Not only the young held by anxiety
Over dinner the other day with a new college student, freshly arrived on one of the Capital Region’s campuses, I watched as he flipped back and forth from the food to his phone, and then rubbed his hands on his lap in a nervous gesture. He didn’t engage in conversation. It was easy to infer that he was totally distracted by anxiety over being plunged into a new life. And who wouldn’t be?
But then I read that colleges nationwide are confronting an epidemic of anxiety among students, leading to what some consider a mental health crisis on campuses. So I began worry about my 18-year-old friend and so many others like him.
And since youth culture usually leads the rest of society, you have to wonder if the emotional uneasiness on the campus is really just a more intense reflection of what we’re all experiencing. Feeling fretful, folks? Got the jitters? Me too.
First, though, about those college students: About 70 percent
of U.S. high school graduates enroll in college. A study last year concluded that three out of five of them have experienced overwhelming anxiety, and two out of five had at some point been too depressed to function. That sounds like a step beyond my young friend’s nervous tics. What could be causing people on the brink of adulthood, facing what many older adults look back upon as some of their lives’ golden years, to be so emotionally fraught? Ignoring this question could put the mental health of a generation at risk.
This isn’t about the loneliness that a first-year student naturally might feel if college is somewhere away from home, and it’s not just the uncertainty about whether the coursework will be harder than high school.
“It’s the response that they’re having to that uncertainty that we’ve noticed students have a lot less resilience or preparation for,” said Dr. Anthony Rostain, a University of Pennsylvania professor of psychiatry and pediatrics. In an NPR interview last spring, he suggested that the “social-emotional readiness” of today’s students hadn’t kept pace with society’s changes. Consider the world these young people have experienced. Most of today’s firstyear students were born the year of the 9/11 attacks, so they have never known life without the threat of terrorism. Mass school shootings have always been their reality: Columbine happened just before they were born, and the Sandy Hook slaughter when they were in 7th grade.
On the latter issue, politicians have been unwilling to do a damn thing to protect them, nor do the young people see evidence of any capable institutional bulwarks against other injustices. Partisanship has rendered our federal government nearly impotent since they were in 3rd grade, and the priest sex abuse scandal, which erupted when they were infants, has sapped any sense of trust in religious leaders.
For many students, the cost of higher education itself imposes an emotional burden. The stakes for performance are elevated when going to college threatens to set back a family or a student financially. And with jobs scarce, there’s the unreasonable fear that a single average grade could stop a career from blossoming.
Brain scientists say all this pressure could affect the functioning of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — that part of the brain behind your forehead that helps us maintain emotional control. Too much pressure can trip up that part of the brain and switch it off, just like a circuit breaker on an electric line. No wonder many young people make bad decisions — drinking too much, or blowing off classes, say: Their anxiety robs them of the capacity to choose better.
In that regard, though, perhaps we’re all at risk. Recent studies suggest the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (say it aloud!) is involved in overriding emotional biases, such as delaying gratification or making good decisions in the context of moral choices. Might the pressures of society, which give us such anxiety, leave us unable to make good deliberative decisions or break out of our biases? (We can barely even talk to people who choose a different cable television network, for heaven’s sake. Is that rational?)
I keep hearing from people who confess, usually apologetically, that they’ve had to take a break from the news — that they feel their mental health is imperiled by the constant hammering of tweets and threats, chaotic political arguments and angry denunciations of one group or another. Rather than choosing to be uninformed, I suggest they remember that ancient adage affirming the ephemerality of our condition: “This, too, shall pass.” It comforts me.
“Sometimes it’s better to just take a step back. Get your game back to where you want it to be,” suggested Rostain, the pediatric psychiatrist. Good advice, perhaps, for any age: Take it easy.
Too much pressure can trip the part of your brain that helps us maintain emotional control, and switch it off, like a circuit breaker on an electric line. No wonder many people make bad decisions.