The Pandemic’s Impact on Mental Health

By Arielle Karni ‘26
Recently, mental health has become an increasingly prominent topic of conversation, and buzzwords relating to it are everywhere: stress, anxiety, work-life balance, pressure to succeed. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels as though this burden will never change since society places such high value on achieving and being the best at whatever field one enters.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, our schedules shifted dramatically. We experienced more family dinners, increased downtime and minimal movement from one location to the next. While the increase in these activities was enjoyable, we remained eager to return to that pre-pandemic normalcy.
However, the definition of normalcy has shifted dramatically from what it once was, as the quarantine period significantly impacted us all in varying ways. Perhaps the most dramatic is the pandemic's impact on the mental health of teenagers. The pandemic exacerbated mental illness among teens due to increased screen time, lack of regular social interaction, missed milestones and the loss of loved ones.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 37% of American school students suffered from poor mental health during the pandemic, approximately 44% of students felt “persistently sad or hopeless,” 20% of students seriously considered suicide and 9% of students attempted suicide.
Mental Health America (MHA), the nation’s leading community-based nonprofit dedicated to mental illness and promoting mental health, reported that the rate of depression in teens doubled between 2009 and 2019. Even more staggering, when comparing March-October 2020 to March-October 2019, the number of teenage mental health emergency room visits increased by over 30%. Furthermore, MHA reports that over half of 11-17 year-olds had thoughts of suicide or self-harm nearly every day in 2020. These statistics are even higher when examining minority communities, LGBTQ+ and questioning students.
This topic is pressing, and it is a common topic of conversation in many school settings. In Golda Och Academy, mental health is discussed among administrators and is addressed explicitly by the Health and Wellness Committee and Student Services Department.
While students rely on their parents, teachers and school to help teach them the tools to cope with these struggles, we, as students, must also put in the effort to prioritize our mental health and strive to keep stress levels in check. This means receiving enough sleep, maintaining a balanced diet, reducing our screen time (significantly during evening hours), limiting social media usage and finding a trusted person to speak with, such as a guidance counselor, a teacher, coach or a licensed therapist.
Guidance counselor Ms. Schenker said, “focusing on the ‘whole child,’ recognizing that content is only one part of a student's education to ensure that students will leave school with the necessary coping skills to take on greater challenges is what is really important. Golda Och Academy does a fantastic job of preparing its graduates emotionally, socially, and academically for their future.”