Anxious, Depressed About An Uncertain World? Training Can Help You Cope, Study Says

Key TakeawaysA half-hour course can help young people better manage stress caused by uncertaintyAbout a month after taking the course, young adults still felt less anxious and depressed because they could better deal with uncertaintyHowever, the mental health benefits began to fade after three months.THURSDAY, Dec. 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Young adults are inheriting a world filled with turmoil and unrest, and this instability is leaving its mark on their mental and emotional health.A single half-hour course, however, could help them feel less anxious and depressed, by helping them increase their tolerance of uncertainty, a new study says.Young adults who took the course titled "Uncertainty-Mindset Training" continued to feel better a month after taking it, researchers reported Dec. 15 in the journal Psychological Medicine.“Young people today are coming of age amid great climate, economic, social and health uncertainty,” senior researcher Susanne Schweizer, an associate professor with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said in a news release.“High uncertainty has been proposed as a driver of the rising rates of youth mental health problems, including depression and anxiety,” she continued. “In this study we showed that an ultra-brief course — one that took less than half an hour to complete — successfully improved emerging adults’ tolerance of uncertainty, which significantly benefited their mental health one month later.”Schweizer noted that the effects of uncertainty on mental health aren’t limited to young people, but there is a clear difference in the way they cope with it.“While it applies at all ages, adolescents and emerging adults report greater intolerance of uncertainty,” she said. “It’s something we saw increase in young people during the pandemic, and it continues to shape how they respond to stress in their everyday lives.”For the new study, researchers recruited 259 18- to 24-year-olds, and randomly assigned them to one of three groups.One group received Uncertainty-Mindset Training, which taught them coping mechanisms for dealing with uncertainty. Specifically, participants were taught the STAR strategy — STop, Accept and Re-think — as a means of disrupting the worry and rumination that can contribute to anxiety and depression.The second group received psychoeducation training, which focused on more general topics like emotion regulation, cognitive biases, social connection and healthy habits. This training did not directly address uncertainty.A third group received no training at all, researchers said.Even though it lasted less than a half-hour, Uncertainty-Mindset Training produced the clearest improvements among participants, the study found.Up to one month later, young adults showed substantial improvement in their ability to tolerate uncertainty, as well as decreases in anxiety and depression.“The fact that a single session could produce measurable improvements suggests this kind of approach may have real value,” Schweizer said. “Helping young people rethink their relationship with uncertainty in a simple, accessible way means young adults from all backgrounds – especially those who may not have access to traditional services – can thrive in uncertain times.”Three months later, these participants’ tolerance of uncertainty was still much improved, but the reductions in depression and anxiety had started to wane, researchers noted.The psychoeducation module produced more modest effects, and the no-training group experienced no meaningful change.Researchers next plan to refine Uncertainty-Mindset Training with the aim of extending its mental health benefits.“I think some aspects are likely to stick, but I suspect boosters would be an effective way to bolster additional resilience,” said lead researcher Sarah Daniels, a graduate student at the University of Cambridge in the U.K.“The great strength of this approach is that it’s brief and accessible,” she said in a news release. “If further testing shows we can extend its benefits, there’s real potential for it to be offered more widely to young people worldwide to support their mental health as they navigate current and future uncertainties.”Future research also will consider whether the training can be tailored to specific groups that experience much uncertainty, such as families during and after a birth or people awaiting medical test results, the team said.More informationHarvard University has more on coping with uncertainty.SOURCE: University of New South Wales, news release, Dec. 15, 2025 .What This Means For YouPeople stressed out by turmoil and social upheaval might be helped by training that improves their ability to cope with uncertainty. .Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

Anxious, Depressed About An Uncertain World? Training Can Help You Cope, Study Says

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