Why Are We So Anxious Right Now?
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Why Are We So Anxious Right Now?
David Roden will be the first to tell you this episode was a hard one for him to sit with. Anxiety and depression aren't his default setting — he doesn't have a natural proclivity toward either, as he puts it — and that makes the topic both more challenging and more interesting to unpack honestly.
In this conversation, David and Dr. Lara Baatenburg work through the question together: why are anxiety and depression rates climbing, what's actually driving it, and what — if anything — can we do about it? Neither of them claims to have all the answers. That's kind of the point.
The numbers, and what they actually mean
Start with the data, because it's more specific than most people realize. About 15.5% of U.S. adults meet clinical criteria for major depressive disorder. Anxiety disorders sit around 10%. Those aren't just people having a rough week — that's a DSM diagnosis, the clinical definition.
And both numbers have been climbing steadily for over a decade. The sharpest increases are showing up in the 18-to-25 age range and among adolescents. Women are disproportionately affected.
Dr. Lara makes the point that plenty of people are also walking around with undiagnosed anxiety — patients she's seen over the years who clearly carry it, but don't identify with it. "Oh no, I don't struggle with that," they'd say, and yet the pattern was right there. That gap between what people experience and what they're willing to name matters, and it's part of why the real numbers are probably higher than what gets captured in the data.
What changed — and why the usual answers don't quite fit
The rate of increase is too steep to be explained by genetics alone. Something environmental is driving it, and David and Dr. Lara try to work through what that something actually is.
Social media gets named first, and for good reason — they did a whole episode on it, and the connection between heavy platform use and declining mental health is well-documented. But the comparison trap is only part of it. It's also the constant access to everything that's wrong in the world. Wars, economics, political uncertainty — the human nervous system wasn't designed to carry all of it simultaneously.
Then there's the convenience angle, which is where this conversation gets interesting. David makes the case that a life with almost no friction — same-day delivery, instant everything, participation medals regardless of outcome — may actually be making people less equipped to handle the normal weight of being alive. He's not saying struggle is good for its own sake. He's asking whether removing all of it has quietly cost us something.
Dr. Lara pushes back gently, and rightly so. Inconvenience doesn't automatically produce anxiety. But there's something to the broader point: the nature of modern stressors is abstract in a way historical stressors weren't. Not having enough food is a different kind of stress than being cyberbullied. The human psyche is being asked to process things it doesn't have an evolutionary template for.
What David learned at 400 pounds
He brings this up himself. At 16 to 18 years old, David was carrying over 400 pounds, his sleep was wrecked, his grades were struggling, and the uncertainty of what his future looked like was enormous. His dad pulled out a paper bag in the garage during a panic attack. That was real.
What shifted wasn't a single intervention. It was, over time, the combination of treating his body better, building a routine, prioritizing sleep, and moving consistently. He's careful not to oversell this — Dr. Lara immediately points out that plenty of people optimize every lifestyle factor and still struggle with anxiety and depression. The biology is real and doesn't always respond to the right inputs.
But his experience is worth taking seriously as data. The physical foundation matters. And for most Americans, it's in worse shape than it should be.
Walking — the most unsexy and most reliable intervention
Dr. Lara looked it up mid-conversation, which is very on-brand for her. The research is fairly clear: even moderate walking reduces anxiety symptoms. In psychiatric patients, 30 to 45 minutes of walking showed immediate anxiety reduction in 81% of participants. That's not a small number.
It's not a cure. It's not a substitute for clinical care when clinical care is needed. But the average American is not moving nearly enough, and that gap is almost certainly contributing to where we are.
Faith, purpose, and the question that doesn't have a secular answer
This is where the conversation gets the most personal — and the most honest about what Vitals & Values actually is.
David brings up a sermon from Pastor Tom. The exercise goes like this: whatever you're working toward, you keep asking "and then what?" You went to college — and then what? You became a doctor — and then what? You have the house, the family, the career — and then what? Eventually, if the chain doesn't extend beyond this life, you end up at "and then I die, I guess." And then what?
Proverbs 29:18: Where there is no vision, the people perish. David quotes it. Dr. Lara confirms the chapter and verse. The point isn't subtle. A life without a sense of ultimate meaning or purpose is — they both believe this — a contributing factor to the anxiety and depression data.
Dr. Lara frames it clinically: research consistently shows that faith community, church attendance, and a sense of spiritual purpose correlate with better mental health outcomes. Correlation isn't causation, and they're both careful to say so. But the relationship is real enough to be worth naming.
Gary, West Virginia
David spent six or seven years doing mission work there. Eighty percent unemployment. People living in 600-square-foot homes with black mold and leaking roofs. By every material measure, not much.
And they were happy — blissfully, genuinely happy. Grateful for new drywall that David knew would need replacing in two years once the roof leak returned. He was frustrated. They were thankful. He's still thinking about what that means.
The contrast shows up again in something he'd heard from Tony Robbins — that anxiety and depression, outside of clinical causes, often point inward. You're anxious about your life because you're focused on your life. When your attention shifts to other people, to contribution, to service, something changes. David's careful not to weaponize this into "just stop thinking about yourself" — Dr. Lara is quick to say that telling an anxious person they're just being selfish is not a therapeutic approach. But as a framework for his own experience, he finds it true.
Social connection as medicine
Dr. Lara brings it home. Social connectedness — real community, real relationships — shows up consistently in the mental health data as a protective factor. And Americans have less of it than they used to. The isolation that comes with a more convenient, more digital, more self-sufficient life has a cost that doesn't show up on anyone's balance sheet until it shows up in the depression and anxiety numbers.
This is a conversation worth continuing. With a therapist, a psychiatrist, a pastor, a physician who actually has time to talk. If you're out there with a mental health background and want to take this further, Dr. Lara and David would genuinely like to hear from you.
Vitals & Values is the podcast of Concierge Medicine of West Michigan, hosted by Dr. David Roden and Dr. Lara Baatenburg. New episodes available wherever you listen.
