Thank you for joining us for episode 471 of Live Happy Now.

Younger generations are experiencing stress and anxiety differently than previous generations,

and that's something we're making part of the ongoing conversation here at Live Happy.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm joined by author and clinical psychologist

Dr. Lauren Cook.

Her latest book, Generation Anxiety, looks at why millennials and Gen Z are so anxious and how

that's affecting them.

She's here today to talk about some of the things that are driving that anxiety and importantly

offers insight into what we can do to help change this downward spiral and what that

will mean for future generations. Let's have a listen. Lauren, welcome back to live happy now.

Oh, it's so good to see you again, Paula. I'm really excited to sit down and have this conversation

with you because you're doing

some incredible work with Gen Z and millennials. And as you know, you and I have talked about this.

Live Happy Now is really concerned about the mental health of Gen Z. And we're really committed

to keeping that dialogue open. And so your book does an excellent,

incredible job of looking at not just Gen Z, but Millennials. And I wanted to kick it off.

I wanted to know if you could talk about why both of those generations are so anxiety-ridden.

Yeah, we are releasing an increase in anxiety, both in prevalence, meaning more and more people, and severity.

Intensity of symptoms is increasing as well. So we're seeing it horizontally, longitudinally, all the ways.

Anxiety is absolutely increasing for folks. I think it's happening both personally but also very much communally. And

you know, when you look at what's happened in our country in the last two decades in particular,

it's been one thing after another. There's a really interesting survey that asks people,

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