage of teenagers who reported persistent feelings of hopelessness and sadness increased from 28% in 2011 to 42% in 2021. So political activism leads to higher stress and poorer health according to a medical study. The study found out that those who were politically active, 65%, were stressed out.

But in the group who were not political activists, 32% were stressed out, which was affecting their mental health. By the way, that's more than a double increased rate. Now, I want to also talk about, as we're talking about politics here for just a moment, in regards to the health effects. And by the way, I'm not taking a political stance here.

I'm just sharing what some of the common factors are in causing mental health issues in Gen Zers. And one has to do with the political party someone affiliates with. According to this study, only 15% of liberal or progressive women are completely satisfied with their lives compared to 31% of conservative women.

So if you're a woman and conservative, you are more than double, double in likelihood to be satisfied with your life and typically have much better mental health than liberal women or have a mental health disorder.

In an analysis looking at 90 countries from 1981 to 2014, social psychologists found that liberals are happier than conservatives in only 5 of 92 countries and never in the United States. And so if you are liberal in the United States, You're— every single state, conservatives are happier in the United States, in almost every single country in the world.

And, you know, I really believe that this is really tied to conservatives are more religious. They're more deeply connected to God. And so they have more meaning and purpose in their lives, which also give them better mental health.

And if you're worshiping a being that is perfect in virtue and love and willing to sacrifice their own life for you, give everything for you, versus your God is is government or a certain social group, you know, whatever, or money, whatever your god is, those gods are going to let you down and it's going to lead to worse mental health issues as well.

You can see this chart here in terms of men and women and conservatives. And so you can see here, um, in terms of who has the highest rates of depression, and you'll see female liberals are the highest, followed by male liberals, followed by Female and male conservatives are, are almost identical.

Conservatives are more likely to embrace family-first values and virtues, which leads to being happily married, fulfilling family lives, less likely to divorce. They're also more patriotic, which has been correlated with greater well-being. They're more religious, as I mentioned, which has psychological benefits that come from a deeper connection to your family and the divine. More generous.

So conservatives, uh, in many studies have shown they're more generous and giving and charitable. They're more conventionally attractive than liberals, according to a study, which leads to better sex lives. And also, people who are healthier in childhood are more likely to become conservatives as, as an adult.

And for liberals here, we see false narrative that happiness runs counter to marriage and family life, not towards it. Also, many liberals have a modern identity which is really connected to a self-serving me. It's all about me. Everybody needs to cater to me and my individual needs.

They think independence, freedom, and work will make them happy, which is why significant portions of popular media are filled with these stories celebrating divorce and singleness, which of course statistically though leads to more mental health issues and depression and anxiety in life. And so this isn't about a political party.

I just wanted to point out here that there are obviously certain things that are affecting mental health statistically that we should all be aware of. Now, I want to point something out here that is absolutely essential to mental health, and this actually cuts through party lines.

If somebody is a liberal but has very similar religious and patriotic values or had a very similarly happy marriage, they would be expected to have very similar levels of happiness as their conservative peers. So the point here is, is all the things I just mentioned, they're, they're not that important.

What matters most is whether you're Democrat or whether you're Republican, conservative or progressive. What matters the most to your mental health statistically is your belief in a relationship in the divine and connection to God. If you're a person that is religious, if you're a person that pursues God, whether you're Democrat or Republican, you are going to have better mental health.

Now, I want to go through here some things that you can do in order to improve your mental health. If you're a Gen Zer watching this or any generation, number one, as I started off with the show, digital fasting. Limit your screen time. My wife has this app called Opal, which, which basically cuts off her screen time after a certain amount of time. And so lower your screen time.

9 Hours is too many. 8 Hours is too many. You should be doing less and keeping up with it. So I don't know exactly what the number should be for you, but it should be a lot less than 9. And what I would also be really conscious of, who are you following on social media?

Follow people that are gonna help you grow mentally, spiritually, physically, things that make you a better person, things that are positive.

Be positive.

Don't wallow in negativity. And so delete most of your accounts and start following accounts of people that are virtuous like Tim Tebow and Sadie Robertson. Start following, you know, quotes that are about religion, about exercise, health, and fitness, about positive psychology and personal growth. But start following those accounts instead and avoid the negative news cycle.

But again, do some digital fasting. Next thing, spend some time outdoors. D levels have been correlated with better mental health, including fighting depression. Exercise regularly. Movement is important. Next is get a supportive friend group.

Do really you know lots of coffees and and and meals and dinners with people you care about having deep conversations, and put your phone away when you're doing those things. Also, go to church. Read the Bible. See what see what God says about you that He loves you and He's pursuing you, and what that does to your identity is so powerful.

But get off the couch, get out of bed, actually go to a church on Sunday morning, go to a night group, a praise and worship on a Monday or a Wednesday night or whatever it is. It is incredible for your mental health, and it's part of our purpose. It's what we're called to do in life. Here's the reality.

When you are doing what God designed you to do, living that sort of life, taking care of yourself physically, loving other people, connecting with God, using your unique gifts and skills to contribute to society, You become so full of joy and happiness and fulfillment and know that your life matters. You're significant.

If you're simply living life to be entertained and have people serve you, you will be absolutely miserable with your life. If you're just following what culture says and social media says in terms of life is all about self-glorification and your own personal happiness, the studies show it will actually make you less Happy.

Remember, 2 major key factors and changes that are affecting mental health: too much social media time and not enough God. If you can change those 2 things up— more God, less social media— your life will get better. Mental health disorders will plummet, and you'll have more joy and fulfillment in your life. And if you know somebody who needs to watch this, hey, please share.

You know, every time that you share this, on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and social media or text it to a friend, you're helping change lives. You're helping spread this truth. So I want to say thank you so much for sharing this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in again.

Every week I'm diving deep on the latest research and science behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and help you take your health and life to the next level. Hey, if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe and like. Again, thanks for being on Mission with me and sharing this video. I'll see you on the next show.