Are you a millennial and wonder why older folks tend to think so differently than you?  Have you felt like you don’t fit in sometimes when you are in a work situation and your boss is somehow expecting you to grind away for long hours or be a climber in the workplace when you don’t necessarily buy into the corporate culture?  Or are you a parent who wants to understand your adult child, but can’t seem to figure out what makes them tick?  If you said ‘yes’ to any of these questions, I will try to answer them in this week’s blog post.  

Millennials Are Having a Tough Time With Mental Health These Days

There is a lot of anxiety tied up with being a millennial in general.  If it wasn’t the Covid lockdowns that freaked you out, it may have been the feeling of anxiety that could stem from your parents taking you from activity to activity after school and/or on weekends when you were growing up.  If work environments aren’t stimulating enough for you, that could owe to growing up with video games and computers that stimulated your right brain in ways conventional workplaces and educational settings just don’t.  The sum total of a number of stressors your generation grew up with has led to many seeking or needing mental health support in recent years.  

The Millennial Mismatch 

We live in a culture that is a kind of strange domination of always being on the go and trying to get things done.  For the typical millennial, there can be a mismatch between being in your right brain of being in the moment with whatever you are working on or focused on and how much of a grind modern culture tends to promote in each of us.  Creating a product or a work of art that has value is very rewarding, but to have to crank things out to achieve a certain income level or status can seem off–putting for you.  That can further imbed the anxiety of not somehow measuring up to what society or the dominant culture somehow expects of you.  

Millennial Brains Make the Difference

For most of the culture of the first half of the previous century up to and through the baby boom generation, there was a big focus on the importance of competing and excelling.  These are left-brain thinking priorities, as spelled out so beautifully by Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor in her book Whole Brain Living.  Then in the 1980’s came the advent of video games that could light up children’s right brains because of all the stimulation they could provide by way of interactive technology.  Having computers at home also stimulated the left brain thinking part of the brain so you could learn ideally with all parts of your brain.  This was a sea-change of the highest order because prior to that it was books, TV, movies, and radio that allowed people to access information.  

How Millennials Can Adapt to Culture as a Whole

You don’t have to try and be a round peg in a square hole, but you do have to pay attention to anxiety that may be constantly getting your attention.  You can’t change the world you live in, but you can take care of the anxiety that is telling you something is wrong or that you are somehow in danger.  That anxiety comes from the left brain emotional center, but isn’t based on the present.  It may well have to do with some of those childhood experiences that led you to believe you can’t trust yourself.  The good news is that you can use all parts of your brain to recover and be the best version of yourself that is possible.  You probably need to learn some relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing and meditation, to help in managing constant anxiety.  Those can help to calm the overactive emotional part of your left brain to gain a measure of peace in your life.  

What’s a Millennial to Do?

If you’ve continued to suffer with anxiety or other mood issues despite your best efforts, then you may want to get professional help.  You may have a good support network of friends, but maybe they can’t seem to give you the support you need.  I encourage you to call me to get a better idea of whether I can help you.  I have a lot of experience working with millennials as a former professional educator and in my social work career, and would be happy to give you a free 20-minute phone consultation so you can find out if I might be a good fit for you. Feel free to call the number at the top of the page or fill out the form below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.  You deserve to live a life that is free of anxiety or other mental health challenges and find a measure of freedom and wholeness that is true to your experience of yourself.  

Visit our page on anxiety therapy to find out how Scott can help you cope with millennial mental health challenges.  

About the author:  Scott Kampschaefer, LCSW is a private practice therapist in Frederick, Maryland.  He has an extensive background in working with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder at a clinic for older adults with these disorders in Austin, Texas.  He now works with adults and adolescents 14 and up in private practice. His most recent book is titled The 5 Pillars of Addiction Recovery and is available for purchase on Amazon and in paperback on this website.