Study: The pandemic has aged the brains of teenagers

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The stress of living through the pandemic physically changed adolescents' brains and prematurely aged them by at least three or four years. That’s the finding of a new study out of Stanford University. If kids who experienced the pandemic show accelerated development in their brains, scientists say they will have to account for that abnormal rate of growth in any future research involving this generation. 

Study co-author Jonas Miller said, “Adolescence is already a period of rapid reorganization in the brain, and it’s already linked to increased rates of mental health problems, depression, and risk-taking behavior. Now you have this global event that’s happening, where everyone is experiencing some kind of adversity in the form of disruption to their daily routines – so it might be the case that the brains of kids who are 16 or 17 today are not comparable to those of their counterparts just a few years ago.”

Details are in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science

A new 988 number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

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A new 988 number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline goes into service on July 16. It will accept texts and live chat is available. Unfortunately, according to the Wall Street Journal, it relies on call centers that are already overstretched. Annual call volumes to the current 10-digit line increased by 92% from 2016 to 2021. Of more than nine million calls to the hotline from 2016 to 2021, 1.5 million were abandoned before they were answered. Read more about the new service in the Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed News and the Associated Press.

The Seesaw

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I am sitting on a seesaw with my past. As long as I can put Hitler, or Mengele, or the gaping mouth of my loss on the opposite seat, then I am somehow justified, I always have an excuse. That’s why I’m anxious. That’s why I’m sad. It’s not that I’m wrong to feel anxious and sad and afraid. It’s not that there isn’t real trauma at the core of my life. And it’s not that Hitler and Mengele and every other perpetrator of violence or cruelty shouldn’t be held accountable for the harm the cause. But if I stay on the seesaw, I am holding the past responsible for what I choose to do now. 

Auschwitz survivor Edith Eva Eger in her book The Choice