A new poll by CNBC suggests 44% of older millennials (people born between 1981 and 1988) have at least one chronic health condition.

Migraines, depression, and asthma were the most common conditions with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure closely following.

The poll found older millennials had a higher rate of chronic illness compared to the general public, including the age group older than them.

Among the survey group, cancer was almost as common among older millennials as it was in the general population. About four percent of the 33- to 40-year-olds said they’d been diagnosed with cancer, compared to five percent of the overall survey group. 

Nearly half of older millennials have at least one chronic health condition such as depression, high blood pressure or asthma by the time they turn 40, poll suggests

Obesity is an increasing problem for Americans of all ages but even more so for the younger population. Only 10% of the 4,000 survey respondents reported being obese, which is lower than the general population, with an obesity rate of 13%. Obesity can lead to a higher likelihood of chronic health conditions that millennials are more likely to suffer from.

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A national survey of 977 parents with kids between the ages of 13-18 analyzed the mental health of teens since the beginning of the pandemic. Nearly half of parents have reported that their children are experiencing new or worse mental health problems since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

The poll was conducted by Ipsos the C.S Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan medical school.

The restrictions to control the spread of Covid-19 have kept teens at home “at the age they were primed to seek independence from their families,” said poll co-director Dr. Gary Freed, who is the Percy and Mary Murphy professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan.

Nearly half of parents said teens face new or worsening mental health issues during pandemic, poll says

Parents of teen girls reported higher cases of depression and anxiety compared to boys. Thirty-one percent of teenage girls experienced depression compared to 18% of boys. Thirty-six% of teenage girls faced anxiety compared to 19% of boys. A quarter of parents have said that the pandemic has affected children’s sleep schedule.

I used to have terrible anxiety. Throughout high school, I had panic attacks so severe I felt like I couldn’t breathe. At my worst, I would shut down, in tears, unable to take a deep breath, while my whole body shook. The pit in my stomach would get so heavy I was sure I would be sick. Sometimes, I did get sick.

Image credit: Antonioguillem/Adobe Stock

I remember the progression from being a nervous person to realizing I had anxiety, to being able to recognize I was having a panic attack. Yet, I didn’t even realize how bad it was because I was used to living with chronic pain. But when I was 16, I had a severe panic attack, severe enough that I finally thought to myself, “This is not normal, and I am not okay. I can’t live like this.” It was another two years before I fixed the root of the problem.

For two years after that debilitating panic attack, I would practice deep breathing, and on rare occasions, take an anxiety pill to try and help calm my nerves. Unfortunately, my endocrine system was so messed up, there wasn’t much I could do to quell the anxiety without fixing the root of the problem.

I also used to weigh 320 pounds. I woke up anxious; I went to bed anxious. Every moment of my life was full of anxiety. After graduating from high school, I began to learn about the endocrine system. I’ve learned how my toxic lifestyle (diet, prescription drugs, and poor sleep habits) caused my hormonal imbalance and was at the root of my anxiety and numerous other health problems. If you would like to take a deep dive into how hormones work and how to fix the endocrine system, check out the following article:

The endocrine system is the collection of glands and glandular organs that produce hormones to regulate metabolism, tissue function, growth and development (which includes repair), sexual function, reproduction, sleep, mood, the immune system, and more.

HOLISTIC GUIDE TO HEALING THE ENDOCRINE SYSTEM AND BALANCING OUR HORMONES

My anxiety was caused by two major things that were totally within my control:

• Poor diet
• Poor sleep

I’ve learned that my endocrine system was functioning so poorly because of my diet and poor sleep, which was also affected by my poor diet.

Diet

Diet is imperative to fixing the endocrine system and getting rid of anxiety. Just like with most everything else, it starts in the gut. When I eliminated refined sugars, gluten, and processed foods, I felt better within days. When I started eating a salad and drinking a gallon of cranberry lemonade every day, my life changed for the better, irrevocably.

We have an excellent article about the hormonal system that I urge anyone to read if they want to learn how to balance and heal the endocrine system. It goes into why diet is paramount to healing the gut, the endocrine system, and chronic illness in general:

As OLM always says, it starts with diet. Supplemental therapies are much more effective with a healthy diet, and for most people, the right diet is all they need. But there are plenty of people who do not have access to healthy foods, and there are many who have such a depleted endocrine system that the body is just plain going to need a lot of help.

HOLISTIC GUIDE TO HEALING THE ENDOCRINE SYSTEM AND BALANCING OUR HORMONES

Two months after fixing my diet, I decided to fast for a week. Within days my depression was back. I wasn’t as anxious as I had been, but the anxiety made it difficult to talk about how I was struggling. I had stopped eating vegetables, and I had stopped working out. I don’t think my gut was healthy enough for me to reap the benefits of fasting. A week later, the first thing I ate was a salad. I felt better immediately. As I incorporated exercise back into my life, my anxiety continued to fade.

I start to feel a little anxious when I don’t eat well enough as well as when I don’t take time to get enough sleep. When I say I’m not eating well I should be clear. My idea of junk food is stuff like homemade pesto with brown rice pasta, or organic brown rice chips with a chunk of goat cheddar cheese. Sometimes we make raw food chocolate pie or sourdough bread. While the average person wouldn’t notice any problems with these foods, and may even feel better compared to a typical diet, I get anxious when I eat wheat or pre-packaged processed “healthy” snack foods.

Sleep

Throughout high school, I would regularly sleep between 12-14 hours a day. I would often joke with my friends about how much sleep I got. While they were on one end of the spectrum, pulling all-nighters, I was on the other end, sleeping as much as possible. None of us were healthy. I struggled with depression throughout high school. I was always exhausted, no matter how much I slept.

Fixing your sleep schedule can be difficult or impossible if you’re not taking care of yourself in other ways. I sleep well when I eat well. Exercise helps, too. When I mess up my sleep schedule (which doesn’t happen often, but it does happen), I find that exercise is the best way to help me get back on track. No matter how mentally tired I am at the end of the day, I can still have a hard time falling asleep if I don’t go for a run or work out in some other way.

I also find that having a set bedtime and wake-up time helps. I generally go to bed by 9:30 or 10:00 every night. My wake-up time is not yet as consistent. Sometimes I’m up at 6:00 am, but other times, if my REM sleep is off, or I’m working out very hard, I can sleep past 8. I’m almost always awake by 9.

I find that my sleep schedule and my endocrine system are intertwined. It can be a vicious cycle when things aren’t going well! An unhealthy endocrine system makes it difficult to impossible to fix one’s sleep schedule, and a messed up sleep schedule makes it difficult to impossible to have a healthy endocrine system.

I find it interesting to pay attention to what happens when I don’t get enough sleep, and I get to experiment with this regularly. I have friends in college who often aren’t ready or able to talk or hang out until 8:00 or 9:00 pm when I’m ready to go to bed. And sometimes I can’t help myself, and I find I’ve pulled all-nighters or had too many consecutive days running on 3-4 hours of sleep while sticking to my very healthy diet.

when I don’t get enough sleep, the first thing that happens, obviously, is exhaustion. I have a hard time focusing and I feel very drained. Then I notice the anxiety. I notice a small pit in my stomach at the thought of doing something I don’t want to do. Something as simple as going on a run when I don’t want to can cause a slight twinge of anxious nausea.

The longer I go without sleep the worse my anxiety gets. It goes from that small twinge of nausea to a constant knot in my stomach at the thought of the unknown. My heart rate will spike unnecessarily at any unease. Happy excitement can turn into anxiety very quickly.

After one all-nighter or 2 days with less than 6 hours of sleep, I notice the bags under my eyes. They’re faint. Someone who doesn’t know me might not even notice them, but they’re there. Shortly after the sun comes up, I can barely see the purple-blue hues beginning to appear under my eyes.

I also experience dizziness when standing up if I’m not getting enough sleep. Recently, for two weeks, I did not get nearly enough sleep and was alternating between all-nighters and getting a couple of hours of sleep a night. Every time I stood up I would get lightheaded. I nearly fainted twice. There are multiple factors that go into this, but I believe that had I been getting proper sleep, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Since correcting my sleep schedule, the issues have gone away.

Conclusion

I remember what it was like to have severe anxiety. I know how hard it can be to treat. I find that like almost all other things health related, it starts in the gut. Fixing anxiety can take time. My panic attacks went away within days of fixing my diet, but it took months of regular exercise and a healthy diet to fix my endocrine system enough to alleviate my anxiety completely.

• The Effects of Anxiety on the Endocrine System
• Anxiety disorders are linked to inflamed thyroid glands
• 10 Ways to Naturally Reduce Anxiety

A new study, reported in JAMA Psychiatry, found Psilocybin to be four times more effective at treating depression, compared to antidepressants. Psilocybin is the psychedelic substance in magic mushrooms. This research comes after research suggesting that psilocybin could ease depression and anxiety in cancer patients.

The study involved 27 people. Patients received two doses of psilocybin on two different days, in addition to 11 hours of psychotherapy. Patients were administered the drug in what Alan Davis, lead author on the study, describes as a homey but safe environment. After being administered the drug, patients were blindfolded and given headphones, and told experience whatever was happening within the trip. Half of the patients were put on a waitlist to serve as a comparison group for the other half of the group, who began treatment immediately.

The group who began treatment immediately saw a significant reduction in depression and responded much quicker compared to antidepressants.

“The effect happened within one day after the first session and sustained at that reduced level through the second psilocybin session all the way up to the one-month follow-up,”

Rigorous Study Backs A Psychedelic Treatment For Major Depression

The pandemic has been stressful for Americans, especially those who are working class, and a new study finds that stress reflected in our mental health. Available on JAMA Network Open, the study finds that rates of depression have tripled in the United States, rising from 8.5% before the pandemic to 27.8%. The data was collected from a survey with 1,441 participants conducted in April of 2020.

Spikes in depression are common during and after large scale trauma events. Researchers also evaluated the impact of stressors on the survey takers’ mental health. Lower-income individuals with less than $5,000 in savings who were exposed to a greater amount of stressors were most at risk for depression. This group was the most vulnerable before the pandemic and experienced a 50% increase in depression risk.

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

While further data will be needed to assess the trajectory of depression in the US population and potential treatment for affected populations, it seems important to recognize the potential for the mental health consequences of COVID-19 to be large in scale, to recognize that these effects can be long-lasting, and to consider preventative action to help mitigate its effects.²⁸ In particular, this burden is being borne by economically and socially marginalized groups, suggesting that individuals with low income and with fewer resources may benefit from particular policy attention in coming months

Prevalence of Depression Symptoms in US Adults Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that suicide rates in youth aged 10-24 have increased by 57% between 2007 and 2018. This is a rise from 7 in every 100,000 people to 11. The U.S suicide rate within all age groups was 14 people in every 100,000 in 2018. More than a quarter of young adults reported seriously considering suicide in the last 30 days.

“There are many reasons to suspect that suicide rates will increase this year too, not just because of Covid-19 but because stress and anxiety seem to be permeating every aspect of our lives,”

Suicides Among U.S. Kids, Young Adults Jumped 57% in Past Decade

Related: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Rural states showed the highest suicide rates, namely Alaska, South Dakota Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Alaska was the highest with 31.5 young suicides per 100,000 young people. In contrast, Northeastern states, including New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts had the lowest suicide rates. That being said, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts saw 44%, 39%, and 64% increases in suicide rates respectively.

With the ongoing political, social, and socioeconomic stress in today’s climate, plus the added stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is likely that suicide rates will continue to rise.

A recent study has shown that after undergoing gender reassignment surgery, transgender people were less likely to experience depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts than before surgery. Their improvement in mental state can still be seen, and oftentimes continues to increase several years post-op. Gender reassignment surgery is generally considered the last step for treatment of gender dysphoria. Before surgery patients take feminizing or masculinizing hormones to adjust external sexual features, but the hormones did not have the same effect on mental health as the surgery did.

Howard Lipin/The San Diego Union-Tribune

Many transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals find comfort with their gender identity, role, and expression without surgery,” but for others, surgery is essential and medically necessary to alleviate their gender dysphoria,

Sex-reassignment surgery yields long-term mental health benefits, study finds

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Gender incongruent people within the study were six times more likely than the general population to visit doctors for mood and or anxiety disorders, three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants, and six times as likely to be hospitalized for suicide attempts. These mental health problems diminished and continued to diminish the longer it had been since patients underwent surgery. The likelihood of treatment of an anxiety or mood disorder reduced 8% each year post-op for up to 10 years. Transgender people are still more in need of mental health care compared to the rest of the population, the research team suggests this is partly based on stigma, economic inequality, and victimization.