Many young adults are struggling with anxiety and depression these days. Often dismissed and minimized, both diagnoses are serious and stand to benefit significantly from intervention. Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure. Depression is often misconstrued as sadness but involves much more. Everyone experiences bouts of sadness from time to time, but rarely does that escalate into an extreme version or despair for days at a time. It can affect different aspects of day-to-day life such as weight, sleep patterns, ability to concentrate, self-worth, and more. Many physical and mental symptoms manifested by anxiety and depression create a feedback loop, more commonly referred to as spiraling, that deepens the negative state of emotions for a period of time. Anxiety can also at times result in panic attacks. Fortunately, both anxiety and depression are treatable/manageable with therapeutic intervention and occasionally medication.

As a parent, when you see your young adult struggling with anxiety or depression, you want to do everything you can to help them. Getting assessed by a primary care doctor or mental health professional is a great first step. Undiagnosed and self-medicated problems often see more escalating challenges down the road. The sooner you get your child into a therapeutic regimen or program designed for working with these issues, the more time they have to develop healthy coping strategies to help them thrive. One of the treatment modalities that helps anxiety and depression is the combination of adventure and wilderness therapies. In a wilderness setting, young adults are able to reset in an environment where everything is new not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well.