A Columbia psychology professor says Gen Z should accept that stress and anxiety at work are normal life experiences: 'We should all feel stressed sometimes'

• Gen Z workers are losing sight that feeling stressed or sad are "normal life experiences."
• Kathleen Pike, a professor at Columbia, said these feelings aren't necessarily signs of mental illness.

Gen Z appear to be struggling more with stress and anxiety at work than previous generations, but a prominent psychologist says they’re forgetting that some of these emotions are part of "normal life experiences."

Kathleen Pike, a Columbia University psychology professor and president and CEO of One Mind at Work, told Business Insider that as discussions of mental health at work grow, young people are struggling to distinguish between normal emotions and mental illness.

Gen Z being open about mental health issues is a "watershed moment" in the workplace and sparking meaningful change in the long term, according to Pike.

"At the same time, in the effort to talk about mental health and share around mental illness, there can also become an expanded discourse of experience that at times loses track of normal fluctuation of human experience and mental illness," she said.

Feeling stressed out when you have a deadline or feeling sad, disappointed or anxious are "normal life experiences."

"We should all feel stressed sometimes," she said, explaining that it helps people to cognitively focus and complete tasks. Meanwhile, anxiety is a "useful cue" that can help you identify something wrong in your surroundings. But these feelings are not always indicators of serious mental illness.

"Some of that distinction can get lost," Pike says. "And so I think social change usually happens in a way where we overcorrect or the pendulum swings way out, and then it comes back and settles in a place that is in a more integrated space. And I think that's what we're witnessing."

A 2023 Deloitte survey of 14,483 Gen Zers from 44 countries found that 46% felt anxious and stressed out at work all or most of the time. Over a third said they were exhausted, lacked energy, and felt mentally distant from their job due to negativity or cynicism.

As a result, some Gen Zers are seeking out alternatives to the 9-to-5 like "lazy girl jobs" — roles that are low-stress but offer good pay.

Suzy Welch, an NYU business professor, previously said the trend is fuelled by Gen Z's "strong desire to avoid anxiety at any cost" because they haven’t made hard decisions or done hard things.

Pike believes the discussions around mental health and mental illness must continue and that Gen Z will eventually learn to cope with difficult feelings.

"There may be times where a Gen Z young professional may have a threshold around stress or anxiety or mood that actually over time an expanded comfort with a wider range of emotional experience will actually be a maturing experience for them," she said.

"Success grows out of learning how to get back on the horse, learning how to build the skills, how to ask for help, and how to build capacity in ways that didn't exist. That's part of maturing in the workplace."