If the past few years taught us anything about Gen Z, it's that mental health for them is everything. Despite the fact that we've learned that they're struggling the most with their mental health among any other generation, it remains one of the most important aspects of their daily life.
According to a new Verywell Mind survey, 63% of Gen Z say their mental health in the last month was less than good, compared to 52% of millennials, 49% of Gen X, and 28% of Boomers - stemming largely from sleep problems, loneliness, financial concerns, job stress, social media, and more.
And yes, we get that the term 'mental health' is broad; so we asked more than a handful of individuals what it really means to them. "[It's] being able to cope with the stressors of everyday life in healthy ways, acknowledging that I may not always feel good but learning ways to manage what comes up in my life."
As the first true "therapy generation," Gen Z has a heightened understanding of how it affects every inch of their well-being. Younger generations have gotten more mental health information from more sources in the past month and Gen Z is the only generation where the majority have worked with a mental health professional before.
To get a sense of how big of a role mental health plays in our day-to-day, we surveyed 2,000 respondents (995 of which were Gen Z) for our Gen Z Mental Health study from September to October of 2024. In it, we did a deep dive into how Gen Z consumes information related to mental health, the words they prefer when discussing mental health, how they care for their mental health (compared to other generations), and what topics resonate with this audience.