Martin Luther King Day is upon us for another year. “I have a dream” will be revisited like a sacred text. What a lot of people forget is that this was not part of the original speech. It was a happy accident of encoragement and inspiration.
Mahalia Jackson, the great singer, noticing the restless crowd, whispered to King,“Tell them about the dream, Martin.” From a speech of advocacy for rights, it becomes a sermon. No longer reading from a text, his head is up reading the heavens and the crowd.
Four years later, he would want to take it all back. Say the dream had turned into a nightmare. The next year, that nightmare would consume him.
We want to remember the dream, like one shining moment in the darkness. Perhaps we need that now, more than ever.
MLK day reminds us of one special speech, one that swells into a cadence about dreams. If King were to re-enact it for 2026, how would it end? It would still only be a dream.
We forget how the event was never about dreams. It was about demands. It began with condemnation, accusation, and indictment. Life and Liberty were not dreams, King said. They were the solemn pledge of the Republic. A check the founders signed and promised to pay. In 1963, African Americans found the bank of freedom had run out of funds.
The March on Washington was meant to be practical, political, organized to pressure power. For a while it did. But somehow, memory has dropped the demand for a dream. Demands call for action. Dreams need sleep.
The March on Washington was never about a dream. It was about a demand, one still not heard.
Nowadays, mental health is not a topic that can be ignored. Stress, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion are part of young people’s lives, with almost 60% of teenagers experiencing mental health challenges. In this article, you can look at the latest statistics on student mental health in 2026. What should you expect, and how can you help your kid? As a teacher, it’s important for me to share this.
Key Points
About 14-15% of teenagers worldwide have a diagnosed mental health disorder. Nearly half report intrusive anxious thoughts or stress.
In the United States, about 40% of high school students have experienced prolonged feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and roughly 20% have seriously considered attempting suicide.
What are the mental students health issues? Due to the World Health Organization, the most common issues are anxiety (9.4%), depression (4.7%), and behavioral disorders (4.9%).
Student mental health statistics worldwide
I will start with general statistics. According to the World Health Organization, about one in seven teenagers aged 10 to 19 has a mental health disorder. I talk about a clinically diagnosed condition. That equals roughly 166 million children worldwide.
These disorders vary. Some teenagers struggle with obsessive and compulsive behaviors, which can be symptoms of a mental health illness like anxiety or depression, eating disorders, and other behavioral conditions. To make things easier to understand, I created a table that shows what percentage of children experience each of them:
To make this clearer, these are the common student mental health issues:
Condition
Age
Prevalence
Short description
Anxiety disorders
10–14
4,1%
The most common emotional disorders among younger teens. They include panic and excessive worry.
15–19
5,3%
Learning and social interaction
ADHD (behavioral disorder)
10–14
2,7%
Attention difficulties, hyperactivity, and impulsive behavior. More common in younger teens.
15–19
2,2%
Lower prevalence with age
Depression
10–14
1,3%
Main symptoms include low mood, loss of interest, fatigue, and changes in appetite and sleep.
Why is student mental health important? Some of these disorders, such as depression, can seriously affect a child’s school performance, future work life, social connections, and overall interest in life if adults ignore them. Sadly, today, suicide stands as the third leading cause of death among young people, and mental health disorders are often linked to this risk.
What percentage of students struggle with mental health around the globe?
The global statistics on how many teens struggle with mental health are difficult to measure precisely. These numbers remain approximate because not all countries run regular studies or surveys. Different assessment methods and cultural factors also shape the results. Even in countries that do collect data, researchers do not run mental health assessments every year. So I want to stress this clearly: the data below shows only a general picture, not exact numbers.
Here are the teen mental health statistics I found:
In Europe, international surveys by Frontiersin show that, on average, about 20% of children report anxiety, depression, or emotional difficulties. The highest numbers appear in countries such as Estonia, Lithuania, and Romania, where 25–30% of children report these issues.
At the same time, Scandinavian countries like Iceland, Norway, and Finland show the lowest rates. In these states, only about 12–14% of students report increased anxiety. I believe these countries often have lower stress levels and stronger social support systems.
When I talk about Asia, China and South Korea stand out among the countries with the highest stress levels. Surveys show that 12–27% of school students in China report psychological stress. In South Korea, stress levels among teenagers reach almost 40%. This data refers to school-aged students.
For college and university students, global data shows that about one in four experience symptoms of both depression and anxiety at the same time. Around 12% face the risk of severe depression.
What are student mental health statistics in the US?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 40% of high school American students have experienced prolonged feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Nearly 30% said their mental health felt “poor” during a certain period of time. In the same survey, around 20% reported suicidal ideation, and about 9–10% actually attempted suicide within one year.
Another CDC dataset shows similar mental health in teens statistics. About 29% of high school students reported that their mental health felt “poor” most of the time or all the time during the past 30 days prior to the research.
There is also data on college and university students. According to the Healthy Minds Study 2024–25, about 37% of students sought therapy or counseling during the past year. Many respondents also reported symptoms of depression and anxiety.
How can online schools/tutors support student mental health?
To support student mental health, students and tutors can create a supportive learning environment where a child can learn without constant pressure. If this doesn’t work, I recommend considering individual learning.
Mental health challenges need addressing because they are often linked to conflicts with classmates or teachers, as well as pressure around grades and academic performance. All of this can become a serious source of stress for a child. So, how to improve student mental health?
I believe platforms like Brighterly can help here. It is an online program that supports children with reading and math. Beyond academics, it offers a personalized approach. Teachers adjust lessons to each student’s level and pace, moving forward step by step. The mentors are professionals, but they also build warm, trusting connections with children and support them throughout the learning journey.
The lessons are interactive as well. You can read more about how effective this approach is in the article Interactive learning statistics.
With Brighterly, you also have a chance to download free math and reading worksheets — they are quite convenient for interactive practice at home.
Brighterly teachers adapt the program to each student and create a calm environment.Try NOW!
What are the student stress statistics by state?
The Mental Health America map clearly shows how many school students aged 12–17 experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year. According to the map, the states with the highest rates are Maryland, Nevada, and Colorado, ranging from 21.9% to 22.6%.
On the other hand, the states with the lowest rates are Alaska (17.27%), California, Indiana, New York, and Washington. In all of these states, student stress levels have dropped by 5% or more in recent years.
Student mental health statistics infographic
To help you quickly understand what are the statistics for stress in students across the US, here’s a chart. A quick guide: the lighter the state, the lower the prevalence of mental health issues and the better access to care for youth. The darker the state, the more challenging the situation.
Students mental health statistics by year
Student mental health statistics 2020
Even before the COVID‑19 pandemic, researchers began noticing increasing stress among children aged 10–14. According to YRBS data, depressive symptoms among teenagers have been gradually rising since the 2010s.
By early 2020, UNICEF observed that one in seven teenagers worldwide had a mental health disorder. That is roughly 89 million boys and 77 million girls.
What influenced this year? Social media and the start of the pandemic (stress from uncertainty).
Student mental health statistics 2021
In 2021, CDC YRBS reported that 42% of high school students experienced persistent sadness or hopelessness. About 29% said their mental health was poor during the previous 30 days.
What influenced this? Strict COVID‑19 lockdowns, remote learning, social isolation, and the broader crisis. Find more about the pandemic’s impact in the article Pandemic Learning Loss Statistics.
Student mental health statistics 2022
After 2021, there was a gradual decline, but stress remained high. About 21% of teenagers experienced anxiety symptoms, and around 17% had depression (CDC/Teen NHIS).
In many places, schools began reopening in person, which partly reduced isolation.
What influenced this? Mental health in schools statistics showed improved trends due to the decrease in social isolation.
Student mental health statistics 2023
CDC survey data from 2023 show high levels of psychological distress among U.S. high school students:
39.7% experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness
28.5% reported poor mental health
20.4% seriously considered attempting suicide
This data remained pretty much the same, as per the student mental health statistics 2024.
What influenced this? Returning to in-person school after the pandemic, social factors such as social media, academic exams, economic and future uncertainty, and media coverage of the war.
Student mental health statistics 2026
Globally, according to the WHO 2026 Fact Sheet, about one in seven (~14%) teenagers has a mental health disorder (anxiety, depression, etc.).
There is a trend toward returning to pre-pandemic levels, but rates remain higher than before.
What influenced this year? Long-term effects of social isolation and the digital environment on youth, along with broader access to information about mental health.
Which country has the most stressed students?
New Zealand ranks lowest in terms of mental well-being among children and teenagers as according to the international child well-being ranking by UNICEF. Close behind are Japan and South Korea. In Ireland, 1 in 15 teenagers reports low life satisfaction.
IMPORTANT! This ranking only considered 43 of the wealthiest countries (out of 195 possible). Even among these, not all countries conducted the same studies, so the data vary. These numbers should be seen only as a general overview, not exact figures.
Mental health in schools statistics by age
Mental health issues can start early in life due to family problems, misunderstandings with peers, or personal setbacks. Usually, these disorders progress with age as children face more stressors. Below, I’ve provided a table from the CDC showing the middle school mental health statistics and explaining who faces mental health challenges at different ages, along with possible contributing factors.
Additionally, CDC data show even higher rates among teenage girls with an LGBTQ+ identity. They experience higher levels of traumatic stress, anxiety, sadness, and suicidal thoughts compared to other gender and their heterosexual peers.
What are the statistics for mental health in teens?
According to the large 2023 NSCH federal report, about 20.3% of teenagers aged 12-17 had a diagnosed mental or behavioral health issue:
16.1% anxiety disorder
8.4% depression
6.3% behavioral/conduct problems
There is also more recent data for 2024–2026, which focuses on college and university students. In short, student depression statistics:
18% reported depression
32% experienced symptoms of anxiety
11% had suicidal thoughts
Every second student reported feeling lonely
However, all these numbers are better than in 2022, showing a positive trend. Additionally, 36% of respondents in 2026 reported high levels of well-being.
What is the most common mental health problem in students?
According to the WHO, the most common mental health issue among students worldwide is anxiety, followed by depressive symptoms.
Why is anxiety so widespread among students? Teenagers face many new challenges, especially at school:
Academic pressure: Constant assessments, exams, and competition increase stress levels.
Impact of social media on student mental health: Active use of social networks can intensify fear of judgment and not meeting expectations.
Age and social changes: Adolescence and the transition to college come with emotional instability and uncertainty.
Uncertainty about the future: Choosing a career, education, and life path is a major source of anxiety.
How to help a teenager with mental health issues?
To help a teen with a mental health issue, you should provide a proper level of attention and open communication.
How can you help if you notice common problems?
Academic pressure and overload
Not all children can keep up with studying, social life, and hobbies at the same time. Help your child learn time-management skills, and consider letting go of some extracurricular activities to reduce their load. It’s also a good idea to talk with your child’s teachers to understand their performance and challenges, then calmly work together on how to improve things.
Family stressors
Problems at home can greatly affect a child. Review your family dynamics, try to resolve conflicts, and create a safe atmosphere at home. Make time for fun family evenings and avoid criticizing mistakes. Over time, your child will feel they can trust you.
Digital overload (high school mental health statistics)
Social media often encourages comparison, and there’s a risk of cyberbullying and information fatigue. You can read more about this in the article Statistics about social media and kids.
To help, psychologists recommend setting screen-free hours. I understand that taking away a teen’s phone isn’t realistic, but you can involve them in activities, hobbies, or family game nights – this works. Also, explain that not all images online are real, and not everyone on the internet is as successful or happy as they seem.
Stigma around mental health
Acknowledging a mental health issue isn’t easy. Kids may close off, fear judgment, and ignore the problem. Try to normalize conversations about mental health, its importance, and ways to improve it.
Note: If problems persist, seek professional help from a school counselor or a licensed specialist for assessment and treatment.
How can schools support student mental health?
Schools play an undeniable role in students’ mental health. Every year, new methods and programs are introduced to support students. Here are the 3-top approaches that lay the foundation for mental well-being:
School psychologists and counselors: In the U.S., about 18% of students use school mental health services! Over 70% of schools have at least one specialist who can help a child. According to depression in high school students statistics, this approach helps identify early warning signs and can support students effectively.
Social-emotional learning (SEL): Based on 22 studies, experts say programs that teach students to develop self-awareness and manage their emotions.
Reducing academic pressure: More than 60 studies show that high academic pressure causes stress, worsens well-being, and lowers motivation in children. If this negatively affects students’ lives, it’s worth rethinking teaching methods to ensure learning doesn’t harm their health.
10 student mental health tips for parents
Maintain your child’s daily routine.
Plan outdoor activities together.
Limit excessive screen time.
Support healthy eating and encourage physical activity.
Be available for open, honest conversations.
To provide a non-judgmental space where teens can talk about their feelings.
Watch for changes in mood and behavior.
Encourage participation in a series of extracurricular activities.
Check on academic progress and offer help if needed.
Seek support from the school or professionals when necessary.
Mental health in students statistics: Conclusion
As you can see, statistics on teen mental health in recent years show that young people need mental health resources and support. Today, anxiety is the most common disorder among teenagers worldwide, and it is closely linked to academic stress, performance, and pressure.
At the same time, research confirms that both schools and you as parents can help your child overcome mental health challenges. Start by finding a safe learning environment for your child. If this isn’t available at school, consider additional platforms. My recommendation is the Brighterly math and reading platform. The company cares about its students, tailoring lesson pace, topics, and assignments to your child’s needs. They aim for your child to learn and enjoy, not feel stressed.
If you are looking for quality individual lessons for child in reading and math, you can book free lessonwith Brighterly to see if it’s right for your child.
Laila A. Lico began her teaching career over 12 years ago and has since developed a personal approach focused on making lessons enjoyable, meaningful, and relatable.
Many Americans anticipate making New Year’s resolutions to improve finances.
KEY FINDINGS:
48% are more stressed heading into 2026 than they were at the beginning of 2025
27% have decreased confidence in their ability to meet their retirement goals compared to last year
46% are likely to make and keep a resolution to manage money better or save more
MINNEAPOLIS – Dec. 16, 2025 – Nearly half of Americans say they are more stressed heading into 2026 than they were at the beginning of 2025, according to the 2026 New Year’s Resolutions Study* from the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement, part of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz Life).
At the end of 2025, 48% say they are more stressed than they were at the start of the year. This is up from 43% last year.
Among Americans who say they are more stressed financially compared to last year, the top reasons include: costs of day-to-day expenses (54%), income is too low (46%), not saving enough for an emergency fund (39%), too much debt (35%), high health care costs (34%), and lack of job security (33%). Health care costs and lack of job security in particular rose significantly from last year.
With that sense of job insecurity, more Americans say they will start or continue looking for a new job in 2026 (56%, up from 47% last year). Still, many are planning to stay put and take part in “job hugging.” Seven in 10 (71%) who are not likely to look for a job say it’s because it seems safer to stay where they are in the current economic environment.
Financial stress hits retirement confidence
With that, 27% say they have decreased confidence in their ability to meet their retirement goals compared to last year. In particular, Gen X (38%) and Gen Z (32%) are more likely than millennials (24%) or boomers (20%) to say they have decreased confidence compared to last year. What’s more, many Americans don’t feel like they are making progress toward retirement. About one in five (21%) say they are further from reaching their retirement goals than they were a year ago.
“When feeling financially stressed, long-term goals like retirement can be the easiest to sideline because you don’t feel it in your day-to-day life,” says Kelly LaVigne, VP of consumer insights, Allianz Life. “But achieving long-term financial security takes time and you may be better off consistently working toward retirement incrementally than trying to wait until you can devote a larger part of your budget to the goal.”
Americans struggle with financial discipline
The majority of Gen Z (56%) and millennials (63%) say they are likely to make and keep a resolution in 2026 to manage money better or save more. Less than half of Gen X (43%) and boomers (23%) said the same. Overall, 46% of Americans say they were likely to make and keep a resolution to manage money better or save more. This was the second most popular resolution after exercise and diet.
Many Americans say they established good financial habits in 2025. More than one in three (34%) say they reduced their spending.
Still, Americans say their worst financial habits are spending too much money on things they don’t need (32%), not saving as much as they could (25%), not saving any money (23%), and not paying down debt fast enough (22%). Gen Z was more likely than other generations to say they spend too much on things they don’t need (50%) and don’t save any money (32%).
“At every stage of life, it can be important to consider a written financial strategy so that you document your financial goals,” LaVigne says. “Without a documented strategy for your finances, it can be tempting to spend now instead of saving for later. If you know why you are saving and what goals you are working toward, making those decisions can be simpler.”
*Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement conducted an online survey, the 2026 New Year’s Resolutions Study in November 2025 with a nationally representative sample of 1,038 respondents age 18+ in the contiguous U.S.
The Allianz Center for the Future for Retirement produces insights and research as a part of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.
Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America does not provide financial planning services.
Brother Hatchel doesn’t see so well anymore. And he has a prosthetic leg. So brothers Navy and Klugh guide him along the outdoor railing of the historic school where their fraternity chapter meets.
Using two canes, Hatchel, 74, who is wearing his black-and-gold Alpha Phi Alpha ball cap, maneuvers down the walkway, with Navy, 76, and Klugh, 74, guiding him: Turn right, careful, watch your step.
The three Silver Spring men have been “brothers” most of their lives — members of the same elite black fraternity as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. And as they anticipated the dedication of the $120 million King memorial , they were proud to point out that the idea was born in a modest brick rambler on East-West Highway.
Thursday night, officials announced that because of Hurricane Irene, the dedication of the memorial will take place not on Sunday as expected, but in September or October.
On Feb. 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a sermon titled “The Drum Major Instinct.” King encouraged his audience to seek greatness, but to do so through service and love.
Students represented different civil rights advocates who practiced nonviolent protests at the MLK Breakfast Celebration, an annual event that honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his accomplishments.
“… It means that everybody can be great. Because everybody can serve,” King said in his speech. “You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”
To bring the speech to life and to celebrate the civil rights leader’s birthday, UT Dallas students created a program involving dance, song and video at the University’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Breakfast.
To begin the program, graduate student Mito Are performed an a cappella version of “Amazing Grace.” As students, faculty and staff started breakfast, video clips from the civil rights movement were projected onto a number of screens, and King’s voice echoed around them, bringing the audience into the 1960s.
Members of the Student Voices from UTD performed an interpretive dance to the song “A Change is Gonna Come,” by Sam Cooke. A trio of dancers moved in harmony to lyrics such as “there been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long, but now I think I’m able to carry on.”
Students Zeeshan Moosa (right) and Darrel “Friidom” Dunn performed a dance to Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”
In the spirit of King’s belief in nonviolent protest, students also carried large posters with portraits of other “Drum Majors for Justice,” which included Stevie Wonder, Harvey Milk, Malala Yousafzai, Pope Francis, Anne Braden, Nelson Mandela, and the three civil rights activists who were killed in Mississippi in 1964 — Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Earl Chaney.
The program was written and directed by arts and humanities PhD candidate Vanessa Baker.
“I approached the concept of the production from my extensive research on Martin Luther King Jr., the movement, and King’s vision for community, equality and justice,” Baker said. “The concept for the breakfast aimed to convey that vision. It aimed to pay tribute to the enormous contributions that King made, which ultimately benefited all of humanity, and to give thanks to the hearers of his message — to those who took and continue to take up the baton for change.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed on the third Monday of January each year, near King’s birthday on Jan. 15. President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating the federal holiday to honor King in 1983. It was observed for the first time on Jan. 20, 1986.
Media Contact: The Office of Communications and Marketing, or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu.Tagged:A&H
Location: Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza
The Montgomery County Volunteer Center has partnered with the Montgomery County Alumnae Chapter (MD) of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. to host this year’s event at the Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza on Monday, January 19, 2026, Participate in service projects that will benefit people and communities in Montgomery County. Participants will also have the chance to engage with local non-profit organizations to learn about opportunities to give back throughout the year.
Registration required. Please note, if you have previously reserved your spot for this event through Eventbrite, you do not need to register again. Your spot has been reserved.
By Sam Sifton I am the host of The Morning. NYT Nov 25th 2025
The numbers are staggering.
Nearly one in four 17-year-old boys in the United States has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In the early 1980s, a diagnosis of autism was delivered to one child in 2,500. That figure is now one in 31. Almost 32 percent of adolescents have at some point been given a diagnosis of anxiety. More than one in 10 have experienced a major depressive disorder, my colleague Jia Lynn Yang reports.
And the number of mental health conditions is expanding. A child might be tagged with oppositional defiance disorder or pathological avoidance disorder. “The track has become narrower and narrower, so a greater range of people don’t fit that track anymore,” an academic who studies children and education told Jia Lynn. “And the result is, we want to call it a disorder.”
Why did this happen? A lot of reasons. Kids spend hours on screens, cutting into their sleep, exercise and socializing — activities that can ward off anxiety and depression. Mental health screenings have improved.
And then there’s school itself: a cause of stress for many children and the very place that sends them toward a diagnosis.
A slow transformation
In 1950, less than half of American children attended kindergarten. Only about 50 percent graduated from high school. After-school hours were filled with play or work. “But as the country’s economy shifted from factories and farms to offices, being a student became a more serious matter,” Jia Lynn writes. “The outcome of your life could depend on it.” College became a reliable path to the middle class.
Schools leaned into new standards of testing and put in place measures of accountability. The No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 made it federal law.
States rewarded schools for having high scores. They punished them for low ones. “Schools were treated more like publicly traded companies, with test scores as proxies for profits,” Jia Lynn writes. “Before long, schools had public ratings, so ubiquitous they now appear on real estate listings.”
And there were clear incentives to diagnose students with psychiatric disorders: Treatment of one student, especially a disruptive one, could lead to higher test scores across the classroom. And in some states, the test scores of students with a diagnosis weren’t counted toward a school’s overall marks, nudging results higher as well.
The metrics may have gotten many kids the support they needed. Either way, educational policymaking yielded a change: According to one analysis Jia Lynn found, the rate of A.D.H.D. among children ages 8 to 13 in low-income homes rose by half after the passage of No Child Left Behind.
In San Luis, Ariz.Credit…Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
The effect on kids
The pressures on students became extreme. In 2020, Yale researchers found that nearly 80 percent of high schoolers said they were stressed.
And that stress has trickled down to younger and younger kids. Kindergartners learn best through play, not through the rote lessons in math and reading that began to enter classrooms. Preschoolers are not predisposed to sitting still. And yet as they, too, now face greater academic expectations, many are being expelled for misbehavior.
Even the school day became more regimented, with fewer periods of recess — by 2016, only eight states had mandatory recess in elementary schools. Class schedules are packed. “You’ve got seven different homework assignments that you’ve got to remember each night,” one expert told Jia Lynn. “Think of the cognitive load of a sixth-grade boy. I challenge many adults to do this.”
It’s a vicious cycle, where bad outcomes lead to worse outcomes.
And Jia Lynn writes about that beautifully:
By turning childhood into a thing that can be measured, adults have managed to impose their greatest fears of failure onto the youngest among us. Each child who strays from our standards becomes a potential medical mystery to be solved, with more tests to take, more metrics to assess. The only thing that seems to consistently evade the detectives is the world around that child — the one made by the grown-ups.
Read more about schools and the rise of childhood mental health disorders here. Don’t miss the comments that accompany the article, especially from parents and teachers. Many boil down to something a recently retired teacher wrote: “A child’s school day is insane.”
By David BrooksOpinion Columnist NYT August 7th 2025
I hope you don’t mind if I pierce the general gloom with a piece of wonderful news. More people around the world report that they are living better lives than before. Plus they are becoming more hopeful about the future. In a new survey, the Gallup organization interviewed people across 142 countries and asked them a series of questions to determine whether they felt they were thriving in their lives or struggling or, worst of all, suffering.
The number of people who say they are thriving has been rising steadily for a decade. The number of people who say they are suffering is down to 7 percent globally, tying with the lowest level since 2007. This trend is truly worldwide, with strong gains in well-being in countries as far-flung as Kosovo, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Paraguay.
Unfortunately, there is a little bad news. Some people reported sharp declines in well-being. That would be us. The share of the population that is thriving is falling in America, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In 2007, 67 percent of Americans and Canadians said they were thriving. Now it’s down to 49 percent.
To put it another way, the nations with some of the highest standards of living are seeing the greatest declines in well-being. We still enjoy higher absolute levels of well-being than nations in the developing world do, but the trend lines are terrible.
This should not be a surprise. I would say the most important social trend over the past decade has been the disconnect between our nation’s economic health and its social health. Over these years the American G.D.P. has surged, wages have risen, unemployment has been low, income inequality has gone down. At the same time, the suicide rate has surged, social isolation has surged, social trust is near rock bottom. According to a Gallup survey from January, the share of Americans who say they are “very satisfied” with their lives has hit a new low. According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer report, only 30 percent of Americans feel optimistic for the next generation.S
What’s going on here?
People thrive when they live in societies with rising standards of living and dense networks of relationships, and where they feel their lives have a clear sense of purpose and meaning. That holy trinity undergirds any healthy society. It’s economic, social and spiritual.
I spoke with Dan Witters of Gallup, who broke down some of the contributors to social and spiritual health. People who are thriving are more likely to feel a strong attachment to their community. They feel proud of where they live. People are more likely to experience greater well-being when they join congregations and regularly attend religious services. Feeling your life has purpose and meaning, he adds, is a strong driver of where you think you are going to be five years from now.
The most comprehensive study of well-being is probably the Global Flourishing Study, led by Tyler J. VanderWeele of Harvard and Byron Johnson of Baylor. Their group has interviewed 200,000 people across 22 countries beginning in 2022. They found that a few countries do well across material, social and spiritual measures, notably Israel and Poland. A lot of countries score well materially, but the people who live in them are less likely to have a sense of clear purpose and meaning, like Japan and the Scandinavian nations. Other countries don’t do as well economically, but do very well socially and spiritually, like Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines.
I’d say that the nations that are doing well in that Gallup thriving survey are those that are experiencing rising living standards while preserving their traditional social arrangements and value systems. The nations like America that are seeing declining well-being are fine economically, but their social and spiritual environments are deteriorating.
Why have rich nations lagged behind in this way? VanderWeele theorizes that maybe it’s a question of priorities. “I tend to think you end up getting what you value most,” he told me. “When a society is oriented toward economic gain, you will be moderately successful, but not if it’s done at the expense of meaning and community.”
I’d add that we in the West have aggressively embraced values that when taken to excess are poisonous to our well-being. Over the past several decades, according to the World Values Survey, North America, Western Europe and the English-speaking nations have split off culturally from the rest of the world. Since the 1960s we have adopted values that are more secular, more individualistic and more oriented around self-expression than the values that prevail in the Eastern Orthodox European countries such as Serbia, the Confucian countries like South Korea and the mostly Catholic Latin countries like Mexico.
The countries that made this values shift are seeing their well-being decline, according to that Gallup thriving survey. The countries that resisted this shift are seeing their well-being improve. The master trend in recent Western culture has been to emancipate the individual from the group, and now we are paying the social and spiritual price.
Two groups are particularly hard hit. First, young people. Those of us who are older can at least remember the pre-Bowling Alone era. But young people now have to grow up in a more distrustful and atomized world. It used to be that people’s happiness levels followed a U-shaped curve. People felt happier when young, then it dipped in middle age (it’s called having teenage children), and then happiness levels rose again around retirement. Now the curve looks more like a slope. People are more miserable when young, doing OK in middle age and happiest in their senior years. Young Americans are the worst off among all age groups in that Global Flourishing Study, as are young people in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Britain and other Western countries.
Progressives, and especially young progressives, are the other group that is suffering. Since researchers started measuring these things in 1972, conservatives have almost always been happier than progressives because conservatives are more likely to do the things that correlate with happiness, like get married, go to church, give to charity, feel patriotic, have more sex and feel their life has meaning.
But around 2011 something changed. Lower happiness levels transmogrified into higher levels of depression and mental illness, a related but different thing. That year, young progressives began reporting a significant rise in depression rates. A few years later, conservatives began reporting a similar rise, but not to the same degree. A 2024 survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found that 35 percent of “very conservative” college students said they suffer from poor mental health at least half the time, which is terrible, but 57 percent of “very liberal” students did, which is horrendous.
There’s a lot going on to explain these depression rates, but one of them has got to be that progressives are more likely to embrace the autonomy and social freedom ethos described in that World Values Survey, and this hyperindividualistic ethos is not good for your social and spiritual health.
Let’s be clear about what’s happened here: greed. Americans have become so obsessed with economic success that we’ve neglected the social and moral conditions that undergird human flourishing. Schools spend more time teaching professional knowledge than they do social and spiritual knowledge. The prevailing values worship individual choice and undermine the core commitments that precede choice — our love for family, neighborhood, nation and the truth. There’s a lot of cultural work to do.
In his 20 years as a firefighter and paramedic in Colorado Springs, Bruce Monson, 43, has had his little fist-bumps with death: a burning roof collapsing on top of him, toxic fumes nearly suffocating him.
Yet far more terrifying than any personal threats are what Mr. Monson describes as the “bad kid calls,” like the one from a mother who had put her 18-month-old son down in his crib right next to a window with a Venetian blind and its old-fashioned cord.
“The kid had grabbed the cord and gotten it twisted around his neck, and the mother came in and found him hanging there,” said Mr. Monson. “I’m the first one in the door, she’s in a panic, and she shoves the kid into my arms, crying, ‘Please save him, please save him!’ ”
The child’s body was blue, but Mr. Monson and his fellows met parental despair with professional focus and did everything they could. “We worked on him for over an hour,” said Mr. Monson. “It’s like a state of calm. You’re so tuned in to what you’re doing, you’re not thinking about the reality of the situation.”
Their best was not enough, however, and later, at the hospital, the terrible sadness settled in.
As Mr. Monson filled out his report, the mother sat in the trauma room’s designated “bereavement rocking chair,” rocking her dead son, saying her goodbyes, while family members filed in and wailed at the sight.
An image of that mother in her rocking chair comes to Mr. Monson’s mind every time he answers another “bad kid” call, spurring him to keep going, to never give up or grow sloppy or cynical, to simply do his job; and through doing his job, he has saved far more lives than he has lost.
Only once did he allow the furniture connection to spook him when his own wife was at the same hospital having emergency surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and his young daughter happened to climb onto the bereavement seat. “I knew it was a totally irrational thing to do,” he said, “but I made her get out of that chair.”
Courage is something that we want for ourselves in gluttonous portions and adore in others without qualification. Yet for all the longstanding centrality of courage to any standard narrative of human greatness, only lately have researchers begun to study it systematically, to try to define what it is and is not, where it comes from, how it manifests itself in the body and brain, who we might share it with among nonhuman animals, and why we love it so much.
A new report in the journal Current Biology describes the case of a woman whose rare congenital syndrome has left her completely, outrageously fearless, raising the question of whether it’s better to conquer one’s fears, or to never feel them in the first place.
In another recent study, neuroscientists scanned the brains of subjects as they struggled successfully to overcome their terror of snakes, identifying regions of the brain that may be key to our everyday heroics.
Researchers in the Netherlands are exploring courage among children, to see when the urge for courage first arises, and what children mean when they call themselves brave.
The theme of courage claims a long and gilded ancestry. Plato included courage among the four cardinal or principal virtues, along with wisdom, justice and moderation.
“As a major virtue, courage helps to define the excellent person and is no mere optional trait,” writes George Kateb, a political theorist and emeritus professor at Princeton University. “One of the worst reproaches in the world is to be called a coward.”
Yet defining what it means to be courageous has often proved as thistly as distinguishing the wise ones from the fools. For Plato and many other authorities, courage is above all a martial art, most readily displayed on the battlefield the iconic brave solder running into the line of fire to retrieve an injured comrade.
But Dr. Kateb points out that if courage finds its highest expression in war, then the trait paradoxically becomes an immoral virtue, ennobling war and carnage by insisting that only in battle can men and it usually is men discover the depths of their nobility.
Marilynne Robinson, the novelist and social critic, has observed that courage is “dependent on cultural definition” and “rarely expressed except where there is sufficient consensus to support it.” Where religious martyrdom is lionized, there will be martyrs; where social or political protest is seen as glorious warfare in civvies, there will be a rash of red-faced declaimers, soapboxes on every street.
In pioneering work from 1970s and beyond, Stanley J. Rachman of the University of British Columbia and others studied the physiology and behavior of paratroopers as they prepared for their first parachute jump.
The work revealed three basic groups: the preternaturally fearless, who displayed scant signs of the racing heart, sweaty palms, spike in blood pressure and other fight-or-flight responses associated with ordinary fear, and who jumped without hesitation; the handwringers, whose powerful fear response at the critical moment kept them from jumping; and finally, the ones who reacted physiologically like the handwringers but who acted like the fearless leapers, and, down the hatch.
These last Dr. Rachman deemed courageous, defining courage as “behavioral approach in spite of the experience of fear.” By that expansive definition, courage becomes democratized and demilitarized, the property of any wallflower who manages to give the convention speech, or the math phobe who decides to take calculus.
Through interviews with some 320 children aged 8 to 13, Peter Muris of Erasmus University Rotterdam and his colleagues found that children also equate courage with the conquering of one’s fears, and more than 70 percent of the respondents claimed they had performed one or more brave acts, including rescuing a little brother who’d fallen in the swimming pool, saving a cat from a tree, biking home through the woods at night, and stealing money from one’s mother’s purse yes, that will make the heart race, all right.
Joel Berger, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Montana, also distinguishes between animals that behave boldly for lack of experience like mockingbirds unfamiliar with humans that will alight on the rim of a person’s cup to take a drink and those that are aware of a danger but proceed in the face of it.
He cited the time he and his colleagues had immobilized a young bison in preparation for taking blood samples, and when they returned, an unrelated adult male bison was standing guard over the yearling, refusing to let the scientists approach.
“He knew that he could be attacked by us, and there was no genetic kinship involved,” said Dr. Berger. “Courage may be a human construct, but I’d call this a courageous, even heroic act.”
Seeking to capture the sensation of courage in real time, Yadin Dudai, a neurobiologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and his colleagues scanned the brains of people with a known phobia toward snakes as they were confronted with a live, large, harmless but indubitably serpentine corn snake.
Lying in the scanner, the subjects could choose either to allow a box holding the snake to come closer, or to keep it away. As reported last June in the journal Neuron, the participants who squelched their terror and pressed the “snake approach” button showed activation of a brain region called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex.
Located toward the front of the brain, the structure has been implicated in depression and, intriguingly, altruistic behavior, and is thought to help negotiate between emotion and cognition, impulse and calculation.
The thumb-size bundle of neurons acknowledges the yellow belly within but then moves to stanch its quivering power. And it does this in large part by dialing down the activity of the amygdala, long known as the brain’s central headquarters of fear.
For the serious cowards among us, the chronic need to conquer fear can get tedious. Why not just skip the anterior cingulate reveille and muzzle the brain’s fear response for good? The story of SM, a 44-year-old woman whose rare genetic condition has selectively destroyed the brain’s twinned set of amygdala, shows the clear downside of a life without fear.
As Justin Feinstein, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Iowa, and his colleagues describe in Current Biology, the otherwise normal SM is incapable of being spooked.
She claimed to fear snakes and spiders, and maybe she did in her pre-disease childhood, but when the researchers took her to an exotic pet store, they were astonished to see that not only did she not avoid the snakes and spiders, she was desperate to hold them close.
The researchers took SM to a haunted house, and she laughed at the scary parts and blithely made the monster-suited employees jump. She was shown clips from famous horror films like “The Silence of Lambs” and “Halloween,” and she showed no flickers of fright.
This fearlessness may be fine in the safety of one’s living room, but it turns out that SM makes her own horror films in real life. She walks through bad neighborhoods alone at night, approaches shady strangers without guile, and has been repeatedly threatened with death.
“We have an individual who’s constantly putting herself into harm’s way,” said Mr. Feinstein. “If we had a million SMs walking around, the world would be a total mess.”
The bad calls would keep coming, and the rocking chairs never stop.
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