The mental health of adolescents and young adults has been in crisis in recent years. Among U.S. high school students in 2023, 40 percent reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year, and 20 percent seriously contemplated suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts point to a number of reasons, including social media use, worries over climate change, and political polarization.
Participation in the arts, along with opportunities for social connection, are the top things young people say they need to support their mental health, even above traditional services such as therapy, according to a survey of 87,000 text exchanges young people had with the group Crisis Text Line. Organizations like Art Pharmacy, which currently operates in five states, are seeking to fill this need.
“The arts are a readily available resource in most every community across the country,” says the group’s CEO, Chris Appleton. In fact, he adds, arts opportunities are plentiful, while wait lists for mental health treatment are growing.
Similar programs are underway elsewhere, for people of all ages. Kristi Maisha, an engineering student at Stanford University in California, attended an improvisational dance class, hoping to relieve the stress of her intense academic schedule.
She was apprehensive at first. But twisting her torso and limbs into new shapes, she experienced something new. She was living in the moment, she says, freed from the “planned out, predetermined thoughts” that often confined her.
“Now that I know that it’s actually quite a good time, I’m more likely to do it, regardless of them prescribing it or not,” Maisha says.