8 Habits That Make Millennials Stressed, Anxious, and Unproductive

Article originally posted on Forbes.com by Caroline Beaton

Preview:

“According to the American Psychological Association (APA), millennials experience more stress and are less able to manage it than any other generation. More than half of us admit to having lain awake at night during the past month from stress.

“Not surprisingly, millennials are also more anxious than older Americans. The APA reports that 12% of millennials have a diagnosed anxiety disorder—almost twice the percentage of Boomers. On a non-clinical scale, a BDA Morneau Shepell white paper discovered that 30% of working millennials have general anxiety, while a 2014 American College Health Association (ACHA) assessment found that anxiety regularly afflicts 61% of college students.

“Anxiety not only harms our wellbeing but also sabotages our productivity. The ACHA assessment found that the top two tolls on students’ academic performance were stress and anxiety. Two-thirds of millennials interviewed by BDA  attribute declining work performance to anxiety.

“Sources of millennial anxiety may include a tough job market and student debt as well as psychological causes I’ve covered previously such as ambition addiction, career crises and choice-overload. But even our day-to-day behaviors can incite anxiety.”

Finish the story!

Head to Forbes.com to read the full article on eight common habits that instigate stress and compromise our potential.

Living at the Intersection: Reflections on the Graduate Student Experience

Guest columnist: Craig

Describe an instance where you were “forced” to choose or represent one identity over another. How did you negotiate this instance? What did you learn from this experience?

As a life-long stutterer, I am often faced with a dilemma every time I speak with someone in both my personal and professional life: Do I align with my identity as a stutterer by speaking with repetitions, prolongations, and blocks, or do I maintain my fluency by speaking in a coherent, smooth, and consistent manner? This quandary is cognitively and emotionally present in all contexts that involve spoken language. Magnifying the difficult decision is the stutterers’ often keen ability to “hide” his dysfluency. Unlike other apparent identities, stuttering is more covert, often hidden under the guise of fluent speech. Thus, during conversations with others, I often ponder three questions: Do I disclose my stutter? Will the other person figure out I stutter? How long can I maintain fluent speech?

Much to my dissatisfaction, I will often conceal my stutter, in order to align with the identity of being a nonstutterer. This “false” identity is accompanied by a lack of disclosure, embarrassment and shame, following a concerted effort to talk in a manner that involves absolutely no repetitions, blocks, or prolongations. I recall one instance in which I chose to hide my stutter from a 14-year old male client. The client asked, “Mr. Craig, do you stutter?” I replied, “Um, no, I don’t. Sometimes I get caught on my words.”

I chose this response to avoid any discussion that may have revealed my true identity as someone who stutters. I quickly changed the subject without hesitation. In essence, the opportunity to be vulnerable with my client by revealing my own imperfections (stuttering) was quickly shut down to avoid my embarrassment and shame.

I learned an important and valuable lesson from this encounter. Being vulnerable with another person implies uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. However, it also provides an opportunity to forge deep bonds of affection toward another. I lost this opportunity with my 14-year old client. As I reflect on this experience, I realize that it is only through my imperfections and fallibility that I can be an effective therapist. This means that I may stutter when I talk with clients. It may take me a few more seconds to utter a sentence. I, like my clients, am not perfect. I mistakenly believed in that moment of response that my ability to maintain fluent speech was connected with my competency as a therapist. I now realize that this was a great misperception—to be an effective therapist means being comfortable with my own vulnerability. This means befriending my stutter with an open heart and genuine curiosity when it emerges in session. By doing so, I subtly invite my clients to also be vulnerable with their pain and suffering. After all, at the end of each session, both therapist and client are human, all too human.

This column is part of a monthly series highlighting the experiences of students and professionals with diverse intersecting identities and is sponsored by the APAGS Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity and the Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity. Are you interested in sharing about your own navigation of intersecting identities in graduate school? We would be happy to hear from you! To learn more, please contact the chair of APAGS CSOGD: Julia Benjamin or APAGS CARED: James Garcia.

 

 

Important notice to users of MyPsychTrack

APAGS recently heard about a change to the MyPsychTrack (MPT) system that could create confusion and lost data. MPT is changing to a new and improved portal (https://app.mypsychtrack.com/) on March 4th, 2016. If you are a student tracking clinical training hours on MPT, unless you logged in recently to record hours, you may be unaware of this change. To maintain all your data, you have to upload your data to the new portal by March 4th. Data logged on the old portal may not be available on or after March 4th.

There is a link on the MPT homepage that provides assistance on transferring hours into the new system. Contact MPT support if you have any questions or concerns and they will walk you through the process.

APPIC believes this will affect about 200 people who haven’t updated their MPT account since March 2015.

Please share this widely with your peers, and of course, it’s always a good practice to back up your data regardless of the system you use!

What does it mean to be a leader? APAGS will help you strengthen your competencies. (Image source: Beth Kanter on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

Want to be a member of the APAGS Leadership Institute’s inaugural class?

What does it mean to be a leader? APAGS will help you strengthen your competencies. (Image source: Beth Kanter on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

What does it mean to be a leader? APAGS will help you strengthen your competencies. (Image source: Beth Kanter on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

In 2013, when APAGS wrote its new five-year strategic plan, one of our three core focus areas was devoted to leadership.

We know that to be a successful and viable discipline, we need rising generations of psychologists to be ready to lead teams, develop and evaluate programs, advocate as experts on issues of social importance, and champion interprofessional collaboration.

Our goal of increasing the number of students leading, organizing, and creating change came closer to fruition earlier this month when we released application materials for the first-ever APAGS Leadership Institute.

This Leadership Institute was the culmination of months of planning by a cross-cutting working group led by APAGS member-at-large Casey Calhoun, with consultation from members of APA’s Board of Directors as well as organizers of existing leadership academies. We are very pleased to offer this new benefit to our members who are seeking to develop their leadership skills, gain leadership experience, and network with current and future leaders in psychology.

For a year beginning this summer, selected participants will engage with mentors and their peers in a handful of virtual leadership classrooms, use partial reimbursement to attend APA’s Annual Convention in Denver (to both co-lead and participate in leadership sessions), develop a project of significant impact, and hopefully pay it forward by mentoring the next cohort in summer 2017.

We’re looking for five to seven individuals to fill our inaugural cohort. Applications are due April 1, 2016. Read more about eligibility and application instructions and download this flyer (PDF) to share with others.

Writing a letter can help shape policy in your community. (Source: User dangerpup on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

Finding the Time for Advocacy

Two years ago, I got swept up in mental health advocacy taking the state of Oregon by storm.

With legislation reform affecting social justice, access to quality care, and education, I was fascinated by the ability to create change within my community. In a whirlwind, I found myself discovering the new language of advocacy, being inspired by my mentors, and getting to know fellow students who are paving the way of transformation across the nation. I could picture individual patients who would be greatly affected by legislation coming out of Oregon. My passion to positively change the lives of many sprang into action.

And then…reality set in.

In the midst of my drive to engage with the APAGS Advocacy Coordinating Team, I still had papers to write, meetings to attend, and clients at my practicum to think about. I was overwhelmed with “finding the time” to participate in advocacy that meant so much to me, while still pass my classes. This reality hits close to home for so many graduate students and often can be the greatest deterrent when deciding whether or not to join a local, state, or national advocacy movement.

Dr. Carilyn Ellis is an early career psychologist working in primary care and a champion in the advocacy field in Oregon. She admitted that advocacy was a bit daunting when she started out as a graduate student George Fox University, but said that advocacy must begin in school. She said, “The bills, amendments, and other advocacy efforts that we are putting into action now, will be most relevant to current students, who will be practicing with these changes in effect.”

Three tiers of advocacy 

Writing a letter can help shape policy in your community. (Source: User dangerpup on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

Writing a letter can help shape policy in your community. (Source: User dangerpup on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

Dr. Ellis explained that there are multiple levels of engagement in advocacy that can vary in time spent focusing on advocacy—flexibility that a graduate student often needs.

  • The first tier of engagement involves person-centered action, such as becoming a member of a local or national advocacy group (e.g., your state psychological association, your division, and APAGS), writing letters to your local representative, signing petitions, attending state legislature meetings, and contacting representatives directly. Writing a letter (or filling in your contact info through an auto-generated email) often takes less than five minutes.
  • The second tier focuses on supporting the organizations that advocate for mental health change, whether by providing financial support, time through phone calls, or more extensive email writing. Even a donation as little as $10 can make a difference.
  • The third tier involves staying informed about the relevant issues and contributing to collective support. Simply understanding the basic factors impacting mental health within your community can lead to a greater awareness and understanding about complex systems. This can be achieved through signing up for listservs, checking in on legislative reports related to human services, and reading the websites of other legislative bodies focused on mental health.

These tiers of advocacy demonstrate that there is no perfect formula to being an advocate. Every student has a place at the table. Even when it seems like the accomplishments of graduation, and becoming a psychologist are so far away, the advocacy work that is taking place now will directly affect the way in which the field looks in the future.

As for me, I am still navigating both roles as graduate student and advocate. I find time (an average of 2 hours) throughout the week to write emails, engage with my local Oregon Psychological Association, and connect with other people who care about the same issues that I do. Honestly, some weeks are more productive than others, but I see this time as an opportunity to take some chances, rise to new challenges, learn about a new way of impacting my community, and develop my own professional voice. These are all goals that I also have as a graduate student, and I can see how my engagement with the advocacy community is pushing me to improve as an advocate, a student, and future psychologist.

How about you?

Which tier of advocacy do you see yourself working in? Feel free to leave a reply; it may inspire others to join you!

Editor’s note: Roseann Fish Getchell is a clinical psychology Psy.D. student at George Fox University and the Northwest Regional Advocacy Coordinator for the APAGS Advocacy Coordinating Team.