I've always thought about it and talk to kids about it in terms of mental hygiene, taking

care and cleaning up your mind, cleaning up if you're having anxiety about worries about

concerns about things that you're doing something about them and not letting them fester.

So what is the definition of mental health that you give these young people?

Mental health isn't having a problem.

That's how you address the challenges in your life.

Much like physical health isn't having cancer and diabetes in a broken leg and like an injury.

It's about how you take care of your physical health.

Mental health from the start, you have to have a clear definition of it.

And if you don't have a clear definition of it, you end up with so much vagueness and

so much self-diagnosing and so many confusing aspects of it that it has to start there.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Fill In The Blanks.

We are talking about something that you've heard me discuss before, something that I'm

very concerned about.

I've been concerned about for a long time, got more concerned about during and after

the pandemic and I'm really concerned about going forward.

That's the mental health of our young people right now.

Issues with young people, preteens, older teens and college students are really on the rise.

Mental health challenges in children, adolescents and young adults are real and they are widespread.

Now a lot of people think this is a product of the pandemic, sadly it's not.

We really started seeing spikes as early as 2010, 2011 and the pandemic and all of the

quarantine just kind of threw gas on that fire.

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