We’re living in a time where 1 out of every 6 people suffers from depression.
A combination of rising economic instability, the loss of social connections in the last decade as smartphones took over the world and the stressful nature of 21st-century life has led to a mental health epidemic where levels of depression and anxiety are skyrocketing.
It can be a struggle to navigate the mental health challenges of depression and anxiety so the more you can learn from other people’s stories of recovery and the science of healing these mental health challenges the better you will feel.
I have put together a list of 10 excellent depression and anxiety documentaries that you can freely watch on YouTube, which showcase different aspects of this growing mental health epidemic in our world today.
1. The Age Of Anxiety
According to the World Health Organization, anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental illnesses on the globe at the moment. Is this a disease of modernity? Or is our highly competitive and material culture itself undermining our mental health?
The Age of Anxiety examines what anxiety is, and how and why it is being re-defined by medical and pharmaceutical industries.
2. Stressed
Stressed is a documentary film that looks at our history with stress, how we got to where we are today, and where we go from here.
It features a breakthrough intervention for the alleviation of emotional stress called the Neuro Emotional Technique.
3. The Truth about Depression
The Truth About Depression lifts the curtain on the stigma surrounding depression and explores the science of how we can gain a better understanding of this mental illness.
It features moving stories of regular people battling with depression and it offers hope that we can improve the mental health system to address today’s epidemic of depression and and anxiety.
4. Breaking The Silence: Mental Health Documentary
Breaking The Silence is a sensitive and powerful portrait of the trauma faced by families in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of suicide, and the journey towards coming to terms with this deep, personal tragedy.
This documentary film challenges the audience to consider why such a potent stigma still surrounds suicide and mental health issues.
5. The Day I Snapped
The Day I Snapped investigates what happens when the stress of working life causes a major meltdown.
How did the situation reach breaking point in the first place? How did they deal with it? How have their lives changed since?
6. Why Are My Friends Killing Themselves?
A real-life drama about why, in the beautiful and quirky rural town of Hebden Bridge in England, filmmaker Jez Lewis’ childhood friends are killing themselves.
Beginning with a personal quest for understanding, the film moves into a year-long drama of human tragedy and redemption as principal character Cass comes to terms with his own mortality and attempts to lift himself out of his cycle of self-destruction.
7. Surviving The Big D
Surviving the Big D is a new documentary film about overcoming the world’s leading mental health disorder, which is depression.
The documentary film featuring the interviews of leading psychotherapists, best selling authors, clinical psychologists and depression survivors, delving deeper on to the subject of depression, it’s causes, freedom from anti depressants, surviving depression and preventing future depression episodes.
8. The Hidden Pandemic
For more than a year, COVID-19 has dominated headlines as it has steadily killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Behind the scenes, another deadly illness, already worsening dramatically in recent years, has spread like wildfire during lockdown.
Kansas City PBS shines a light on this continued threat with The Hidden Pandemic, a documentary focusing on the lives of people navigating mental illness. Through personal interviews with patients and the health care professionals who treat them, this film uncovers challenges faced on the journey to improving and maintaining mental health.
9. It’s Just Anxiety
An honest film showing what anxiety is like and the common symptoms from excessive worry, uneasiness and fear, to more extreme symptoms such as compulsive behavior, post-traumatic stress syndrome, phobias, and torturous panic attacks.
The film takes you on the crippling ride people with anxiety go on every day. These people are stunted by the fear of what would happen if… instead of living life.
10. Addiction
Hear firsthand from individuals struggling with opioid addiction and follow the cutting-edge work of doctors and scientists as they investigate why addiction is not a moral failing, but a chronic, treatable, mental health condition.
Discover the emerging science that is revealing how addiction affects the brain, and top experts are gathering evidence about how we should address our drug problem, from embracing evidence-based treatments, to rethinking public policies.
