What's New

• Suicide is skyrocketing in young people, and their screens and smartphones have nothing to do with it

  Date: October 22, 2019

  Author: Hilary Brueck

  • Suicide has risen dramatically among young Americans from ages 10 to 24. It is now the second leading cause of death after accidents. 
  • Child psychologist Peter Gray says the trend may be linked not to social media or screen time, but to more stressed out kids, who are driven to excel all the time.
  • Gray says unstructured play time is what helps children develop much-needed resilience and courage, and it's desperately missing in today's jam-packed student schedules

• 20 Minute Contact with Nature Reduces Stress Hormone Cortisol

  Date: October 20, 2019

  Author: Matt Prior: Frontier

  Taking at least twenty minutes out of your day to stroll or sit in a place that makes you feel in contact with nature will significantly lower your stress hormone levels. That’s the finding of a study that has established for the first time the most effective dose of an urban nature experience. Healthcare practitioners can use this discovery, published in Frontiers in Psychology, to prescribe ‘nature-pills’ in the knowledge that they have a real measurable effect.

• Self-reported suicide attempts rising in black teens as other groups decline

  Date: October 18, 2019

  Author: Robert Polner – NYU

  Self-reported suicide attempts rose significantly in African American teens, while they fell in teens of other ethnic backgrounds throughout an almost 20-year study. Researchers report suicide attempts increased at an accelerating rate in African American female teenagers, even as overall female suicide attempts declined.

• Kids Under Pressure Innovative Therapy Using Music

  Date: September 12, 2019

  Author: Today with Hoda and Jenna

  Dr. Brette Genzel-Derman, with support from rocker Dave Grohl, developed a program to help kids cope with depression and anxiety through music. The fourth hour of TODAY spotlights one particular patient’s story, then welcomes the doctor to chat about more.

• Strong Student-Adult Relationships Can Lower Suicide Attempts in High School

  Date: September 11, 2019

  Author: Traci Pedersen

  “One of the most important predictors of lower suicide attempt rates in this study was positive youth-adult connections widely spread across the school,” said Wyman, “we have to be thinking about the broader population to make sure more students are connected to adults prepared to support them.”