Millennials are more stressed than previous generations

When people ask what is my favorite group of people for counselling, I always answer without a second’s doubt: Millennials. This is because I’m also one. I was born in the late 80s and my childhood memories are related to cassette tapes, Backstreetboys and floppy disks. Our generation is a Chain Breaker in the sense that we no longer want to work and live in the same way our parents did. Millennials exhibit higher stress levels than all the generations before us. We’re the first ones to actively seek therapy in any form, and we’re the first ones to heal generational trauma.

Why are we special?

In my years of research and endless conversations with my fellow millennials, I have come to a few conclusions. We are special because we simply had enough of the past ways. Our entire lives we watched our grandparents and parents live the same lives, making the same mistakes and taking the same decisions. We figure out that we want more and we do more. But is this ‘more’ the best way to live a long and happy life?

In time, I started making notes of the important findings of us, and here is my list:

• We are the most studied generation to date
• Millennials read A LOT and when we read, we like the smell of old or new books which is contrasting with our technology bound development (a 2015 survey of college students showed that if the price of a book was exactly the same on digital and paper, 80% would choose paper)
• We think of retirement and we actively save up for our pension
• We’re no longer living on one income; to be able to buy a house, we need the power of two compared to our parents in their 30’s
• Which brings me to my next point: many Millennials still rely on their parent’s financial support due to student debts; and if you don’t have a student debt it’s because your parents paid for your studies in most cases (7 out of 10 cases to be precise)
• We’re obsessed with self improvement and we have high expectations of ourselves
• We are also better educated than the generations before us
• We are stressed out; reports show the highest stress levels from all generations before us
• We are perfectionists which increases our anxiety levels
• We love this thing called the internet
• Our entire life is in our phones.

It took me a few years to gather these points simply because we are a complex generation. We’ve inherited heavy luggage from past generations, filled with good and bad. And there’s one more thing I left out from that list on purpose: my deep belief that we are always competing with others and with past generations.

I look around me at my friends or colleagues and I constantly have the feeling that everyone is constantly unhappy. We never have enough money, the right relationship, or the right title. We want to become directors at 30 and we forfeit that for our mental and physical health. So when do we stop? Do we know how to rest? Or we hit burnout and then we’re forced to rest?

Smell the flowers

Do you ever find the time to just stop? I mean it. Just let go. Go out for a walk every day and try to notice the same tree. Do you see a change? Do you notice how the leaves or the grass under it shifted colour or shape? It’s not that hard to go off the working conveyor belt and to just be yourself sometimes.

Millennials exhibit higher stress levels than all the generations before us. In a video from 2016, Simon Sinek explains why we are as we are. He shares four main reasons for which we are as we are: parenting, technology, impatience and environment.

Among other causes, we are the products of ‘failed parenting strategies‘ from the previous generation. By being told that we are special, that we can have anything we want in life, we even get awarded just for showing up and when life happens, we get a big slap from reality. We learn that we are not special. We need to work very hard for anything we want to achieve. Nobody has our back if we crave independence, and we are part of this big spinning wheel.

What we do wrong

Besides the four aspects mentioned above, research shows that we also have some very detrimental habits. To achieve all of these dreams we have in mind, we stretch ourselves thin. Anxiety levels are rising and our bad habits aren’t making our lives easier.

1. Poor sleeping habits – Millennials tend to go to bed a various times, they work long hours and they simply don’t make sleep a priority
2. Skipping meals – Millennials eat as randomly as they sleep, which messes up their entire metabolism
3. Addicted to coffee – this generation loves coffee and can’t live without it – but coffee can also make people nervous, jittery or gives them sleeping issues
4. Sitting is the new smoking – man we sit a lot! Most of us work corporate jobs so our life is spent sitting in a chair; sedentary lifestyles can give people all sorts of issues from anxiety to more serious health issues
5. Living for the screen – whenever we go by public transport, or we wait for someone or something, we’re with our nose in a screen; some of us, wake up and go to sleep with the phone in our hands

If this list of bad habits is not enough to convince you to make a change, perhaps this will: according to the Harvard Medical School, anxiety is the number one factor for some very serious issues such as heart conditions, chronic pain, diabetes or stomach and liver problems. Millennials exhibit higher stress levels than all the generations before us and that’s not a coincidence. We want too much. Slow living is something we need to observe and learn from the previous generations.

If you also want to find out more about yourself, or maybe learn how to slow things down a little, you can always ask for support from a counsellor or therapist.