Is the link between stress and mental health now more pertinent than ever?

The prevalence of poor mental health, including disorders such as depression and anxiety, has been steadily rising over the past two decades among all age groups, but most strikingly so among children (World Health Organization, 2017). Many factors contribute to the onset and maintenance of poor mental health, including genetics, physiology, neurological functioning, and environmental factors. In short, it is a very complicated picture. One key environmental factor which is consistently associated with poor mental health is perceived psychological stress (Burke et al., 2005; Thoits, 2010). That is, high levels of perceived stress are often associated with high levels of depression and anxiety. Although exactly how feelings of stress lead to the onset of poor mental health is, again, complicated, and includes biological, psychological, and social mechanisms and pathways. Investigation of the link between stress and mental health is a worthy pursuit, because targeting how an individual manages and copes with stress has clear implications for reducing the prevalence of mental health disorders, and their associated personal, social, and economic impacts. Following the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a surge in self-reported low mood, reduced well-being, and poor mental health (Salari et al., 2020); and once again this change is particularly striking among younger people (Salari et al., 2020). Thus, understanding the link between stress and mental health is perhaps more pertinent than ever