Anxiety

In the twenty-first century, anxiety has become one of the leading mental health diagnoses for adolescents and adults alike, matched by a rise in prescriptions of antianxiety drugs like Ativan and Xanax (Schnittker 2021, 1–2; Tone 2009, 228–32). Burnout among health-care professionals was already a topic of concern at medical schools and has only increased greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing this phenomenon has itself become a publishing boon, with books like Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle (2020) or Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done (2021) promising to help readers relieve anxiety—or, at least, make it work for rather than against capitalist aims. Books on anxiety and burnout as qualities of the twenty-first century or of the millennial generation have also proliferated, including Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (2013) and Anne Helen Peterson’s Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation (2021).

This essay may be found on page 15 of the printed volume.

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