The three real reasons why Americans are more anxious than ever before.

[SoCalDem]

http://www.slate.com/id/2283221/pagenum/all/

By Taylor ClarkPosted Monday, Jan. 31, 2011, at 4:53 PM ET

Anxious student.Why are college students so stressed?When a team of UCLA researchers released its latest annual report on the mindset of America's university students last week, one finding screamed out for red-alert media attention: Our college kids are more stressed out and anxious than ever before. In the researchers' surveys of more than 200,000 incoming freshmen, students reported all-time lows in overall mental health and emotional stability, and this news sent the media on a high-strung spree of its own. ABC World News ran footage of harried-looking teenagers rushing around campus, Time wondered "Why Are College Students Reporting Record High Levels of Stress?," and the New York Times story on the report vaulted to the top of the paper's most-e-mailed list.

The culprit for this soaring stress, the stories unanimously declared, is the horrendous job market—a thoroughly lame explanation. I don't know about your college experience, but when I got to school a dozen years ago, my classmates spent about as much time pondering the future "job market" as they spent leafing through calculus textbooks for fun. These news stories have missed the truth because they've overlooked one crucial fact: Students are becoming more anxious because, for many years now, we've all been growing more anxious. This isn't just a campus issue. It's an American issue.

Over the last several decades, both through good economic times and bad, the United States has transformed into the planet's undisputed worry champion. Around the turn of the millennium, anxiety flew past depression as the most prominent mental health issue in America, and it's never looked back: With more than 18 percent of adults suffering from an anxiety disorder in any given year, the United States is now the most anxious nation in the world, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Stress-related ailments cost the nation $300 billion every year in medical bills and lost productivity, while our usage of sedative drugs keeps skyrocketing; just between 1997 and 2004, Americans more than doubled their spending on anti-anxiety medications like Xanax and Valium, from $900 million to $2.1 billion. And this anxious strain hits us well before we reach college. As psychologist Robert Leahy points out: "The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s."


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[xchrom]

1. wow

'As psychologist Robert Leahy points out: "The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s."

[Fumesucker]

2. I thought this quote was revealing..

"The media does this to us," explained Evelyn Behar, a worry expert who teaches at the University of Illinois-Chicago. "It's always reporting that this thing causes cancer or that thing can kill you. We live in a culture where fear is used to motivate us."

[nc4bo]

3. Surely we can do so much better. nt

[The2ndWheel]

5. But what if we can't?

Oh my god what if we can't!!!!!!

[nc4bo]

7. We'll have more and more Arizona's, V-Techs, more incidences of road rage, abuse...

you'll be going about your daily business and suddenly someone loses it. Perhaps they'll be armed, perhaps they'll just have a public fit or reach across the cash register and try to choke the life out of another human being.

Human beings weren't born to be pressure cookers.

It's really is scary and sad beyond words.

[Poboy]

4. recommend

[femrap]

6. Great article....

and some other great links at the article...specifically about Anger.

Anxiety could be the result of us living so 'Unnaturally.' Wearing 3" high heels, for example, is simply not natural, but that stems from the media telling women that they won't be good Eye Candy if they don't...there's that Fear of Not Belonging.

We have lost control over our lives...the Corporations are run like armies...the competition is fierce. It's unnatural. So we feel powerless.

And maybe everyone simply recognizes (at least subconsciously) that we are living in the Decline of the American Empire. It's all downhill from here on out.

I've noticed more road rage....more incivility. People bump into you and don't say, 'Excuse me' or 'I'm sorry' and that adds to a level of anxiety....lack of community.

And of course....we didn't get that 'CHANGE' that we were told to 'HOPE' for either.

I prefer the company of animals these days....people, not so much. I miss having intelligent conversations. C'est la vie.