As I left the exam room in my family practice clinic, I realized the patient I had just seen was the third young woman that afternoon expressing moderate to severe depression symptoms. Each voiced the same aching questions: “Do I have a purpose in life?” and even “Is this life worth living?”
National estimates of major depressive episodes in adolescents have skyrocketed over the last decade, jumping from 8 percent in 2009 to 16 percent in 2019 and reaching as high as 23 percent in female cohorts. A report from 2021 showed that approximately one in four adolescent females had seriously considered suicide at some point during their youth. Alarmingly, many of these symptoms persist into young adulthood. Generation Alpha (those born between 2010 and 2024) is now considered the most depressed generation on record.
So we must ask, Why are so many adolescents and young adults today struggling with depression? And, more importantly, what can we do to help?
Numerous factors contribute to rising adolescent depression rates—social media, increased exposure to bullying, childhood adversity, the COVID-19 pandemic, and so on. Yet one significant factor has received surprisingly little attention in academic and clinical circles: cultural decline in religious faith.
Faith and Mental Health
In her book The Awakened Brain, psychologist Lisa Miller writes, “Contemporary psychotherapy tended to characterize spirituality and religion as a crutch or defense, a set of comforting beliefs to lean on in hard times.” But what if we’ve misunderstood the role of faith in managing depression?
Miller wonders whether the cultural decline in spirituality over the last several generations may be more than a passive trend—it could be a root contributor to the mental health crisis. In that case, a resurgence of spirituality and faith could help protect adolescents and young adults against depression.
Emerging research supports this idea. While only half of adolescents treated with conventional methods (such as therapy and medication) experience a remission of their depressive symptoms within a year, spirituality may offer additional protection—especially against recurrent symptoms.
A resurgence of spirituality and faith could help protect adolescents and young adults against depression.
In her research, Miller defines spirituality broadly as a sense of connection, awe, or transcendence, or feeling “held by something greater.” She clarifies that while religion may support spiritual life, it isn’t the same as spirituality itself. Miller and her team found that this sort of broadly defined spirituality not only reduces the risk of recurrent depression but also physically restructures the brain in protective ways.
Neuroimaging studies revealed that individuals at high risk for depression often have a thinner cortex in the brain regions that process emotional stimuli. In contrast, individuals who rate spirituality or religion as “highly important” showed healthier neural structures, including cortical thickening—an indicator of resilience.
This cortical thickening, according to research, was indeed protective against more subtle levels of depressive symptoms. Moreover, Miller’s data showed that those who maintained a strong spiritual life—particularly individuals with high familial genetic risk for depression—were up to 75 percent protected against recurrent major depressive disorder over the subsequent 10 years.
While this research is correlative and cannot prove causation, it offers compelling evidence that spirituality plays a significant role in mental health resilience. Reviewing this data, Miller infers that while faith doesn’t necessarily prevent suffering, suffering often activates spiritual awareness, which in turn strengthens psychological resilience. In other words, adversity may deepen spirituality—and spirituality may protect against future despair.
Is Spirituality Enough?
While Miller’s research explores the connection between depression and vaguely generalized spirituality rather than a particular faith or religion, her findings closely align with what Scripture has long held to be true.
Romans 5:3–5 and James 1:2–4 both affirm that trials produce perseverance, which leads to hope amid a broken world. Old Testament Scriptures also remind us again and again that God is close to the brokenhearted and depressed (Pss. 34:18; 147:3; Isa. 40:31).
But Miller’s research seems to imply these blessings aren’t for Christian believers alone. Data shows the benefit in mental health resilience for anyone who practices even vague spirituality, not just Christianity. In God’s common grace, he created the human brain to seek something greater, something transcendent, amid suffering. Moreover, by his design, our brains are reshaped and protected when we begin to seek him—even if at first this is only in the form of vague spirituality.
From a clinical and societal perspective, encouraging spiritual practices might indeed help reduce depression recurrence rates in teens. Yet as believers, we know that teens need more than just cortical thickening and momentary resilience. Spirituality alone—divorced from a saving faith in Christ—offers only temporary relief. As Matthew 16:26 reminds us, what would it profit us to regain a renewed joy in this world and yet forfeit our souls?
Teens need more than relief from depression. They also need the joy, purpose, and healing that comes from nothing less than a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ and faith in the ultimate gift of grace we receive through his death and resurrection.
Adolescents Need the Great Physician
As a family physician, I can offer my patients evidence-based care through therapy referrals, medications, and hospital support. But I cannot prescribe what these adolescents and young adults ultimately need—vibrant spiritual life in Christ, nurtured through community, mentorship, Scripture, and the church.
These adolescents and young adults ultimately need vibrant spiritual life in Christ.
For teens seeking renewed hope amid suffering, spirituality may help them through this life. But only a relationship with Christ will sustain them into eternity.
May we offer this generation more than antidepressants or a vague spirituality that will be a mere Band-Aid to their wounds. May we instead point them to the Great Physician who brings healing now—and forever.
The Gospel Coalition