Mental health is more important than physical health. Let me tell you why. A huge number of Gen Z adults are victims of mental health issues. 75% of Gen Z adults (born between 1997 and 2012) have experienced at least one mental health issue, such as anxiety or depression. As much as it is talked about, I don’t feel like it is given enough attention. Surely, physical health can impact you in a lot of ways, but if your mental health is not good, chances are you won’t even survive this life. Gen Zs are focusing more on mental health, and it is talked about more than the previous generation. One peculiar thing about Gen Z is that they bring humor to everything, especially if you’re going through a traumatizing experience. Most of them will make it in such a way and include humor so that it doesn’t feel very real. Most of them bottle feelings up, which is essentially not a good thing in the long run.
Having good mental health keeps you well-oriented and makes life so much smoother if you are in a much better mental state. Still, most of the difficulties in life can lead you astray, especially with today’s difficulties. Stress from education, which plays such an important part in deteriorating your mental health, your job position, and your family problems, can have such an impact on your mental health that it can feel hard to recover if you don’t see a therapist. Another thing is that therapy is so expensive. There are a lot of psychologists who will help you maintain your mental health, but due to the expense, most people, or the young generation, don’t have any access to therapy. It can prove extremely beneficial for you, but sadly, not everyone has a chance to consider it. Most of this generation just keep bottling their feelings up, downplaying their trauma, which can mess up your mental health so badly. A study by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) found that 60% of young people aged 13-24 experienced mental health issues, with 50% experiencing symptoms of depression and 40% experiencing symptoms of anxiety.
But there are a lot of other ways you can vent your feelings, especially ranting to your friends in this age. It’s quite common, and it helps you regulate your emotions so that you don’t lose your mind anytime soon. One important thing to keep in mind is that people’s feelings are always valid; just because you experience and deal with emotions in a certain way does not mean the other person will do it in the same way. A lot of ways that you can keep your mental health in check is to talk to someone you trust a lot. It can be a family member. It can be your cousin, your best friend, or someone that you trust a lot, who will keep you from making rash decisions, will help you in a way, and divert your mind from all the chaos that is going around. Anxiety comes along with it. I feel like in this generation, every other person has anxiety, which can make going through everyday tasks so horrible. To work with you constantly overthinking your life decisions, your every move, rethinking whether you did something right or wrong, it can be so heavy on your mind to keep overthinking again and again. 50% of Gen Zers report feeling anxious or nervous most of the time. You should keep tabs on closed ones as well so that they don’t succumb to the darkness in their lives and help them get better if needed.
By: Hafsa Hassan