many young adults have lost quite a bit especially when it comes to educational and professional opportunities both loneliness and self isolation give rise to major health impacts and the communication around the need for distancing in the pandemic has been very unfortunate saxena said the mental health impact of the pandemic is much larger on younger adults said dr shekhar saxena of the harvard school of public health and a professor for the practice of global mental health courts they should be aware that people are going through stress and are potentially going into mental disorders he said in a recent survey conducted by the centers for disease control and prevention 63 of 18 to24yearolds reported symptoms of anxiety or depression with 25 reporting increased substance use to deal with that stress and 25 saying theyd seriously considered suicide jordan corcoran an advocate and founder of listen lucy a mental health organization was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder at 19 and now 33 she described the pandemic as very challenging according to the national alliance on mental illness 50 of all lifetime mental illnesses develop by age 14 and 75 develop by age 24 isolation is a major part of dealing with mental illness the world keeps putting all these obstacles in front of me i feel like im working every minute of the day to keep my anxiety at bay corcoran said the healthy minds network conducted a survey and found that 80 of college students reported that covid19 had negatively impacted their mental health one can be lonely in spite of being with others a woman dealing with depression sits in her bedroom in warsaw poland jan 27 2019 all of that should be covered as a part of the benefit package as much as any physical problem that is a best practice that is more needed now than ever students of color and lowincome students are significantly less likely to seek care when theyre experiencing mental health problems due to cost and availability lipson said he said social distancing really should have been called physical distancing separate from social connectedness stock photogetty images about onethird might actually be having a problem that is severe enough for their life to be impacted in terms of their work performance and education saxena said loneliness and social isolation mental health america found that between april and september of last year 70 of people reported that loneliness or isolation was the top contributing factor to mental health issues a woman displays symptoms of depression in an undated stock photo what can be done saxena said workplace stress employees being overworked which may or may not be tied to company layoffs or restructuring is a big contributor and employers can step in to help there is the uncertainty of where and what tomorrow will bring which is faced much more by younger adults than by middleaged or older adults because