The New York Times regularly reports on topics related to mental health and wellbeing. You can easily access stories like the ones below from the Times free with a library card. Below you'll find some articles recommended by members of the Synapse Team.
You can access The New York Times FOR FREE either inside or outside the library. Get complimentary online access to the New York Times Digital Edition, which provides current and historical articles dating back to 1851!
Be sure to check back on this blog post as we'll be adding new articles as we find them.
Small Steps to Improve Your Mental Health
by Hannah Seo
Excerpt
This year may not have been the sea of calm you had hoped for after the tumult of 2020 and 2021. The pandemic continued; war broke out in Europe; we experienced natural disasters and troubling shortages; and more viruses stoked fears. But 2022 was also a year of learning and discovery.
I Answer the Phone at a Mental Health Hotline: Here's What I've Learned
by Benedict Carey
Excerpt
“Oh my, you picked up the phone.”
The caller sounded genuinely surprised and held her breath for a moment before telling her story. For more than a year, she and her husband had been largely trapped in their home by their 25-year-old son, who suffered from psychotic episodes. He refused any treatment, he had been making threats, and most nights he holed up in his room doing drugs while his parents tried to sleep behind their double-locked bedroom door.
“Is there someone who can come out to help us?” she said. “I mean, what do we do?”
I didn’t have a quick answer. It was my first call at a brand-new volunteer job.
How Parents Can Help Struggling Teens
by Melinda Wenner Moyer
Excerpt
For over 25 years, the psychologist Lisa Damour has been helping teens and their families navigate adolescence in her clinical practice, in her research and in best-selling books like Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood.
This moment in time, she says, is like no other.
The Phone in the Room
by David Leonhardt
Excerpt
Digital technology has caused the biggest changes to teenage life in many decades. Typical American teenagers spend about half of their waking hours on their smartphones. They are on the phones when they are alone at home and when they are hanging out with friends.
When I compare my own teenage years in the 1980s with those of my parents in the 1950s and ’60s, I realize how much more rapidly habits have changed in the past 15 years than in the previous 50 years. My teenage experiences and those of my parents weren’t all that different. We talked on the telephone, drove cars, watched movies, went to parties and so on. My children’s social rhythms look much different.
How to Help Teens Struggling with Mental Health
by Matt Richtel
Excerpt
Health risks in adolescence are undergoing a major shift. Three decades ago, the biggest health threats to teenagers were binge drinking, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy, cigarettes and illicit drugs. Today, they are anxiety, depression, suicide, self-harm and other serious mental health disorders.
From 2001 to 2019, the suicide rate for American youngsters from ages 10 to 19 jumped 40 percent, and emergency room visits for self-harm rose 88 percent.
