Everyone is talking about how anxiety is disproportionately affecting our young adults. It is a real problem. Let’s try and tackle this problem in today’s lesson. We’ll start with what causes anxiety. We live in a fast-paced world. People have way too many balls in the air at one time, so stress in general is at an elevated level in our society. When COVID-19 arrived, additional stressors came into our lives. A lot of people lost their jobs. People who were displaced from employment were the people who were least likely to have a financial safety net. They, for the most part, became dependent upon the social safety net, which had its own added challenges. A lot of the safety-net systems we have in place were not designed to serve everyone at once and unemployment reporting systems in most states broke down in the initial days of COVID-19. Then came the social distancing and lockdown of society. Human beings are social animals. We are not programmed to be confined, and let’s face it, no matter what else we call it, it was confinement. We had no social interaction, even when we could go out for necessities, and there was no looking at anyone’s face—I mean, how do we judge facial expressions when we are all wearing masks?
The lack of social interaction hit the younger generation especially hard. Their go-to source for stress reduction is hanging out with friends and that was taken away abruptly. So-called health experts did not realize what negative effects their directives would have on this segment of the population that was least affected by COVID-19 but most affected by the mental health crises resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns. A February 2021 National Institute of Health study concluded that almost 20% of young adults are suffering from anxiety. That is a very high percentage.
The current mental health crisis may be a blessing in disguise. Two things are happening: (1) mental health is no longer a taboo subject—even Michelle Obama is openly talking about the mild depression she is going through, (2) people are taking action to get their mental health in order and these actions will hopefully have a long-term positive outcome.
How do we personally address the anxiety that flares up any time of the day with no warning? Anxiety comes because we pay inappropriate attention to a subject. What is inappropriate attention, you might ask? It simply means we are exaggerating a problem we are facing or blowing out of proportion the negative impact of that problem. Recently, a friend’s son called me in a panic. He had recently received a full-time job and his employer asked for a drug test. At the testing facility they took his Social Security number and date of birth. When he was leaving, he noticed that they had a piece of paper with all his personal information in plain sight for everyone to see. He could not say anything at the time, but as soon as he arrived home he told his parents he was worried about identity theft. They asked him to call me. We started to talk and his anxiety was flaring up, so we went about breaking the situation down, which is very important for treating anxiety. People who are going through an anxiety episode tend to talk in generalities and about how everything is going from bad to worse. When we begin to break a problem down and talk specifics, we often realize that it is not as bad as we are making it out to be.
After talking it through, I asked him what the worst-case scenario was. This is another useful technique: when you know the worst-case scenario, it defines the problem and you can begin to address it. He said the worst case is someone steals his identity. So, I asked him to put a freeze on his credit report with all three credit bureaus. As soon as he completed this step his anxiety disappeared, because now he knew his problem was solved. The point here is that if we break down the problem and begin to work on it, this reduces or eliminates the anxiety.
But this is what I call a short-term solution. Longer term, we must learn how not to let our outer problems disturb our inner peace. This is where meditation comes in. A meditation practice that allows us to find our peaceful selves can become our go-to solution.
In your meditation practice today, I recommend you try what is known as the Absorption of Cessation of Thoughts meditation outlined in Appendix 1. This meditation is considered instant relief for stress, anxiety, and depression.