Publications - Depression
The Loneliness Curve: New research suggests people tend to be lonelier in young adulthood and late life. But experts say it doesn’t have to be that way., by Christina Caron, The New York Times, May 6 2024.
“When Surgeon General Vivek Murthy went on a nationwide college tour last fall, he started to hear the same kind of question time and again: How are we supposed to connect with one another when nobody talks anymore? In an age when participation in community organizations, clubs and religious groups has declined, and more social interaction is happening online instead of in person, some young people are reporting levels of loneliness that, in past decades, were typically associated with older adults. It’s one of the many reasons loneliness has become a problem at both the beginning and end of our life span. In a study published last Tuesday in the journal Psychological Science, researchers found that loneliness follows a U-shaped curve: Starting from young adulthood, self-reported loneliness tends to decline as people approach midlife only to rise again after the age of 60, becoming especially pronounced by around age 80. ”
Kids are overscheduled. They’re also lonely. We’ve got to stop pressuring them before it’s too late., by Kara Baskin, The Boston Globe, Mar 15 2024.
“Loneliness: It’s the scourge of our time. In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on loneliness and isolation, calling it an epidemic: Lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60 percent. Young people are especially lonely. For this age group, time spent in person with friends has dwindled by nearly 70 percent over almost two decades, from roughly 150 minutes per day in 2003 to 40 minutes per day in 2020. But what can we actually do about it? How do we disentangle our kids from their earbuds? ”
Loneliness And Depression In Teens Linked To Lack Of Sleep And Early School Start Times, New Report Shows, by Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, Forbes, Mar 7 2024.
“Teenagers who wake up early for school, sleep less than eight hours per night or spend time on their electronic devices within an hour of going to bed are more likely to have experienced depression and loneliness, results of a new National Sleep Foundation survey out Thursday showed. ”
People who are gay, lesbian or bi have more mental health and substance use problems, survey finds, by Jen Christensen, CNN, Jun 13 2023.
“Despite increasing acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, at least in some circles, adults who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are more likely than those who identify as straight to have serious thoughts of suicide and mental health conditions including major depressive episodes, and they are more likely to misuse substances like alcohol or drugs, according to a new US government report. The report, published Tuesday, comes from the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, sponsored by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It’s included a question about how the participant identifies their sexual orientation since 2015. The data in the report, which focuses on LGB adults, comes from 2021 and 2022. ”
Students are increasingly refusing to go to school. It’s becoming a mental health crisis., by Adrianna Rodriguez, USA Today, May 15 2023.
“School avoidant behavior, also called school refusal, is when a school-age child refuses to attend school or has difficulty being in school for the entire day. Several mental health experts told USA TODAY it has become a crisis that has gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic. "There's no book on this, it's not spoken about," said Demsky, whose son declined to be interviewed by USA TODAY but gave his mother permission to share their story. "It's very scary and parents feel a sense of helplessness." The two continued to struggle with school avoidance for four years with little guidance. In 2014, she created a website to offer families the help and support she couldn't find. The site eventually turned into the School Avoidance Alliance, which spreads awareness and educates learning facilities and families of school avoidant children. School avoidance is not a concrete diagnosis and looks different in every child. Some students consistently miss a couple of days a week, while others may leave during the day or escape to the nurse or counselor’s office. In some extreme cases, students don't step foot in a school for months or years at a time. Half a dozen family members and students told USA TODAY that school avoidance has affected not only their mental health, often leading to anxiety and depression, but also their family dynamics, relationships with fellow students, and grades. It has threatened their prospects of graduation and a thriving future. ”
Does weed help with anxiety or cause it? Here’s what experts say., by Teddy Amenabar, The Washington Post, May 3 2023.
“Cannabis has different effects at lower doses than high doses. Generally, low doses of THC are well-tolerated, stimulating a release of dopamine, and higher doses of THC can cause people to feel anxious, said Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and the author of “Seeing Through The Smoke,” a book reviewing the latest medical research on cannabis. “The main way you can get into mischief with cannabis is by using too high a dose and becoming very, very anxious,” said Grinspoon, who’s also an instructor at Harvard Medical School. “There are some patients who can’t use it at all, even a teeny bit, because any little bit makes them anxious.” Cannabis affects virtually every neural connection in the brain, even more so than stimulants such as cocaine and opioids, said Judy Grisel, a professor of psychology at Bucknell University and the author of “Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction.” This, in turn, means cannabis can cause a wide array of reactions, depending on the person, she said. Decades of clinical research has found THC can negatively effect the developing brain, and regular cannabis use in the teen years is associated with a higher likelihood of developing anxiety and depression later in life. “Smoking early can catalyze anxiety and depression,” Grisel said. “It’s not exactly clear how that happens but the evidence for it is very strong.” ”
Kids’ Declining Mental Health Is the ‘Crisis of Our Time,’ Surgeon General Says, by Caitlynn Peetz , EducationWeek, Apr 25 2023.
“In a conversation with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders livestreamed on Twitter, Murthy called the increase in youth mental health needs “the defining public health crisis of our time,” and underscored that kids’ mental health has taken a hit as they turn to social media more often and at younger ages. The increased use has led to more feelings of isolation, stress, and inadequacy as they constantly compare themselves to others, he said. It also keeps kids awake well into the night when they should be getting much-needed rest and makes it harder for young people to focus. The most recent results of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed an alarming increase of self-reported mental health challenges, most notably among girls and children who identify as LGBTQ+. The survey was conducted in 2021, when many schools were still in remote or hybrid learning, but illustrates how sharply children’s mental health needs have increased in recent years. In 2021, for example, 42 percent of high school students said they experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year, according to the report. This was a 13.5 percent increase from 2019 and a 50 percent increase from 2011. Nearly one in five high school students had seriously considered attempting suicide during the previous year, while 18 percent made a suicide plan, and 10 percent attempted suicide. The CDC’s report does not explore what is driving the increased challenges. The rates were higher among girls and students who identify as LGBTQ+. ”
Are you ready to forgive? A new study shows letting go is good for health., by Tara Parker-Pope, The Washington Post, Apr 20 2023.
“While the act of forgiving is often discussed by faith communities, Worthington has found that a secular approach to forgiveness also can be a useful strategy in improving health. He and his colleagues recently completed a study conducted across five countries showing that when forgiveness is taught, practiced and achieved, the result is better mental and overall well-being. Worthington developed workbooks and included exercises and prompts that allow people to explore feelings of anger and resentment and learn to let go of them. The latest version, which is free to download in five languages, promises that you can become a more forgiving person in about two hours, and includes thought exercises to help explore specific transgressions and work through feelings of anger and resentment. It’s based on the most effective exercises used in prior research, and has been condensed to save time and make the program more accessible. The randomized study, which was conducted among 4,598 participants in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ukraine, Colombia and South Africa, asked half the participants to complete the workbook exercises over a two-week period. (The other half were allowed to try the workbook later.) After two weeks, the study showed that the workbook had promoted forgiveness and shown a statistically meaningful reduction in depression and anxiety symptoms among users compared with the control group. The research is being presented this weekend at Harvard University at an interdisciplinary conference on forgiveness. ”
Social isolation linked to an increased risk of dementia, new study finds, by Kaitlyn Radde, NPR, Jan 17 2023.
“Socially isolated older adults have a 27% higher chance of developing dementia than older adults who aren't, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers found. "Social connections matter for our cognitive health, and it is potentially easily modifiable for older adults without the use of medication," Dr. Thomas Cudjoe, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins and a senior author of the study, said in a news release. ”
988 Lifeline sees boost in use and funding in first months, by Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR, Jan 16 2023.
“The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline received over 1.7 million calls, texts and chats in its first five months. That's nearly half a million more than the old 10-digit Suicide Prevention Lifeline fielded during the same period the year before. Launched in mid-July last year, the 988 number is modeled on the 911 system and is designed to be a memorable and quick number that connects people who are suicidal or in any other mental health crisis to a trained mental health professional. "We see the uptick in volume as an indicator that more people are aware of the service and are able to access it," says Kimberly Williams, the president and CEO of Vibrant Emotional Health, the non-profit that oversees the national 988 network of nearly 200 crisis centers spread across the nation. ”
Mental health-related emergency department visits and revisits are on the rise among children, study finds, by Jacqueline Howard, CNN, Dec 27 2022.
“Emergency department visits and revisits in children’s hospitals that are related to mental health are “increasing rapidly,” a new study suggests. Between 2015 and 2020, mental health visits in pediatric emergency departments increased by 8% annually, with about 13% of those patients revisiting within six months, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Whereas, all other emergency department visits increased by 1.5% annually. Mental health revisits increased by 6.3% annually, but in general, the percentage of mental health visits that had a subsequent revisit remained stable, “which may reflect that the factors associated with revisit did not change substantially during the study period, even as the pediatric mental health crisis worsened,” wrote the researchers, from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and Boston Children’s Hospital. The ongoing surge in pediatric mental health emergency department visits may be associated with “a combination of factors, including a worsening crisis of pediatric mental illness and shortage of mental health clinicians,” the researchers wrote. The most common diagnoses among the mental health emergency department visits were suicidal ideation or self-harm, representing 28.7% of patients; mood disorders at 23.5%; anxiety disorders at 10.4%; and disruptive or impulse control disorders at 9.7%. ”
Teen brains aged faster than normal from pandemic stress, study says, by Katherine Lewis Reynolds, The Washington Post, Dec 1 2022.
“The stress of pandemic lockdowns prematurely aged the brains of teenagers by at least three years and in ways similar to changes observed in children who have faced chronic stress and adversity, a study has found. The study, published Thursday in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, was the first to compare scans of the physical structures of teenagers’ brains from before and after the pandemic started, and to document significant differences, said Ian Gotlib, lead author on the paper and a psychology professor at Stanford University. Researchers knew teens had higher “levels of depression, anxiety and fearfulness” than “before the pandemic. But we knew nothing about the effects on their brains,” said Gotlib, who is director of the Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology Laboratory. “We thought there might be effects similar to what you would find with early adversity; we just didn’t realize how strong they’d be.” Premature aging of children’s brains isn’t a positive development. Before the pandemic, it was observed in cases of chronic childhood stress, trauma, abuse and neglect. These adverse childhood experiences not only make people more vulnerable to depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental illnesses, they can raise the risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other long-term negative outcomes. ”
Magic mushroom compound shows promise as depression treatment in key study, by Natalie Grover, Reuters, Nov 4 2022.
“The main psychoactive ingredient found in magic mushrooms can significantly reduce symptoms of difficult-to-treat depression, data from the largest clinical trial ever to test the keenly-watched compound has found. The mid-stage study, conducted by the London-based and Nasdaq-listed COMPASS Pathways , involved 233 patients with so-called treatment-resistant depression who have failed to benefit from at least two antidepressants. Data published in a medical journal showed that patients who were given the 25 mg dose of psilocybin had statistically significant lower levels of depressive symptoms three weeks after the treatment than people treated with lower doses. Additionally, about 29% of patients in that group achieved remission on a standardised depression scale. Given these patients have limited treatment options and face stigma around depression, these findings are a step in the right direction, said Rucker. ”
10 ways to get mental health help during a therapist shortage, by Lindsey Bever, The Washington Post, Oct 29 2022.
“Anxiety and depression have been on the rise in the United States since the start of the pandemic. This has led to a crisis in mental health that has been worsened by the shortage of mental health counselors. A significant number of mental health professionals are not accepting new clients. Others have long waiting lists. The Washington Post asked mental health professionals what advice they would give people who are struggling to find a therapist. About 300 experts from across the country responded with advice on getting an appointment — and tips on what people can do in the meantime to try to help themselves. Here are their recommendations. ”
Long waiting lists, long drives and costly care hinder many kids’ access to mental health care, by Brenda Goodman, CNN, Oct 6 2022.
“Norris is one of more than 2,000 adults surveyed this summer by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation about mental health issues in America. The nationally representative sample included more than 500 parents. Nearly half of those parents, 47%, say the pandemic has negatively affected their kids’ mental health, with 17% saying it had a major negative impact. More than 8 out of 10 parents said they’re at least somewhat worried about depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug use negatively affecting the life of US teens, while roughly three-quarters said they were worried about self-harm or pandemic-related loneliness and isolation. More than 4 in 10 said they were very worried about alcohol and drug use, anxiety and depression affecting teens. Lower-income parents – those making less than $40,000 a year – were more likely than those in higher-income households to say they’re very worried about self-harm, eating disorders, depression and alcohol and drug use. According to the survey, more than half of Americans (55%) think most children and teenagers in the US aren’t able to get the mental health services they need. ”
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