00:00What are anxiety products and do they work? Adult coloring books, weighted
00:04blankets, fidget spinners, sleep masks, tinctures, serums. These are literally all
00:09of my favorite things. But they're also just a few of the products capitalizing
00:13on our rising anxiety. Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in
00:18the US and America is the most anxious country in the world. So it's not
00:23surprising that there are a slew of new products out there trying to chill us
00:27out. But do these products have the power to tackle the things that Americans are
00:32most anxious about? Like stable jobs, healthcare, student loans, relationships,
00:37the news? Or do they just make us more anxious? I asked Vox reporter Rebecca
00:43Jennings. So anxiety consumerism comes from the idea that we can buy our way out of
00:48our anxiety and it came from these companies that have found their niche by
00:53creating these products that help the symptoms of anxiety. Rebecca explained
00:58that many of the anxiety products that we know and love today actually started out
01:02as clinical tools for mental health patients before they were made sleeker
01:06and sexier for mainstream consumption. So the fidget spinner actually comes from
01:10this device that this engineer in Florida created in the mid 90s. She wanted a way
01:15to like play with her daughter and she created this like spinning toy and they
01:20were sort of marketed as these like ways to help kids with ADHD, with autism, with
01:25sensory processing disorders. So a version of that eventually became a fidget
01:29spinner weighted blankets. They were things that therapists gave their patients who
01:32were struggling with anxiety, autism, sensory processing. At the end of the day
01:36they're still just stuff and this stuff is not going to cure your anxiety. Maybe
01:40nothing will. That's the fun part about anxiety. But I do think that they can be
01:44really useful tools. Everyone's experienced the urge to fidget. Everyone's had
01:48trouble sleeping. These are all very universal things so it's very easy for
01:51companies to be like you need this. It will solve this. So do products like the
01:55fidget spinner actually solve anxiety? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say no
02:00since studies show that the average teenager today has the same level of
02:03anxiety as the average psychiatric patient did in the early 1950s. None of
02:09these products will actually solve the underlying cause of your anxiety. They
02:12might quell the symptoms which is totally fine. That's great. These products in and of
02:17themselves are not bad. It's just that nothing will solve a person's underlying
02:22anxiety and in a lot of people's cases the best treatment is is going to therapy
02:27regularly, is taking medication, is exercising, is making these sweeping
02:32lifestyle changes that are really hard to do and that no product alone is gonna do
02:36for you. We all know that therapy, exercise, healthy eating, maybe a little
02:40medication, and a lifestyle change are the answers. But they're also much bigger asks,
02:46especially when we lack comprehensive health care. So as a result it's a lot
02:51easier to buy a really expensive beautifully packaged non-medical
02:55alternative on goop. I love my Yanni egg. I'm wearing it right now. And as a result
03:00the cycle continues. The genius and the sadness of anxiety products is that we
03:05kind of demanded their existence. This is also like a very American thing. We just
03:11like want to buy our way out of all problems. And so so this is not going to
03:15go away until we have, you know, universal health care, universal access to
03:18therapy. I don't think there's going to be any shortage of anxiety products that
03:23are fads for six months and then end up in garbage dumps. We all know that anxiety
03:27products don't exactly solve anxiety, but is there an upside to all this stuff? So one
03:33of the ones that I found was that these products actually help us feel seen and
03:37heard and understood and just their existence alone helps us talk about
03:42anxiety and that helps us bring mental health out of the shadows. So maybe
03:46they'll even help us lay the groundwork to do the harder stuff to solve our
03:51anxiety. The intersection of capitalism and mental health is a busy one. So what
03:56products have worked for you? Do you love your fidget spinner? Can you not sleep
03:59without a weighted blanket? Let me know in the comment section below and also make
04:03sure you hit that follow button. I'll see you back here next week.
