Biggest ways young people hurt their mental health
Summary
TLDRThis video highlights the worst mental health mistakes young people make, offering practical tips to combat them. It discusses issues such as hyper-individualism, social media addiction, an external locus of control, pessimism, hookup culture, and avoidance of emotional pain. The speaker emphasizes the importance of interdependence, limiting social media use, fostering an internal locus of control, optimism, and emotional regulation. The video encourages self-reflection and developing healthier coping mechanisms for mental well-being, while also addressing how modern technology and cultural norms exacerbate these challenges.
Takeaways
- 😀 Hyper individualism is a prevalent issue among young people, leading to isolation and a lack of interconnectedness. A quick fix: check in with someone you care about daily.
- 📱 Addiction to social media can lead to mental health struggles like anxiety, depression, and poor self-esteem. Replacing screen time with reading in the evening can help combat this.
- 🔒 The external locus of control, where young people feel things happen to them rather than having control, is linked to depression and helplessness. A quick fix: focus on what you can control using the circle exercise.
- ☹️ Pessimism, often paired with external locus of control, leads to anxiety and poor outcomes. Training yourself to find silver linings in negative situations can boost mental health.
- 💔 Hookup culture can cause emotional distress, anxiety, and insecurity. It's important for individuals to reflect on what they truly want and set clear boundaries.
- 🛑 Avoiding emotional pain exacerbates suffering. Young people often lack emotional regulation skills, which worsens mental health over time. Practicing distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills early is crucial.
- 📉 Social media addiction leads to a wide array of negative outcomes, such as reduced attention span, poor academic performance, and body image issues.
- 🏡 Fatalistic attitudes, like 'My generation will never own a home,' reinforce helplessness. Shifting to an internal locus of control helps navigate financial and life challenges.
- 💡 Understanding interdependence rather than rigid individualism fosters healthier relationships and better mental health.
- 💬 Engaging in regular self-reflection, such as journaling, can help clarify personal boundaries and emotional needs, especially in relation to hookup culture and social norms.
Q & A
What is hyper-individualism, and why is it harmful to mental health?
-Hyper-individualism is the belief that individuals are entirely separate from others, focusing solely on their own needs and boundaries without considering the impact on others. It can lead to self-isolation, neglect of interdependence, and poor relationships, which harms mental health.
How can young people combat the negative effects of hyper-individualism?
-One way to combat hyper-individualism is by regularly checking in with others and maintaining connectedness. This reinforces interdependence and encourages a more balanced perspective on relationships.
Why is social media addiction problematic for mental health, especially for young people?
-Social media addiction can contribute to poor self-esteem, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and worse social skills. It serves as a substitute for real connection, worsening issues like isolation and emotional well-being.
What is a practical tip to reduce social media usage?
-Replacing evening screen time with reading can be an effective way to reduce social media usage. This promotes focus, well-being, and healthier habits.
What is an external locus of control, and how does it affect mental health?
-An external locus of control is the belief that outside forces control one's life, which leads to feelings of helplessness, depression, and poor coping mechanisms. It limits a person’s ability to take responsibility and make positive changes in their life.
How can someone shift from an external to an internal locus of control?
-To shift to an internal locus of control, individuals can make a list of things within and outside of their control. Focusing on what they can influence helps them feel more empowered to act on their own behalf.
What role does pessimism play in mental health issues?
-Pessimism is linked to anxiety, depression, hostility, and even poorer physical health. It reinforces negative outcomes and a sense of hopelessness, which worsens mental health conditions.
What is a helpful exercise to combat pessimism?
-One exercise to combat pessimism is to identify a silver lining in any negative situation. This trains the mind to find positive aspects even in challenging circumstances.
How does hookup culture negatively impact mental health?
-Hookup culture can lead to low self-esteem, emotional distress, attachment insecurity, and anxiety. It often coerces individuals into casual acts of intimacy without recognizing their personal boundaries or needs.
What is the importance of emotion regulation for young people?
-Emotion regulation is crucial for mental well-being, as avoiding emotional pain only prolongs suffering. Learning these skills early helps young people cope with life’s inevitable challenges and reduces the impact of emotional distress.
Outlines
🧠 Common Mental Health Mistakes Among Young People
This paragraph discusses the mental health mistakes that young people frequently make, drawing inspiration from Dr. Mike's video on medical mistakes. The speaker mentions that having worked in university counseling and studied college students, they have seen how issues like hyper-individualism harm mental health. They explain that many young people believe their actions don't affect others, leading to self-isolation and disregard for interconnectedness. A simple remedy is to check in with someone daily to maintain connection and balance boundaries with interdependence.
📱 The Social Media Addiction Problem
The paragraph addresses the growing addiction to social media among young people. This addiction stems from increased isolation caused by hyper-individualism, leading young people to use social media as a substitute for real connections. The author highlights the negative impact, including anxiety, depression, poor social skills, and misinformation. The speaker suggests that reducing social media use in the evenings and replacing it with reading can lead to numerous benefits, citing personal experience.
🔒 Protecting Personal Information Online
This section introduces a sponsorship from Incog, a service that helps protect personal data from being aggregated by data brokers and sold to third parties. The speaker shares a personal anecdote about privacy concerns when starting their clinical practice, emphasizing the importance of safeguarding sensitive information. Incog offers a solution by handling the removal of personal data from various websites, ensuring continuous protection through recurring removal requests.
💪 Internal vs. External Locus of Control
The paragraph explains the concept of locus of control, distinguishing between internal (belief in one's ability to control their life) and external (belief that external factors dictate outcomes). The speaker argues that young people are increasingly adopting an external locus of control, which leads to feelings of helplessness and discouragement. By focusing on what can be controlled, like financial challenges, individuals can take proactive steps to improve their situation. The speaker recommends an exercise involving drawing a circle to categorize what is within and outside of one’s control.
🌤️ Overcoming Pessimism and Fatalistic Attitudes
This section focuses on pessimism, which is often linked with external locus of control, leading to negative thinking patterns. The speaker explains that pessimism is associated with anxiety, depression, and poor health outcomes. A common example is the belief that younger generations will never own homes. The speaker suggests finding silver linings in negative situations as a practical exercise to cultivate a more optimistic mindset.
💔 Hookup Culture's Impact on Mental Health
The speaker reflects on the negative mental health impacts of participating in hookup culture, particularly for college students. Their dissertation focused on how casual sexual encounters lead to emotional distress, low self-esteem, and social complications. They argue that society often coerces individuals into these behaviors by framing them as empowering when, in fact, they may not align with personal values. A self-reflection journaling exercise is suggested to clarify boundaries and preferences.
🛠️ Avoiding Emotional Pain and Building Resilience
The final paragraph discusses how young people often avoid emotional pain due to a lack of coping skills, which leads to prolonged suffering. The speaker explains the formula ‘pain times resistance equals suffering,’ encouraging young people to face pain head-on rather than avoiding it. They mention that biological factors, such as underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes and heightened hormones, work against young people. However, by practicing emotional regulation skills, like those found in DBT worksheets, they can develop resilience and emotional mastery.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Hyper-individualism
💡Social media addiction
💡External locus of control
💡Pessimism
💡Hookup culture
💡Emotion regulation
💡Interdependence
💡Synaptic pruning
💡Personal boundaries
💡Distress tolerance
Highlights
One major mistake young people make is hyper individualism, where they believe they exist separately from others without acknowledging interdependence.
The idea that setting boundaries happens in a vacuum without considering others' reactions is another symptom of hyper individualism.
Avoidant attachment, where dependence on others is seen as unhealthy, is common among young people and is linked to hyper individualism.
A quick tip to combat hyper individualism: check in with someone you care about daily to maintain healthy connectedness.
Another major issue is social media addiction, which arises as a result of isolation and hyper individualism. This can lead to anxiety, depression, and poor self-esteem.
A quick tip to combat social media addiction: replace screen time with reading after dinner, which can improve focus, relationships, and career.
Young people often adopt an external locus of control, believing that outside factors solely determine their lives, which can lead to helplessness and depression.
Switching to an internal locus of control helps young people take action and overcome challenges, despite external circumstances.
Pessimism is another harmful mindset, often paired with an external locus of control, where young people feel doomed to fail in life pursuits like owning a home.
A simple exercise to combat pessimism: identify a silver lining in any negative situation, even if it's small.
Hookup culture harms young people’s mental health by promoting emotional detachment and insecurity, often leading to depression and anxiety.
Reflection and journaling on personal boundaries and desires can help people navigate hookup culture with more confidence and emotional safety.
Avoiding emotional pain, rather than learning distress tolerance, can prolong suffering, as avoiding pain only intensifies it over time.
Young people should focus on emotion regulation skills early, such as through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), to handle pain better and reduce suffering.
Biological factors, such as the undeveloped prefrontal cortex in people under 25, contribute to impulsive behaviors and difficulty with emotional regulation.
Transcripts
what are the worst mistakes that young
people make related to their mental
health shout out to Dr Mike for
inspiring the topic of this video he did
this video topic with the worst health
and medical mistakes that young people
make so I figured why don't I do the
equivalent of that for mental health
because I've worked in a couple of
University counseling centers I did my
dissertation on college students so in
no particular order here are some of the
biggest mistakes I think young people
make that harm their mental health and
also some quickfire tips to combat each
of them
[Music]
one mistake that I think young people
make a lot these days is this attitude
of hyper individualism there's this myth
that's very popular nowadays especially
among young people that we are all very
separate rather than interconnected
we're unable to sort of acknowledge that
that the things we do individually
affect other people in turn and that
other people directly and indirectly
also affect us so for example I think
one way that this shows up in young
people is thinking that setting
boundaries happens in a vacuum that you
can just set whatever boundaries you
want and anything goes because it's your
boundary and you have a right to set any
boundary even ones that are not always
reasonable another way that hyper
individualism shows up in young people
is I think this avoidantly attached
attitude that's super common where any
sort of dependence on another person is
considered unhealthy when in reality we
are all dependent on other people
whether or not we like it and so the
sooner we can acknowledge that and
figure out healthy ways to navigate it
the better off everyone will be both
hyper individualism and Hyper
collectivism are dangerous and I know
that there are definitely cultures out
there that take collectivism to an
extreme and people struggle with that as
well but in the case of hyper
individualism I think some of the
outcomes of that include self-isolation
because you are very much isolating
yourself from other connections and
acknowledgment of interdependence and
also a lack of consideration of how your
actions affect other people as well so
one really quick easy way to combat this
is to check in with someone you care
about every single day just to maintain
that connectedness to maintain that
dependence on each other and acknowledge
that we don't exist in a vacuum and it's
okay to check in with other people
rather than always be thinking about
what's in our best interests second
mistake that I think young people make
related to their mental health is
addiction to social media now how this
relates to hyper individualism is I
think because people are a lot more
individualistic they're a lot loner they
isolate a lot more and when they isolate
a lot more they lean on social media and
Technology as like a proxy for
connection to fill those basic
connection needs that aren't going to go
away no matter how much we stifle them
and I don't think that this is entirely
younger generation's fault because in a
lot of cases it was their parents that
should have set stricter boundaries
around social media usage and now we're
seeing the consequences of what is
called like an iPad kid generation of
people who are are addicted to
technology can't focus don't know how to
socialize and should have been taught
better social media addiction has been
associated with poor self-esteem anxiety
depression body image struggles
loneliness bullying worse social skills
difficulties maintaining attention worse
academic performance misinformation and
conspiracy theories and yet young people
are spending an exorbitant amount of
time on social media every single day
one really effective way to combat this
that I implemented months ago and since
then I have seen countless benefits is
in the evening after dinner instead of
scrolling on my phone or watching
something on Netflix or both at the same
time replacing that time with reading
time it has done wonders for myself for
my career for my relationship highly
recommend it now while we're talking
about the pitfalls of Technology there's
something we need to talk about that
affects all people not just young people
and that is that we live in a world
where it's extremely easy to look up a
person's private information such as
their social security number their name
date of birth phone phone number IP
address financial information home
address and that is where the sponsor of
today's video comes in in cogy so I have
actually been using incog for years so
I'm very excited about the sponsorship
here's the gist of the problem data
Brokers aggregate all your personal
information and then they sell it to
businesses and scammers just last week
nearly 3 billion people's Social
Security numbers were leaked and this is
very scary because it exposes you to
things like scams identity fraud
harassment stalking the concern with the
social security number num in particular
is that people could open loans in your
name which is going to deteriorate your
credit score in addition to being
identity fraud and anytime you get a
notifications from like your bank that
your information was found on the black
market or that your password was leaked
in an online data breach these are the
types of issues that could come up
according to the 2022 annual data breach
report by the identity theft Resource
Center the number of victims for such
crimes increased by
41.5% since the previous year and
another issue here is privacy there are
hundreds if not thousands of these
websites that again aggregate all your
private information for people to find
in one spot let me tell you a little bit
of an anecdote on that topic when I was
setting up my clinical practice I needed
something called an NPI number in order
to apply for an NPI number you need to
have like an address where you're
actually providing the services and
since I was fully remote they wanted me
to put my actual home address on this
database that you can find like two
clicks away where a person lives and I
actually called them to be like hey what
should I do about this I don't feel
comfortable putting my home address
where clients and other people can find
it they were so incredibly rude they had
such an attitude with me and honestly I
got the sense that they probably get
these calls a lot and basically they
just said like not our problem take it
up with your governing body and that is
part of the reason why I left both the
US and the field of therapy because I
was tired of feeling unprotected by the
very people who are supposed to protect
me but incog is a way of taking matters
into your own hands not letting your
protection fall in the hands of somebody
that's not going to do that it would
take years to to manually remove all
your information from these different
websites but with incog it just
effortlessly happens while you're
sleeping here's how it works you set up
an account you grant them the right to
work with Brokers on your behalf to get
your information removed from their
websites and then you lean back and you
just let them do the work for years cuz
with a yearly subscription they make
repeated removal requests and when new
things pop up they also try to get rid
of those and they make sure that your
information stays off the internet so
use the link below to get 60% off your
annual incog subscription now back to
the video another big mistake that I see
young people make related to their
mental health is what's called an
external locus of control locus of
control is basically what you feel
controls the outcomes in your life
someone who has an internal locus of
control feels like they have the power
to shape their lives whereas someone
with an external locus of control thinks
that things happen to them Outsider
influences affect their trajectory and
they don't really have a lot of power to
make change in their life external locus
of control has been associated with less
willingness to engage in treatment an
inability to take responsibility for a
person's own actions depression
helplessness lower well-being and life
success unhealthier behaviors and poor
coping so it's very concerning that
modern society has convinced young
people to take an external Locust of
control that they don't have any control
over their lives and that young people
now perpetuate that mindset by saying
that it's offensive if you invalidate
this world Feud one example of this that
I see so often is how young people will
often say my generation's never going to
be able to afford a home I understand
that things are financially very tough I
know what that is like but fatalistic
attitudes like this and external locus
of control ironically make it harder to
accomplish those things it's an internal
locus of control that helps you surmount
the very real Financial challenges that
we have and you know to some extent I
think we need to understand where this
is coming from because younger people do
have less control over their lives in a
lot of situations they're still
financially semi-dependent or completely
dependent on their parents they're told
by older Generations that they don't
know anything about life so there is the
sense of like the things that happen to
me are not dictated by me but once again
switching that to an internal locus of
control can help you surmount the very
real challenges that you face in life so
a really quick tip to combat this is in
any situation where you feel helpless or
powerless do this exercise that I
included in the personal growth Journal
where you draw a circle everything
inside the circle are things within your
control jot all of those down everything
outside of the circle are things outside
of your control so jot all of those down
everything you can think of have you
done everything within the circle and
how do you work on accepting everything
outside of the circle really quick way
to reroute okay do I have some options
in this situation if so let me act on
them and are there things that are
outside of my control because if so let
me stop whining about them another
mindset associated with poor mental
health that I think young people in
particular struggle with these days is
pessimism pessimism has been associated
with anxiety depression hostility even
poorer Health outcomes pessimists
literally die younger and I think that
external locus of control and pessimism
worked together taking that same example
of my generation will never own a home
you have the external locus of control
of there's nothing I can do to affect
change in my life paired with the
pessimism of things are going to work
out the worst possible so these two
really go handin hand and one exercise
that I absolutely love that I've been
practicing a lot of is in any negative
situation I try to identify the Silver
Lining associated with it so for example
last week I went to get some paperwork
done and it turned out I didn't have all
the documents that I needed to do that
paperwork and at first it was like man
that's so frustrating we just drove like
40 minutes one way to get to this place
but the Silver Lining was we stopped by
a cute little Decor Boutique on the way
there and we found a couple of items
that I was looking for for the new home
now is the glass always half full no I
don't think that it is but forcing
ourselves to see things that way can
help us come to a place of acceptance
and switch into this optimistic mindset
that's ironically going to get us better
prepared to take action another thing
that young people people really
participate in that I think is harming
their mental health is hookup culture I
did my dissertation on College women's
experiences in hookup culture and I
learned that participating in hookup
culture has been associated with low
self-esteem emotional distress
attachment insecurity social
complications depression anxiety and the
worst part is that by nature of it being
a culture anybody who's not conforming
to that culture is kind of pathologized
and seen as weird for it and so what you
get then is a lot of people who are
basically coerced into these casual acts
of intimacy without realizing that they
have a right to reject them in the first
place they're sold the idea that it's
badass and empowering to objectify and
be objectify that it's crazy or clingy
to expect emotional intimacy or sexual
exclusivity and women in particular are
sold a framework of sexuality that's a
lot more aligned with what men tend to
want than what women tend to say they
want so a tip to combat this is look I'm
not going to say like don't participate
in this if you don't want to but
regardless of whether or not you do
participate in hookup culture I think it
could be helpful to have just like a
moment of self-reflection and do a
journaling prompt to really get clear on
what it is that you want what does and
doesn't work for you what are your
boundaries in the situation and again I
have a lot of such prompts in the
personal growth journal and the last
mistake I'm going to touch on today is
young people in a lot of situations tend
to avoid emotional pain because they're
not really equipped with the emotion
regulation and distress tolerance tools
that comes with experience they haven't
yet learned that avoiding pain will only
augment it I say this constantly but
pain times resistance to pain equals
suffering meaning there's the inevitable
pain of life that we will all experience
and anyone who thinks that there are
people who are devoid of this are wrong
and then there's the resistance to that
pain that we put up the avoidance of
that pain which augments that pain and
transforms it into suffering instead so
for example when I was younger when I
would go through a breakup I didn't know
how to handle the pain and so I would
just avoid it and try to numb it without
realizing that actually that makes
things worse and that prolongs the
healing process now young people do have
some things biologically working against
them here for example their prefrontal
cortex is not developed until age 25
which means you don't have things like
impulse control and executive
functioning working in tiptop shape they
also have synaptic pruning and their
hormones are arai but really my best tip
for getting out ahead of this is to
practice those emotion regulation skills
sooner rather than later whether it be
through what I talk about in the
personal growth journal or things like
the DBT Handbook of worksheet I gained a
lot of emotional Mastery by learning
about DBT and by doing those worksheets
myself cuz again you're going to have to
learn them at some point the longer you
delay the harder your life's going to be
thanks again to en cogy for sponsoring a
portion of today's video don't forget to
check them out below and I'll see you
soon
[Music]
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