This is later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here weekday afternoons on the Drive Canthy Ireland. You know as a supermodel. I bet you didn't know her as a supermogul, but she is. She's teamed up with Laura Morton, who is an author with twenty one New York Times bestsellers to her credit, to produce a new documentary that's out now called Anxious Nation, and it's about the skyrocketing amount of students high school students who say they
are anxious, unhappy, depressed, and in some cases suicidal. Can't they? Let's start with you. What brought this topic to you? Oh? Lee? This is a topic that I believe impacts everyone in some way, shape or form. It's got a passion for young people. Served on boards of directors for education for over twenty five years, co founder of a startup pre K through twelve school. Every week I'm hearing from families or young people
about some sort of anxiety that they're suffering with, struggling with. And when I learned what Laura Morton and Vanessa Rot we're working on Anxious Nation, And when I experienced this film, I knew this was something that I wanted to be in the hands of families everywhere. I wanted everyone to experience this because what anxious nation does is it shines a very bright light on something that is
often suffered very privately, and people feel alone in this. They feel that they can't talk about it, and this just disrupts that notion and it lets people know, no, this anxiety does not discriminate every socioeconomic level. It impacts everyone, and it brings a lot of hope when you recognize others are going through this and it does not define you. Laura, Let's get to
the question at hand is why are so many of our students anxious? Well, I think that there's a variety of reasons, but let's take a look at what they're dealing with today. Right. Our film actually looks at kids in their toddler years, middle school, high school, and college years. And I think what makes us anxious when we're younger is definitely something that changes,
right, anxiety and the shape shifter. I know from my own daughter what made her anxious when she was in middle school, certainly not was making her anxious in high school. But I mean our kids, they're dealing with all sorts of think like our kids just with through a global pandemic. They were isolated from their friends, they have active shooter drills in schools, they
are bombarded with information twenty four to seven. They go on to their social media and they're comparing themselves to all of these incredibly beautiful, wonderful people who lives look so glamorous, when in fact we're all dealing with anxiety on some level. We only see the happy face on social media. I think there's just a plethora of reasons that kids are struggling today, and I don't know
that you can point to just one thing. I talked to my daughter about this all the time, and you know, I never is a parent. I never know what the trigger is going to be. What triggered her yesterday is definitely not what triggers her today. And I think that's really important for parents to understand is that Invite is a shape shifter. And Kathy, you
went to high school. I went to high school. When I went to high school, there was a certain amount of it that you could the real world, you could kind of put you could put a pin in it for a little while while you went into class and study the topics that you were being taught. But it seems that with social media and digital technology, the kids are bombarded with it no matter where they are. Oh my goodness, Lee, Absolutely, it is a different world and everything that we went through,
it's magnified. It's twenty four seven, and it can also be addicting. Social media it can be very addicting. It's not the only cause of anxiety, but it's certainly one. Kids have it coming at them from every area of life, and so for us as parents, as grandparents, as people who love young people, it impacts all of us, and we need to be alert to this. We need to recognize that we're not alone, and these young people suffering from this are not alone. And that's a powerful
first step. And I really believe that young people watching this will see themselves in this film, because Laura and Vanessa have brought such a wonderfully diverse group of people who are so courageous and they are so raw. They share their stories, their most vulnerable moments, and I believe people see themselves. To attend to screening and to hear the size of relief from the audience. The
audience is so with this group of people. I mean, they're just you feel it, and it's wonderful the comments, the letters that people are so grateful, you know, thank you so much. I thought that we were the only ones. We were suffering alan in this and now we're having conversations. This is powerful. Kathy Ireland is along with us, along with Laura Morton, and the documentary is Anxious Nation, out now in select theaters.
It's about how an alarming statistic almost forty five percent of students have said that they feel anxious, or sad, or uptights and even suicidal in some cases. One of the things I had Laura growing up was I fell in love with this business. At a very early age fourteen and fifteen, I had a job. It's harder these days for young people to get work. It's
harder for employers to employ the younger people. How much of that do you think would would help the ability for some of these kids to actually get out and get a job. That's a really interesting question. I think that any place that we can take that energy, right, that anxious energy, because that's what anxiety is, and we can repurpose it, I think is positive. So whether it's getting a job or writing music or doing dance or art.
In the film, we use artwork that we curated from kids from all over the world between the ages of eight and twenty six, and it really is a wonderful outlet. There's there's so many ways we see kids, you know, pouring their energy into sports, right into acting. So the idea is that we can harness anxious energy and we can use it for good. Anxious energy doesn't necessarily have to be the thing that holds us back in many many cases, and we see it a lot with athletes, professional athletes and
act and you know, that's the thing that thrusts them forward. So I think it's really gaining the tools and the knowledge to understand that anxiety doesn't define who we are. The sense of permanence that this is you know, this is going to be me forever is not realistic. I think that that is absolutely possible that you can learn to manage your anxiety so it doesn't manage you.
So I think getting a job is a great idea. I think that employers in particular need to understand that they are they have they have a crisis on their hands as people are coming back to work, and that crisis is how will anxiety impact their bottom line. You've got parents who have been home for the last couple of years who want to be home. You've got parents
that now have anxious children and they don't know what to do. So I think there's a lot that needs to happen in recognizing that anxiety impacts all of us, whether it's in our home, or in our workplace or at school. This is something that we we need to talk about, We need to offer resources. Kathy Ireland along with Laura Morton, they bring you Anxious Nation. The documentary is out now in select theaters and we thank you for joining
us. Lady, Thank you Lee, Thank you Lee. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and Ihearts Media presentation