Slavin didn’t see student wellbeing as part of his job until, in 2008, he started reading about stress, depression and burnout among medical students. He was shocked by the high rates that he read about, but didn’t think they could apply to his students. “It was unimaginable to me,” he says. He thought that as a teacher all he needed to do was be kind and compassionate; his students seemed happy, and their satisfaction with their education was high according to the standardized national questionnaire.

Even so, there’s some evidence that light therapy may have a similar effect on the brain to many antidepressants. In a study published in 2016, 11 patients with SAD treated with two weeks of light therapy saw plunging levels of serotonin transporter binding – a measure of how quickly serotonin’s activity is curtailed. Their levels became similar to those seen during summertime. There is other evidence, besides. At the back of our eyes, an unusual type of photoreceptor has been found that seems to help synchronize our circadian rhythms to the 24-hour cycle of light and dark.

What is missing from these virtual farewells that makes them seem so unfair and distressing? Those who study digital media and communications talk a lot about the reduced “social presence” that characterizes virtual connections. That certainly applies here. But what does the reduction consist of in this case? What would have made the difference? Two channels of social intercourse seem especially important: touch and the opportunity to read the eyes of the other.

The rapid change in the city’s makeup was soon recognized as disastrous. Relocating workers and their families to new towns was described in mid-1960s parliamentary discussions as “skimming the cream”. In an internal review in 1971, the Scottish Office noted that the manner of population reduction was “destined within a decade or so to produce a seriously unbalanced population with a very high proportion [in central Glasgow] of the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable….”

Aurora ended up getting diagnosed for ADHD and starting seeing a therapist. This changed her perspective dramatically. She started recognizing when her feelings or actions were symptoms of depression or ADHD, helping her to stop negative thought spirals and taking healthier actions to feel better. As a result, she became better at communicating with her boyfriend in ways that didn’t project. “[Getting diagnosed and being in therapy] made it a lot easier to recognize when I didn’t talk. It made it easier to be able to tell my boyfriend, ‘I love you but I’m not feeling that well today,’ in order to have the space to process and overcome those feelings by myself,” said Aurora.  

Discussions on the link between social media use and mental health are nothing new, but researchers at the University of Pennsylvania for the first time conducted a study based on experimental data that connects the causal relationship between social media use and mental well-being. What they found was that simply limiting social media use could be beneficial when it comes to better mental health, specifically when it comes to depression and loneliness. 

Robin Williams once joked that death is “nature’s way to let you know that your table is ready.” It’s not funny now that the comedian overrode nature by grabbing the table without waiting for the maître d’. But if his suicide has any silver lining, it’s that depression and mental illness are now being talked about more openly. In far-flung India, China and Vietnam, where mental illness, especially depression, is a taboo subject, it is now on the front pages of newspapers and TV programs reporting on Williams’ suicide. 

A younger son of Ramirez was diagnosed with ADHD, and she worried about the impact of the frequent yelling in the home, which she attributed to the stress of living in a cramped environment. “When a kid who has ADHD starts listening to someone who’s yelling, they start feeling anxious [and] he just doesn’t want to be home.” Ramirez said her two teenage children, a girl and a boy, also suffered from having to share a room. 

Whether your understanding of mental illness is limited to what you’ve seen on the silver screen, or as intimate as a firsthand struggle, the topic has occupied a continual space in our national discussion, eliciting controversy and fascination. Today, there are nearly 60 million Americans who suffer from a mental illness, and it continues to present a quality of life, household and community issue. 

The National Institute of Mental Health says that up to one-quarter of Americans have been diagnosed with a mental disorder.  And the CDC reports that while one in 10 Americans over age 12 use prescribed antidepressants, most don't see a therapist.  This is despite evidence that talk therapy can help.   A new study from the United Kingdom published in The Lancet shows that while up to two-thirds of people don’t respond fully to antidepressants, they are three times more likely to experience a reduction in their depression symptoms if talk therapy was added to their treatment regimen.