A study published in Nature Mental Health recently got attention for showing that many young adults struggle with multiple aspects of health and wellbeing. The study surveyed people across the world on multiple dimensions of flourishing: “a relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the contexts in which that person lives.” This includes happiness, physical and mental health, sense of meaning and purpose, relationships and financial security.
On average, when pooled across the 22 countries, flourishing is essentially a flat curve in adulthood and only starts to increase with age at 50yo. In contrast, previous research showed a U-shaped curve between life satisfaction and age. These trends appear to be consistent with what Jonathan Haidt presented in his book, The Anxious Generation.
Attending a weekly religious service growing up was associated with higher adult flourishing in almost all countries surveyed. Dr. Anna Yusim and I discussed aspects of this relationship last year on my podcast (full episode here: https://drbojana.com/the-role-of-spirituality-in-mental-health-healing-and-coming-to-your-authentic-self/). This concept supports what intuitively makes sense – a sense of belonging and acceptance in a community is correlated with one’s mental health and wellbeing.
It is concerning that young people are not doing as well as they used to. It is postulated that this is likely multifactorial and includes causes such as mental health concerns, which are on the rise in the younger populations. The authors ask whether these relations constitute a new “age effect” or whether this is a new “cohort effect” (i.e., the flourishing in this population is going to follow a U-shaped pattern as they age, but the absolute values on the U will be lower than current populations).
There is an inverse relationship between meaning and purpose and GDP which raises the questions about how to continue economic development that is not at the expense of meaning and purpose. The authors postulate that perhaps the role of spirituality needs to be considered in populations with lower flourishing, to help unite the different forms of wellbeing.
While many of the factors are context-dependent, and vary from culture to culture, it is worth paying attention to these global trends. In the microcosm of my practice, I’ve observed more young adults seeking support. They want to proactively manage mental and physical health. They want to be the best version of themselves and thrive in multiple dimensions of their lives.
In our practice, we discuss the importance of belonging and community, of engaging in activities that bring joy, feel authentic and meaningful, spending time in nature and living with a sense of purpose. It’s important to make a conscious effort to engage on all of these levels to support our wellbeing.
I’m curious to hear what others think. For healthcare professionals and therapists, are you seeing younger patients in your practice with more co-morbid mental health conditions and struggling with health, meaning, purpose and belonging? What have you been found to be the most helpful interventions, besides the standard of care?