mental health issues caused by homework

Homework Struggles May Not Be a Behavior Problem

Exploring some options to understand and help..

Posted August 2, 2022 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

• Mental health challenges and neurodevelopmental differences directly affect children's ability to do homework.
• Understanding what difficulties are getting in the way—beyond the usual explanation of a behavior problem—is key.
• Sleep and mental health needs can take priority over homework completion.

Chelsea was in 10th grade the first time I told her directly to stop doing her homework and get some sleep. I had been working with her since she was in middle school, treating her anxiety disorder. She deeply feared disappointing anyone—especially her teachers—and spent hours trying to finish homework perfectly. The more tired and anxious she got, the harder it got for her to finish the assignments.

One night Chelsea called me in despair, feeling hopeless. She was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. She felt like a failure and that she was a burden to everyone because she couldn’t finish her homework.

She was shocked when I told her that my prescription for her was to go to sleep now—not to figure out how to finish her work. I told her to leave her homework incomplete and go to sleep. We briefly discussed how we would figure it out the next day, with her mom and her teachers. At that moment, it clicked for her that it was futile to keep working—because nothing was getting done.

This was an inflection point for her awareness of when she was emotionally over-cooked and when she needed to stop and take a break or get some sleep. We repeated versions of this phone call several times over the course of her high school and college years, but she got much better at being able to do this for herself most of the time.

When Mental Health Symptoms Interfere with Homework

Kids with mental health or neurodevelopmental challenges often struggle mightily with homework. Challenges can come up in every step of the homework process, including, but not limited to:

• Remembering and tracking assignments and materials
• Getting the mental energy/organization to start homework
• Filtering distractions enough to persist with assignments
• Understanding unspoken or implied parts of the homework
• Remembering to bring finished homework to class
• Being in class long enough to know the material
• Tolerating the fear of not knowing or failing
• Not giving up the assignment because of a panic attack
• Tolerating frustration—such as not understanding—without emotional dysregulation
• Being able to ask for help—from a peer or a teacher and not being afraid to reach out

This list is hardly comprehensive. ADHD , autism spectrum disorder, social anxiety , generalized anxiety, panic disorder, depression , dysregulation, and a range of other neurodevelopmental and mental health challenges cause numerous learning differences and symptoms that can specifically and frequently interfere with getting homework done.

The Usual Diagnosis for Homework Problems is "Not Trying Hard Enough"

Unfortunately, when kids frequently struggle to meet homework demands, teachers and parents typically default to one explanation of the problem: The child is making a choice not to do their homework. That is the default “diagnosis” in classrooms and living rooms. And once this framework is drawn, the student is often seen as not trying hard enough, disrespectful, manipulative, or just plain lazy.

The fundamental disconnect here is that the diagnosis of homework struggles as a behavioral choice is, in fact, only one explanation, while there are so many other diagnoses and differences that impair children's ability to consistently do their homework. If we are trying to create solutions based on only one understanding of the problem, the solutions will not work. More devastatingly, the wrong solutions can worsen the child’s mental health and their long-term engagement with school and learning.

To be clear, we aren’t talking about children who sometimes struggle with or skip homework—kids who can change and adapt their behaviors and patterns in response to the outcomes of that struggle. For this discussion, we are talking about children with mental health and/or neurodevelopmental symptoms and challenges that create chronic difficulties with meeting homework demands.

How Can You Help a Child Who Struggles with Homework?

How can you help your child who is struggling to meet homework demands because of their ADHD, depression, anxiety, OCD , school avoidance, or any other neurodevelopmental or mental health differences? Let’s break this down into two broad areas—things you can do at home, and things you can do in communication with the school.

Helping at Home

The following suggestions for managing school demands at home can feel counterintuitive to parents—because we usually focus on helping our kids to complete their tasks. But mental health needs jump the line ahead of task completion. And starting at home will be key to developing an idea of what needs to change at school.

• Set an end time in the evening after which no more homework will be attempted. Kids need time to decompress and they need sleep—and pushing homework too close to or past bedtime doesn’t serve their educational needs. Even if your child hasn’t been able to approach the homework at all, even if they have avoided and argued the whole evening, it is still important for everyone to have a predictable time to shut down the whole process.
• If there are arguments almost every night about homework, if your child isn’t starting homework or finishing it, reframe it from failure into information. It’s data to put into problem-solving. We need to consider other possible explanations besides “behavioral choice” when trying to understand the problem and create effective solutions. What problems are getting in the way of our child’s meeting homework demands that their peers are meeting most of the time?
• Try not to argue about homework. If you can check your own anxiety and frustration, it can be more productive to ally with your child and be curious with them. Kids usually can’t tell you a clear “why” but maybe they can tell you how they are feeling and what they are thinking. And if your child can’t talk about it or just keeps saying “I don't know,” try not to push. Come back another time. Rushing, forcing, yelling, and threatening will predictably not help kids do homework.

Helping at School

The second area to explore when your neurodiverse child struggles frequently with homework is building communication and connections with school and teachers. Some places to focus on include the following.

• Label your child’s diagnoses and break down specific symptoms for the teachers and school team. Nonjudgmental, but specific language is essential for teachers to understand your child’s struggles. Breaking their challenges down into the problems specific to homework can help with building solutions. As your child gets older, help them identify their difficulties and communicate them to teachers.
• Let teachers and the school team know that your child’s mental health needs—including sleep—take priority over finishing homework. If your child is always struggling to complete homework and get enough sleep, or if completing homework is leading to emotional meltdowns every night, adjusting their homework demands will be more successful than continuing to push them into sleep deprivation or meltdowns.
• Request a child study team evaluation to determine if your child qualifies for services under special education law such as an IEP, or accommodations through section 504—and be sure that homework adjustments are included in any plan. Or if such a plan is already in place, be clear that modification of homework expectations needs to be part of it.

The Long-Term Story

I still work with Chelsea and she recently mentioned how those conversations so many years ago are still part of how she approaches work tasks or other demands that are spiking her anxiety when she finds herself in a vortex of distress. She stops what she is doing and prioritizes reducing her anxiety—whether it’s a break during her day or an ending to the task for the evening. She sees that this is crucial to managing her anxiety in her life and still succeeding at what she is doing.

Task completion at all costs is not a solution for kids with emotional needs. Her story (and the story of many of my patients) make this crystal clear.

Candida Fink, M.D. , is board certified in child/adolescent and general psychiatry. She practices in New York and has co-authored two books— The Ups and Downs of Raising a Bipolar Child and Bipolar Disorder for Dummies.

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Stanford research shows pitfalls of homework

A Stanford researcher found that students in high-achieving communities who spend too much time on homework experience more stress, physical health problems, a lack of balance and even alienation from society. More than two hours of homework a night may be counterproductive, according to the study.

Education scholar Denise Pope has found that too much homework has negative effects on student well-being and behavioral engagement. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

A Stanford researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.

“Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good,” wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .

The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students’ views on homework.

Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.

Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.

“The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being,” Pope wrote.

Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.

Their study found that too much homework is associated with:

• Greater stress: 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.

• Reductions in health: In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.

• Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits: Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills,” according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.

A balancing act

The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.

Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as “pointless” or “mindless” in order to keep their grades up.

“This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points,” Pope said.

She said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.

“Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development,” wrote Pope.

High-performing paradox

In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. “Young people are spending more time alone,” they wrote, “which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities.”

Student perspectives

The researchers say that while their open-ended or “self-reporting” methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for “typical adolescent complaining” – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.

The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

When Is Homework Stressful? Its Effects on Students’ Mental Health

Are you wondering when is homework stressful? Well, homework is a vital constituent in keeping students attentive to the course covered in a class. By applying the lessons, students learned in class, they can gain a mastery of the material by reflecting on it in greater detail and applying what they learned through homework. 

However, students get advantages from homework, as it improves soft skills like organisation and time management which are important after high school. However, the additional work usually causes anxiety for both the parents and the child. As their load of homework accumulates, some students may find themselves growing more and more bored.

Students may take assistance online and ask someone to do my online homework . As there are many platforms available for the students such as Chegg, Scholarly Help, and Quizlet offering academic services that can assist students in completing their homework on time. 

Negative impact of homework

There are the following reasons why is homework stressful and leads to depression for students and affect their mental health. As they work hard on their assignments for alarmingly long periods, students’ mental health is repeatedly put at risk. Here are some serious arguments against too much homework.

No uniqueness

Homework should be intended to encourage children to express themselves more creatively. Teachers must assign kids intriguing assignments that highlight their uniqueness. similar to writing an essay on a topic they enjoy.

Moreover, the key is encouraging the child instead of criticizing him for writing a poor essay so that he can express himself more creatively.

Lack of sleep

One of the most prevalent adverse effects of schoolwork is lack of sleep. The average student only gets about 5 hours of sleep per night since they stay up late to complete their homework, even though the body needs at least 7 hours of sleep every day. Lack of sleep has an impact on both mental and physical health.

No pleasure

Students learn more effectively while they are having fun. They typically learn things more quickly when their minds are not clouded by fear. However, the fear factor that most teachers introduce into homework causes kids to turn to unethical means of completing their assignments.

Excessive homework

The lack of coordination between teachers in the existing educational system is a concern. As a result, teachers frequently end up assigning children far more work than they can handle. In such circumstances, children turn to cheat on their schoolwork by either copying their friends’ work or using online resources that assist with homework.

Anxiety level

Homework stress can increase anxiety levels and that could hurt the blood pressure norms in young people . Do you know? Around 3.5% of young people in the USA have high blood pressure. So why is homework stressful for children when homework is meant to be enjoyable and something they look forward to doing? It is simple to reject this claim by asserting that schoolwork is never enjoyable, yet with some careful consideration and preparation, homework may become pleasurable.

No time for personal matters

Students that have an excessive amount of homework miss out on personal time. They can’t get enough enjoyment. There is little time left over for hobbies, interpersonal interaction with colleagues, and other activities. 

However, many students dislike doing their assignments since they don’t have enough time. As they grow to detest it, they can stop learning. In any case, it has a significant negative impact on their mental health.

Children are no different than everyone else in need of a break. Weekends with no homework should be considered by schools so that kids have time to unwind and prepare for the coming week. Without a break, doing homework all week long might be stressful.

How do parents help kids with homework?

Encouraging children’s well-being and health begins with parents being involved in their children’s lives. By taking part in their homework routine, you can see any issues your child may be having and offer them the necessary support.

Set up a routine

Your student will develop and maintain good study habits if you have a clear and organized homework regimen. If there is still a lot of schoolwork to finish, try putting a time limit. Students must obtain regular, good sleep every single night.

Observe carefully

The student is ultimately responsible for their homework. Because of this, parents should only focus on ensuring that their children are on track with their assignments and leave it to the teacher to determine what skills the students have and have not learned in class.

Listen to your child

One of the nicest things a parent can do for their kids is to ask open-ended questions and listen to their responses. Many kids are reluctant to acknowledge they are struggling with their homework because they fear being labelled as failures or lazy if they do.

However, every parent wants their child to succeed to the best of their ability, but it’s crucial to be prepared to ease the pressure if your child starts to show signs of being overburdened with homework.

Talk to your teachers

Also, make sure to contact the teacher with any problems regarding your homework by phone or email. Additionally, it demonstrates to your student that you and their teacher are working together to further their education.

Homework with friends

If you are still thinking is homework stressful then It’s better to do homework with buddies because it gives them these advantages. Their stress is reduced by collaborating, interacting, and sharing with peers.

Additionally, students are more relaxed when they work on homework with pals. It makes even having too much homework manageable by ensuring they receive the support they require when working on the assignment. Additionally, it improves their communication abilities.

However, doing homework with friends guarantees that one learns how to communicate well and express themselves. 

Review homework plan

Create a schedule for finishing schoolwork on time with your child. Every few weeks, review the strategy and make any necessary adjustments. Gratefully, more schools are making an effort to control the quantity of homework assigned to children to lessen the stress this produces.

Bottom line

Finally, be aware that homework-related stress is fairly prevalent and is likely to occasionally affect you or your student. Sometimes all you or your kid needs to calm down and get back on track is a brief moment of comfort. So if you are a student and wondering if is homework stressful then you must go through this blog.

While homework is a crucial component of a student’s education, when kids are overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to perform, the advantages of homework can be lost and grades can suffer. Finding a balance that ensures students understand the material covered in class without becoming overburdened is therefore essential.

Zuella Montemayor did her degree in psychology at the University of Toronto. She is interested in mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.

Psychreg is a digital media company and not a clinical company. Our content does not constitute a medical or psychological consultation. See a certified medical or mental health professional for diagnosis.

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THE ALGONQUIN HARBINGER

• Excessive homework negatively impacts mental health, causes unnecessary stress

Caroline Lou

Opinion Editor Jula Utzschneider writes on the overwhelming chip on every student’s shoulder: homework.

Jula Utzschneider , Opinion Editor November 10, 2021

When the bell rings to end last period every day, I feel a sense of relief. However, this feeling soon wears off as I realize just how much work I have to do after the already-stressful school day ends.

While homework can be beneficial, more often than not, it is assigned excessively and unnecessarily. Teachers give a significant amount of homework, often due the next day. This causes students to spend far too much time doing such assignments and can be detrimental.

A 2013 study conducted at Stanford University found that students in top-performing school districts who spend too much time on homework experience more stress, physical health problems, a lack of balance in their lives and alienation from society. That study, published in The Journal of Experimental Education , suggested that any more than two hours of homework per night is counterproductive. However, students who participated in the study reported doing slightly more than three hours of homework every night.

And, yes, the amount of homework given to students depends on the course level they take. But, with increasingly competitive college acceptance rates (demanding more extracurriculars and college-level classes), many students feel forced to take these more challenging courses. This is a huge problem, especially as teachers give homework only thinking about their own class, not the five or six others students have.

Additionally, when it came to stress, more than 70% of students in the Stanford study said they were “often or always stressed over schoolwork,” with 56% listing homework as a primary stressor. More than 80% of students reported having at least one stress-related symptom (such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, stomach problems and more) in the past month, and 44% said they had experienced three or more symptoms. 

Less than 1% of the students said homework was not a stressor, demonstrating that the vast majority feel overwhelmed and pressured by the amount of work they receive.

Not to mention, the time spent on these assignments could easily be spent doing something enjoyable. Many students feel forced or obligated to choose homework over practicing other talents or skills, which should never be the case. Teachers should be encouraging these extracurriculars, rather than making it impossible for students to partake in them.

In terms of what teachers can do, it’s quite simple, really. Homework is intended for students to either practice a subject further or to cover topics teachers couldn’t during the allotted class time. It should not be busywork that just wastes a student’s time. 

Teachers should be giving students work that is absolutely necessary (not busy work), and eliminate it altogether where they can. It is extremely important that students not only get through high school but thrive and enjoy it too.

How much time do you spend doing homework on an average school night?

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Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in.

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas about workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework. 

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says, he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy workloads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold , says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace , says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression. 

And for all the distress homework  can cause, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says, homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night. 

"Most students, especially at these high achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends, from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no-homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely but to be more mindful of the type of work students take home, suggests Kang, who was a high school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework; I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial 

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the past two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic , making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized. ... Sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking up assignments can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

More: Some teachers let their students sleep in class. Here's what mental health experts say.

More: Some parents are slipping young kids in for the COVID-19 vaccine, but doctors discourage the move as 'risky'

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What to do if you're struggling with your mental health at work

Jordan-Marie Smith

Andee Tagle

When you're not in the right headspace, being at work can be difficult.

Whether it's depression, burnout, anxiety or something else, struggling with your mental health while you're waiting tables or sitting behind a desk can disrupt your life and your job.

But there's a stigma to taking time off to care for your mental health that's not present with physical health. The mindset is, "Just work, work, work, push through it and get to the other end and deal with it," says Jody Adewale, a Los Angeles-based psychologist and medical advisor for the mental health advocacy foundation, Made of Millions .

Addressing your mental health needs is important — and human. "It's not a character flaw or a character defect or a sign of weakness," says Adewale. "It's something that everyone I think on this planet will experience at one point or another in their life."

Life Kit asked mental health professionals how to spot an issue and what the options are when you do.

While we know there's no such thing as the perfect job, there are tools for both employees and managers to make work a better place to be.

1. Look for signs of declining mental health

First, check-in with your body. Are you more tense than usual? Do you lose sleep or not eat as much?

Even if you aren't the person experiencing poor mental health, you can be a good coworker by taking note of the five signs of emotional suffering.

• Personality change in a way that seems drastic
• Agitation or uncharacteristically angry demeanor
• Withdrawn from social interaction
• Poor hygiene (substance abuse or physical hygiene)
• Feelings of hopelessness

These five signs from the national mental health non-profit Give an Hour are clear ways to determine if it's time to check in with your colleague or tend to your own mental health issues, says Hassel Aviles, the co-founder of Not 9 to 5 , a global non-profit focusing on mental health advocacy for the foodservice and hospitality sector.

Burnout Isn't Just Exhaustion. Here's How To Deal With It

And you don't need to mark every item on this list – spotting even one could be a reason to check in with yourself or someone you care about. From there, do some triage and be honest with yourself.

Could it help to switch up some habits? Do you need to vent to a friend, get some more movement or minimize social media time ? Or, is it time to raise a concern at the office?

2. Have a conversation with a trusted person who can introduce you to resources

After realizing that you need help, reach out to a colleague that you trust.

A loyal and reliable coworker can help you vent or think things through. If you need more help, a supervisor might be the best person to talk to, given they may be informed about resources that could help with mental health. Human resources can be a good option as well, but be mindful that HR typically has the company's best interest in mind, Adewale says.

If your employer is retaliating against you because of your mental health condition, you can contact the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to file a claim.

One way to address your needs is to use the DEAR method in a meeting with HR, management or your trusted coworker.

• D - Describe the situation using facts.
• E - Express how the situation made you feel or how it affected you.
• A - Assert your needs.
• R - Reinforce the outcome and how it will be a win-win.

Part two of this method follows the acronym MAN, and will help remind you of mindset in these conversations:

• M - Be mindful of your words, and stay in the present moment.
• A - Be assertive. If you're raising a mental health issue at work, it's important for everyone involved, so stand your ground!
• N - Negotiate. Your office might not be able to shift to your ideal hours, but perhaps you could work together to set firmer boundaries for emails or start actually honoring lunch breaks. Work with your manager to find solutions.

How To Start Therapy

And remember, your boss or your coworker is not your therapist in this situation. If you get a burn or a cut at the office, you wouldn't expect your supervisor to know how to treat you, says Aviles. They are there to direct you to help.

One resource your trusted person may point you to is an employee assistance program or EAP. This is a service that many companies have. It provides employees with a handful of therapy sessions at no charge.

3. Sometimes you need to take a break

If therapy isn't enough, it might help to take time off from work. It could be anywhere from one day to several months, but taking time to process, rest, heal and seek proper treatment can make all the difference.

A good start to pursuing this option is to ask your human resources department about short-term disability leave. Short-term disability leave allows you to take time off for a sickness or injury, including your mental health

You aren't lazy. You just need to slow down

Vermont journalist Siobhan Neela-Stock took over two months off work to heal from a less-than-ideal work environment. When she tweeted about it, she was flooded with positive responses. Some were from people who want to take time off from work and other notes were from people who had.

Neela-Stock says more and more people are discussing mental health leave as a viable option.

"I guess the good thing about this silver lining is that we're, again, talking about it more and we're realizing that a lot of us are going through this. And, that there is a way out," Neela-Stock said.

4. Create a psychologically safe workplace

The quickest path to mentally healthy workers is mentally healthy workspaces.

"Psychological safety" is a term coined by researcher Amy Edmondson . It focuses on the need to create safe environments at work, where people can share how they are actually doing without the threat of losing out on a promotion or big project.

Aviles says employers and employees can create psychological safety anywhere–from an office to a kitchen. It all depends on if you're able to be vulnerable with each other.

Leadership At Work Is An Art Form. Here's How To Practice It.

Remember that It's also important to engage with your team by centering voices that are most affected by something. Employers don't need to have all of the answers, but they should be transparent and open to feedback.

One last tip: It's okay to make mistakes. In a psychologically safe environment, an employee learns from their mistakes and uses the opportunity to grow. This is the opposite of the top-down approach where the boss chastises an employee for making mistakes.

"And that is what creates innovation. That is what fosters creativity that is with us to really grow, that psychological safety in the workplace," says Aviles.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of resources for workplace mental health:

• The CDC offers a wealth of resources , including a glossary of terms and suggestions for managers.
• Did you know you can train in mental health first aid? Here's where to find training and mental health aid resources. 
• Made of Millions is a global mental health advocacy group that offers lots of training and resources. Here's their letter to your manager , and here's their global directory of resources .
• Not 9 to 5 is a global non-profit focusing on mental health advocacy in the foodservice and hospitality sectors. Their website offers a lot of great workplace mental health resources .
• Here's a breakdown of how to implement psychological safety in the workplace , from ShiftCollab , a therapy collective
• For an explanation of your rights in regards to mental health protection in the workplace, check out the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission .

The podcast portion of this story was produced by Andee Tagle.

We'd love to hear from you. If you have a good life hack, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email us at [email protected] . Your tip could appear in an upcoming episode.

If you love Life Kit and want more, subscribe to our newsletter .

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August 22, 2022

Children’s Risk of Suicide Increases on School Days

Unlike in adults, suicide risk among children is lowest during the summer and higher during the school year. Understanding these patterns can help prevent and treat suicidality

By Tyler Black

Amanda Montañez

Reading about death and suicidality can be distressing. Please read this in a moment where you feel safest and ready to do so.

Pediatricians, child psychologists and psychiatrists, social workers and pediatric emergency teams know something that many people who care for children don’t: we are much busier during the school year. I’m a full-time emergency psychiatrist who works at a major children’s hospital, and often when children come in for a mental health crisis, one of the main stressors they discuss is school.

I’m sure most people assume I commonly prescribe medications as a physician, but one of my most common “prescriptions” is advocating for reducing school burden and load. In a 2013 American Psychological Association survey, 83 percent of adolescents stated that school was a cause or significant source of stress . In a 2017 survey of school leaders in the U.K., 82 percent reported increased mental health issues among primary school children during the time of national examinations. In studies in 2013 and 2015, scientists studying homework in the U.S. found that primary school children were averaging 30 minutes of such work per night, while high-performing secondary students were averaging more than three hours per night, at the cost of their physical health and schoolwork-life balance.

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Whether we are talking about referrals to mental health programs for crisis, presentations to emergency departments for mental health issues, admissions to intensive care units for urgent treatment of suicide attempts or deaths by suicide, an association with school is clear. We are able to visualize this in a number of ways.

By using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wonder database to find information on pediatric (17 years of age or younger) deaths by suicide, I have created a “heat map” of youth suicide, and a school-day association is plain to see. On weekdays and during school months, there is a significant elevation of suicide deaths in children.

Credit: Amanda Montañez; Source: CDC Wonder , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Data analysis by Tyler Black

Looking at the monthly data, we can see that this elevation is not trivial: during school months, the increase in pediatric suicides ranges between 30 and 43 percent. This is in sharp contrast with adults, where we see suicide rates typically peak in summer months. 

This situation has not improved over time: Compared with summer weekends, school-month weekdays from 2016 to 2019 show a pediatric suicide rate increase of 62 percent. The increase was 42% from 1999 to 2015.

If we look at far more common events, such as emergency room visits for mental health conditions, we see a strikingly similar pattern. These data come from participating hospitals in a collection done by the CDC.

Credit: Amanda Montañez; National Syndromic Surveillance Program via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

School comes with many things, good and bad. School can be wonderful, with learning experiences, social successes and a sense of connection to others. But it can also be incredibly stressful because of academic burden, bullying, health- and disability-related barriers, discrimination, lack of sleep and sometimes abuse. I often liken going to school to a child’s full-time job. The child has co-workers (classmates arranged by hierarchy), supervisors (teachers), bosses (administrators and principals) and overtime (homework). And they have very early work hours (most schools have hours that are very incompatible with children’s sleep patterns). Of course, work can be rewarding, but it’s also stressful.

Any time I present these data to teachers, parents, principals or school administrators, they are shocked. This should be common knowledge. Pediatric suicides and mental health crisis rates increase sharply when school is in and ease when school is out. This pattern is also found in other jurisdictions, such as Japan , Germany and Finland .

There are a number of ways to potentially mitigate this distress that I wish those responsible for our children’s education would explore. Some suggestions I’d put forth:

Reduce homework (preferably get rid of it). Some of the best educational science available shows that excessive homework is of limited benefit and in fact harms children’s health and well-being.

Add a mental health curriculum. We have developed incredible educational goals for math, reading, science and the arts. There should be a dedicated pathway for a much more universal and necessary learning: how to take care of yourself; how to look out for and help others; and how to improve both the detection and prevention of mental health crises.

Take bullying seriously and don’t just focus on the bullies. The bullied and bullies often come from similar backgrounds (histories of abuse, trauma, chaos, deprivation, parental detachment, though this certainly isn’t universally the case). But whereas the bullied tend to be internalizers, the bullies are more often externalizers. Bullies who were once victims of bullying have the highest risk of having psychiatric problems in the future.

Restore funding for playtime, music and art in school and de-emphasize academic overload. Children need relaxation, comfort, beauty, fun and play. Children who have opportunities to play and rest will learn more in their academics, and they will be able to sustain their development as they grow.

End “perfect attendance” awards and goals. While problematic truancy should be addressed, there is no less realistic notion for the rest of one’s life than the idea of “perfect attendance.” We should all, from time to time, recognize when we are at our limit and need a break. Children should be encouraged to report when they can do so and be supported.

Start school later. How many more decades of research do we need to show that children need more sleep and that adolescents do better in school when the day starts later? It’s time to make serious structural changes to the early-morning wake-up times.

Be nonjudgmental and respect children’s identity and identity formation. This is not a “woke” concept. This is a caring, compassionate concept that works for all children all the time.

Recognize and address child abuse within schools. There exist (and many readers may likely recall) teachers who are abusive, punitive and cruel. In one 2015 study, 44 percent of undergraduates recalled a time in K–12 school that they labeled as emotional abuse by a teacher . And in another study published in 2019, 3.4 percent of seventh- and eighth-grade students reported teachers bullied them .

Every year my colleagues in the emergency department brace for the coming mid-September wave, as every year our mental health crisis presentation volumes double and our days become much busier. Likely not coincidentally, in my jurisdiction, school starts in the second week of September.

In the new school year, if you are someone who works with school-age children, ask yourself what you could be doing to reduce pressure or improve quality of life for the children in your care. This would truly be suicide prevention.

IF YOU NEED HELP If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, help is available. Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or use the online Lifeline Chat . LGBTQ+ Americans can reach out to the Trevor Project by texting START to 678-678 or calling 1-866-488-7386.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American .

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Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

Recent studies cast doubt on whether large-scale mental health interventions are making young people better. Some even suggest they can have a negative effect.

By Ellen Barry

In recent years, mental health has become a central subject in childhood and adolescence. Teenagers narrate their psychiatric diagnosis and treatment on TikTok and Instagram. School systems, alarmed by rising levels of distress and self-harm, are introducing preventive coursework in emotional self-regulation and mindfulness.

Now, some researchers warn that we are in danger of overdoing it. Mental health awareness campaigns, they argue, help some young people identify disorders that badly need treatment — but they have a negative effect on others, leading them to over-interpret their symptoms and see themselves as more troubled than they are.

The researchers point to unexpected results in trials of school-based mental health interventions in the United Kingdom and Australia: Students who underwent training in the basics of mindfulness , cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy did not emerge healthier than peers who did not participate, and some were worse off, at least for a while.

And new research from the United States shows that among young people, “self-labeling” as having depression or anxiety is associated with poor coping skills, like avoidance or rumination.

In a paper published last year , two research psychologists at the University of Oxford, Lucy Foulkes and Jack Andrews, coined the term “prevalence inflation” — driven by the reporting of mild or transient symptoms as mental health disorders — and suggested that awareness campaigns were contributing to it.

“It’s creating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they’re likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional,” said Dr. Foulkes, a Prudence Trust Research Fellow in Oxford’s department of experimental psychology, who has written two books on mental health and adolescence.

Until high-quality research has clarified these unexpected negative effects, they argue, school systems should proceed cautiously with large-scale mental health interventions.

“It’s not that we need to go back to square one, but it’s that we need to press pause and reroute potentially,” Dr. Foulkes said. “It’s possible that something very well-intended has overshot a bit and needs to be brought back in.”

This remains a minority view among specialists in adolescent mental health, who mostly agree that the far more urgent problem is lack of access to treatment.

About 60 percent of young Americans with severe depression receive no treatment, according to Mental Health America, a nonprofit research group. In crisis, desperate families fall back on emergency rooms, where teens often remain for days before a psychiatric bed opens up. There is good reason to embrace a preventive approach, teaching schoolchildren basic skills that might forestall crises later, experts say.

Dr. Foulkes said she understood that her argument runs counter to that consensus, and when she began to present it, she braced for a backlash. To her surprise, she said, many educators reached out to express quiet agreement.

“There’s definitely a fear about being the one to say it,” she said.

A deflating result

In the summer of 2022, the results of a landmark study on mindfulness training in British classrooms landed — like a lead balloon.

The trial, My Resilience in Adolescence, or MYRIAD, was ambitious, meticulous and expansive, following about 28,000 teenagers over eight years. It had been launched in a glow of optimism that the practice would pay off, improving the students’ mental health outcomes in later years.

Half of the teenagers were trained by their teachers to direct their attention to the present moment — breathing, physical sensations or everyday activities — in 10 lessons of 30 to 50 minutes apiece.

The results were disappointing . The authors reported “no support for our hypothesis” that mindfulness training would improve students’ mental health. In fact, students at highest risk for mental health problems did somewhat worse after receiving the training, the authors concluded.

But by the end of the eight-year project, “mindfulness is already embedded in a lot of schools, and there are already organizations making money from selling this program to schools,” said Dr. Foulkes, who had assisted on the study as a postdoctoral research associate. “And it’s very difficult to get the scientific message out there.”

Why, one might ask, would a mental health program do harm?

Researchers in the study speculated that the training programs “bring awareness to upsetting thoughts,” encouraging students to sit with darker feelings, but without providing solutions, especially for societal problems like racism or poverty. They also found that the students didn’t enjoy the sessions and didn’t practice at home.

Another explanation is that mindfulness training could encourage “co-rumination,” the kind of long, unresolved group discussion that churns up problems without finding solutions.

As the MYRIAD results were being analyzed, Dr. Andrews led an evaluation of Climate Schools, an Australian intervention based on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, in which students observed cartoon characters navigating mental health concerns and then answered questions about practices to improve mental health.

Here, too, he found negative effects. Students who had taken the course reported higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms six months and 12 months later.

Co-rumination appears to be higher in girls, who tend to come into the program more distressed, as well as more attuned to their friends, he said. “It might be,” he said, “that they kind of get together and make things a little bit worse for each other.”

Dr. Andrews, a Wellcome Trust research fellow, has since joined an effort to improve Climate Schools by addressing negative effects. And he has concluded that schools should slow down until “we know the evidence base a bit more.” Sometimes, he said, “doing nothing is better than doing something.”

The awareness paradox

One problem with mental health awareness, some research suggests, is that it may not help to put a label to your symptoms.

Isaac Ahuvia, a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University, recently tested this in a study of 1,423 college students . Twenty-two percent “self-labeled” as having depression, telling researchers “I am depressed” or “I have depression,” but 39 percent met the diagnostic criteria for depression.

He found that the students who self-labeled felt that they had less control over depression and were more likely to catastrophize and less likely to respond to distress by putting their difficulties in perspective, compared with peers who had similar depression symptoms.

Jessica L. Schleider, a co-author of the self-labeling study, said this was no surprise. People who self-label “appear to be viewing depression as a biological inevitability,” she said. “People who don’t view emotions as malleable, view them as set and stuck and uncontrollable, tend to cope less well because they don’t see a point to trying.”

But Dr. Schleider, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University and the director of the university’s Lab for Scalable Mental Health, pushed back on the prevalence inflation hypothesis. She disagreed with the claim that students are overdiagnosing themselves, noting that Mr. Ahuvia’s findings suggest otherwise.

Awareness campaigns are bound to have multiple effects, helping some students and not others. And ultimately, she argued, the priority for public health should be reaching young people in the most distress.

“The urgency of the mental health crisis is so clear,” she said. “In the partnerships that I have, the emphasis is on the kids truly struggling right now who have nothing — we need to help them — more so than a possible risk for a subset of kids who aren’t really struggling.”

Maybe, she said, we need to look beyond the “universal, school-assembly-style approach,” to targeted, light-touch interventions, which research has shown can be effective at decreasing anxiety and conduct disorders, especially in younger children.

“There is a risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” Dr. Schleider said. “The response can’t be ‘Forget all of it.’ It should be ‘What about this intervention was unhelpful?’”

Other researchers echoed her concern, pointing to studies that show that on average, students benefit from social and emotional learning courses.

One of the largest, a 2023 meta-analysis of 252 classroom programs in 53 countries, found that students who participated performed better academically, displayed better social skills and had lower levels of emotional distress or behavioral problems. In that context, negative effects in a handful of trials appear modest, the researchers said.

“We clearly have not figured out how to do them yet, but I can’t imagine any population-based intervention that the field got right the first time,” said Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, the president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital and a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist.

“Really, if you think about almost everything we do in schools, we don’t have great evidence for it working,” he added. “That doesn’t mean we don’t do it. It just means that we’re constantly thinking about ways to improve it.”

‘We want everyone to have it’

These debates are taking place a long way away from classrooms, where mental health curriculums are increasingly commonplace.

Allyson Kangisser, a counselor at Woodsdale Elementary School in Wheeling, W.Va., said the focus in her school is on basic coping skills. In the early grades, students are asked, “What things can you do to take care of yourself when you’re having big feelings?”

Starting in third grade, they take on more complex material, such as watching cartoon characters to distinguish transient stress from chronic conditions like depression. “We’re not trying to have them diagnose themselves,” Ms. Kangisser said. “We are saying, what do you feel — this one? Or this one?”

At the school’s sixth annual mental health fair last month, Woodsdale students walked through a giant inflatable brain, its lobes neatly labeled. They did yoga stretches and talked about regulating their emotions. Ms. Kangisser said the event is valuable precisely because it is universal, so troubled children are not singled out.

“The mental health fair, everybody does it,” she said. “It’s not ‘You need it, and you don’t.’ We want everyone to have it, because you just never know.”

By the time the students reach college, they will have absorbed enormous amounts of information about mental health — from school, but also from social media and from one another.

Dr. Jessica Gold, chief wellness officer for the University of Tennessee system, said the college students she sees are recognizably different — more comfortable speaking about their emotions and more willing to be vulnerable. They also overuse diagnostic terms and have the self-assurance to question a psychiatrist’s judgment.

“It’s sort of a double-edged sword,” she said. “We want people to talk about this more, but we don’t want that to lead to overdiagnosis or incorrect diagnosis or overtreatment. We want it to lead to normalizing of having feelings.”

Lucy Kim, a Yale senior who has lobbied for better mental health support on campus, described the prevalence inflation hypothesis as “disheartening, dismissive and potentially dangerous,” providing another way to discount the experiences of young people.

“As a college student, I see a generation of young people around me impacted by a depth and breadth of loneliness, exhaustion and disillusionment suggestive of a malaise that goes deeper than the general vicissitudes of life,” said Ms. Kim, 23.

Overdiagnosis does happen, she said, and so does glorification of mental health disorders. But stigma and barriers to treatment remain the bigger problem. “I can confidently say I have never heard anyone respond to disclosures of depression with ‘That’s so cool, I wish I had that, too,’” she said.

Ellen Barry is a reporter covering mental health for The Times. More about Ellen Barry

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Mental Health Matters: Understanding the Vital Importance of Emotional Well-being

B eing mentally and emotionally healthy is essential to living a balanced life. Mental health influences how we think, feel, and act in our day-to-day lives, and it can also help determine how well we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. 

While many factors contribute to overall mental health well-being—such as managing stress levels through exercise or using positive coping strategies—all of us need to gain a better understanding of what psychological wellness looks like so that we can take steps towards maintaining an optimal state of mental health both now and in the future. In this article, let’s explore the concept and importance of mental health in greater detail – from recognizing its critical components to discovering how establishing emotional resilience plays a vital role in leading a happy and successful life.

Defining Mental Health and Well-being

Mental health and well-being are essential components of a healthy and fulfilling life, and understanding them is crucial. Mental health encompasses a range of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and refers to a person’s overall psychological well-being. Similarly, well-being refers to a person’s general state of being happy, healthy, and content with life. Attending a mental health retreat is one way to achieve and maintain mental health and well-being. 

Such a retreat creates a conducive environment where individuals can disconnect from the stressors of daily life and focus on their mental and emotional health. At a mental health retreat , individuals can participate in activities such as meditation, counseling, and relaxation techniques that promote mental wellness and a positive outlook on life. Individuals can lead a fulfilling life, free from stress and anxiety, by prioritizing mental health and well-being.

Investigating the Causes and Risk Factors of Poor Mental Health

There is no single cause of poor mental health, which various factors can influence. Some of these factors include biological, environmental, and psychological influences. For example, genetics and brain chemistry can play a role in developing particular mental illnesses, such as depression or anxiety disorders. Environmental factors like childhood trauma or chronic stress can also contribute to poor mental health. 

Furthermore, certain psychological risk factors—like low self-esteem or negative thinking patterns—can also make individuals more susceptible to developing mental health issues. By understanding these causes and risk factors, we can be better equipped to recognize and address potential challenges to our mental well-being.

Exploring Ways to Improve Your Mental Health  

Just like physical health, mental health requires regular maintenance. There are various ways to improve your mental well-being and promote a positive mindset. These include engaging in activities that bring joy and fulfillment, practicing self-care, maintaining healthy relationships, seeking professional help, and developing coping strategies for managing stress and negative emotions.

Additionally, taking care of our physical health through exercise and a balanced diet can significantly impact our mental well-being. We can improve our mental health and cultivate emotional resilience by prioritizing self-care and adopting healthy habits.

Acknowledging the Stigma Surrounding Mental Illness

Despite the importance of mental health, there is still a significant stigma surrounding mental illness in many societies. It can make it difficult for individuals to seek help and support when needed, leading to further challenges with mental health. It’s essential to recognize that mental illness is just like any other physical illness and requires proper treatment and support from healthcare professionals.

Moreover, educating ourselves and those around us about mental health is crucial to reducing the stigma and promoting a more open and supportive environment for individuals struggling with mental illness. We can encourage people to seek help without fear of judgment or discrimination by breaking down these barriers.

Identifying Resources Available for Those Struggling with Mental Health Issues

Fortunately, many resources are available for individuals struggling with mental health issues. These include therapy and counseling services, support groups, hotlines, self-care apps, and online communities. It’s essential to seek help if you’re experiencing challenges with your mental health and to know that it is okay to ask for support.

Furthermore, employers and educational institutions are also increasingly recognizing the importance of mental health and providing resources for their employees and students. Seeking support from these sources can help individuals manage their mental health more effectively and lead a healthier and happier lives.

Celebrating Those Who Are Working to Eradicate the Taboo of Mental Illnesses

As more awareness is raised about mental health, there are many individuals and organizations working to eradicate the taboo surrounding mental illness and promote open discussions about it. These include mental health advocates, healthcare professionals, support groups, and community organizations.

By celebrating and supporting those making a positive impact in the mental health field, we can continue to break down barriers and create a more understanding and inclusive society. Through collective efforts, we can create a world where mental health is equally important to physical health, and individuals are not afraid to seek help when needed.

In Conclusion

Mental health is an essential aspect of our overall well-being, and it’s crucial to prioritize it in our lives. By being aware of its key components, understanding the causes and risk factors of poor mental health, and exploring ways to improve it, we can lead a healthier and more fulfilling life. It’s also essential to acknowledge the stigma surrounding mental illness and utilize available resources for support. Let us work together to create a world where mental health is given the attention and care it deserves.

The post Mental Health Matters: Understanding the Vital Importance of Emotional Well-being appeared first on Sunny Sweet Days .

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Reasons for hope

Solutions for the mental health crisis emerge through innovative research, diagnostics and treatments

By Nina Bai

Illustration by Jules Julien

Photography by Leslie Williamson

It’s the spring of hope for mental health, astir with novel discoveries, life-changing therapies and more openness than ever before — yet, for many, it feels like the winter of despair. The pandemic years, that crucible of stress, isolation and uncertainty, fueled and exposed mental health problems. In 2022, nearly 1 in 4 American adults (about 59 million people) said they experienced a mental illness in the previous year, but only half of those afflicted reported receiving any mental health treatment.

Among children and adolescents, the prevalence of mental illness, which had been steadily creeping upward, jumped during the pandemic, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In 2019, 15.7% of American adolescents aged 12-17 reported experiencing a major depressive episode in the past year. In 2022, that number was 19.5%. That same year, 13.4% of adolescents — just over 1 in 8 — seriously thought about killing themselves.   

And even as the pandemic has stoked demand for mental health care, it also has worn down the mental health workforce, already short-handed, with early retirements and widespread burnout. Access to affordable, effective interventions remains a daunting barrier. People face long waiting lists and lack of insurance coverage. Many treatable conditions remain undiagnosed because people lack a way to obtain assessments. 

Yet, below this perfect storm of mental health crisis, there is a strong undercurrent of hope that begins in the lab. Research is leading the way toward treatments that are more effective, more personalized and more accessible.

“The manner in which we know the brain now, compared with what we knew in previous decades, is incredibly different,” said Victor Carrión , MD, the John A. Turner, MD, Endowed Professor for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and vice chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

Direct impact on patients

New imaging technologies allow researchers to see the neural circuitry that goes awry in neuropsychiatric disorders, lab-grown clumps of brain tissue — known as organoids — can simulate the impact of genetics in autism, and artificial intelligence can surmise signals that predict the onset of depression and anxiety.

Moreover, these discoveries, rather than moving slowly through specialist silos, can now rapidly inform new treatments. “Collaboration is vital for translation, and our departmental awards and programs promote and emphasize synergy between research and clinical practice,” said Laura Roberts , MD, the Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor and chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

“Our bench scientists doing tremendous research also work alongside our clinicians to make sure that new knowledge translates to the clinical setting and has a direct impact on patient care,” she said.

Researchers developing transcranial magnetic stimulation, for example, work with clinicians who treat patients with severe depression to design clinical trials, and their techniques are informed by teams inventing new ways to measure the flow of brain signals and those building virtual reality models of the brain.

A clearer understanding of the biology of mental health disorders not only leads to breakthrough treatments — but just as powerfully, helps dissipate stigma.

“There’s been a large shift in stigma in the past 25 years,” said Heather Gotham , PhD, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, who leads the coordination of a nationwide network of centers dedicated to implementing evidence-based mental health care.

The Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, offers training in preventing school violence, substance use in the workplace, adolescent depression and more, and it offers support for mental health providers seeing refugees and asylum seekers.

“Collaboration is vital for translation, and our departmental awards and programs promote and emphasize synergy between research and clinical practice.” Laura Roberts, the Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor and chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences

“One thing that’s made a difference is the greater understanding that mental health disorders and substance use disorders are chronic, relapsing disorders of the body, just like diabetes and heart disease,” Gotham said.

With this new awareness, more people want to be mental health literate. In the past few years, Gotham has seen a surge of interest, from a broader community, in the network’s online courses — from teachers, for example, who want to be more responsive to the needs of students and reduce stigma in the classroom.

Less stigma also means more money for research and mental health services. Funding for mental health has become a rare bipartisan issue. In 2022, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which has provided $245 million to fund mental health services like training for school personnel, first responders and law enforcement and expanding the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline.

Stanford Medicine researchers know that to make the most impact with their discoveries they must reach those who need help the most — through online symptom screenings, virtual therapy, group therapy, inclusive clinical trials and community interventions.

They are training mental health professionals locally and globally in new evidence-based techniques. Providers in more than 38 countries, for example, have been trained in cue-centered therapy, a 15-week treatment program developed at Stanford Medicine to help children and teens recover from chronic trauma. Recently, pro bono training in cue-centered therapy was provided to clinicians in Ukraine.

What gives Roberts hope is that a more open conversation on mental health is drawing together experts from different fields with a shared purpose. “It used to be that clinicians would stay in their clinical practice and refer to journals for new research, and researchers would stay in the lab and never see a patient — and we don’t have that now,” she said. “I see more openness and more flexibility from the current generation of researchers and clinicians.”

Read on in this issue of Stanford Medicine to learn about some of the ways Stanford Medicine researchers and clinicians are advancing the understanding of mental health and sharing that knowledge.

Nina Bai is a science writer in the Stanford Medicine Office of Communications.

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Make Your Workday Work for Your Mental Health

• Alice Boyes

From building habits to being purposefully unfocused, you can schedule time to take care of yourself.

When you’re struggling with your mental health, getting through your workday can feel a lot harder than usual. It’s not always the quantity or type of work that is making your anxiety, depression, or other mental health difficulties worse — sometimes it’s that your workday is structured in a way that’s at odds with your natural rhythms or your mental health challenges. You can take steps to structure your workday, using your self-knowledge, doing some experiments, and balancing your needs with your job responsibilities. By building strong habits around when you do focused, deep work; creating routines to make progress on tasks with vague or long-term deadlines; and building in times to let your mind wander to take advantage of unfocused recovery time you’ll boost your mental health — and your productivity.

When you’re struggling with your mental health, getting through your workday can feel a lot harder than usual. If your workload is making your anxiety, depression, or other mental health difficulties worse, it’s not always the quantity or type of work that’s the culprit. Sometimes it’s that your workday isn’t structured in a way that suits your natural rhythms or your mental health challenges.

• Alice Boyes , PhD is a former clinical psychologist turned writer and the author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit , The Anxiety Toolkit , and Stress-Free Productivity .

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Artificial intelligence has psychological impacts our brains might not be ready for, expert warns

Health Artificial intelligence has psychological impacts our brains might not be ready for, expert warns

These days we can have a reasoned conversation with a humanoid robot, get fooled by a deep fake celebrity, and have our heart broken by a romantic chatbot.

While artificial intelligence (AI) promises to make life easier, developments like these can also mess with our minds, says Joel Pearson, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of New South Wales.

We fear killer robots and out-of-control self-driving cars, but for Professor Pearson the psychological effects of AI are more significant, even if they're harder to picture in our mind's eye.

The technology's impact on everything from education to work and relationships is massively uncertain – something humans are not generally comfortable with, Professor Pearson tells  RN's All in the Mind .

"Our brains have evolved to fear uncertainty."

What will be left for humans to do as AI improves? Will we feel like we have no purpose and meaning — and will we suffer the inevitable depression that comes with that?

There's already cause for concern about the impact of AI on our mental wellbeing, Professor Pearson says.

"AI is already affecting us and changing our mental health in ways that are really bad for us."

Humanoids and chatbots

One of the pitfalls of AI is our tendency to project human characteristics onto the non-human agents we interact with, Professor Pearson says.

So when ChatGPT communicates like a human we say it's "intelligent" – especially when its words are articulated by a natural-sounding voice from a robot in the shape of a human.

Shift this dynamic to AI companions on your phone and we see just how vulnerable humans can be.

You might have heard about a chatbot called Replika, which was marketed as "always on your side" … and "always ready to chat when you need an empathetic friend".

Subscribers paid for the chatbot to have "erotic role-play" features that included flirting and sexting, but when its maker toned down these elements, people who had fallen in love with their chatbot freaked out, Professor Pearson says.

The chatbot was no longer responding to their sexual advances.

"People were saying that their digital partner, their boyfriend or girlfriend in Replika was no longer themselves … and they were devastated by it."

The chatbots also brought out a darker side in some Replika clients.

"Mainly males were bragging … about how they could have this sort of abusive relationship – 'I had this Replika girl and she was like a slave. I would tell her, I'm going to switch her off and kill her … and she would beg me not to switch off'," Professor Pearson says.

It was reminiscent of what happens in the dystopian science fiction series Westworld, where people let out their urges on artificial humans, he says.

Professor Pearson says there's a lack of research on the implications of this aspect of human AI relationships.

"What does it do to us? … If I treat my AI like a slave and I'm rude to it and abusive, how does that then change how I relate to humans? Does that carry over?"

While an AI partner might appear to make an ideal companion, it's a poor model for human relationships.

"Part of being in a relationship with humans is that there are compromises … The other person will challenge you, you will grow, you will have to face things together.

"And if you don't have those challenges and people picking you up on things, you get whatever you want, whenever you want. It's an addictive thing that is probably not healthy."

The danger of deep fakes

Chatbots messing with our relationships is one thing, but deepfake images and videos can alter our very sense of what's real and what's fake.

"Not only can they look real, you can actually now do a real-time deepfake," Professor Pearson says.

And here too, AI is being weaponised against women.

"I think 96 per cent of deepfakes so far have been non-consensual pornography."

Who can forget the deepfake featuring Taylor Swift earlier this year.

One sexually explicit image of the pop star was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended.

Once we are exposed to fake information, evidence suggests it can have a permanent impact, even if it is later revealed to be false, Professor Pearson says.

"You can't really forget about it. That information sticks with you."

And he says this is likely to be more the case with videos because they engage more senses and tug at our emotions.

While die-hard Swifties may forget about the deepfakes, others might be more influenced by them.

"People who know less of her will be a lot more vulnerable."

This was because they would have a less developed mental model about the pop star that was more susceptible to influence from deepfakes, he says.

"[The deepfakes are] going to be patching into our long-term memory in ways that [make us] confused whether they're real and not. And the catch is, even when we're told they're not real, those effects stick."

The disturbing impacts of AI on our relationships and our grasp on reality itself could present a particular risk to teenagers.

Think of a school student subjected to images of themselves run through "nudifying apps" that use AI to undress a fully clothed person.

"While their brain is still developing … it's going to do pretty nasty things to their mental health," Professor Pearson says.

These dangers are exacerbated by young people spending less time face-to-face with others, which is linked to a decline in empathy and emotional intelligence, he says.

Cutting through the tech noise

Professor Pearson argues AI is presenting society with unprecedented challenges and the technology should not be dismissed as just another "tool".

"You can't compare it to tools. The industrial revolution, the printing press, TVs, computers… This is radically different in ways that we don't fully understand."

He's calling for more research into the psychological impact of AI.

"I don't want to make people depressed and anxious about AI," Professor Pearson says.

"There's a huge number of positives, but I've been pushing the psychological part of that because I don't see anyone else talking about it."

In the face of these changes, Professor Pearson suggests focusing on our humanity.

"[Figure out] what are the core essentials of being human, and how do you want to create your own life in ways that might be independent from all this tech uncertainty."

"Is that going for a walk in nature, or is it just spending time with physical humans and loved ones?

"I think over the next decade we're all going to be faced with soul-searching journeys like that. Why not start thinking about it now?"

Professor Pearson says he's trying to apply these principles to his own life, without turning his back on technological advances.

"I'm trying to figure out how I can use AI to help me do more of the things I really enjoy."

"My hope .. is that a lot of the things I've talked about won't be as catastrophic as I'm making out.

"But I think raising the alarm now can avoid that pain and suffering later on and that's what I want to do."

Listen to the full episode "Scarier than killer robots": why your mind isn't ready for AI  and subscribe to RN's All in the Mind  to explore other topics on the mind, brain and behaviour.

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