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This is later with Lee Matthews The
Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here weekday

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afternoons on the Drive Canthy Ireland.
You know as a supermodel. I bet

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you didn't know her as a supermogul, but she is. She's teamed up

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with Laura Morton, who is an
author with twenty one New York Times bestsellers

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to her credit, to produce a
new documentary that's out now called Anxious Nation,

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and it's about the skyrocketing amount of
students high school students who say they

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are anxious, unhappy, depressed,
and in some cases suicidal. Can't they?

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Let's start with you. What brought
this topic to you? Oh?

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Lee? This is a topic that
I believe impacts everyone in some way,

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shape or form. It's got a
passion for young people. Served on boards

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of directors for education for over twenty
five years, co founder of a startup

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pre K through twelve school. Every
week I'm hearing from families or young people

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about some sort of anxiety that they're
suffering with, struggling with. And when

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I learned what Laura Morton and Vanessa
Rot we're working on Anxious Nation, And

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when I experienced this film, I
knew this was something that I wanted to

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be in the hands of families everywhere. I wanted everyone to experience this because

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what anxious nation does is it shines
a very bright light on something that is

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often suffered very privately, and people
feel alone in this. They feel that

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they can't talk about it, and
this just disrupts that notion and it lets

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people know, no, this anxiety
does not discriminate every socioeconomic level. It

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impacts everyone, and it brings a
lot of hope when you recognize others are

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going through this and it does not
define you. Laura, Let's get to

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the question at hand is why are
so many of our students anxious? Well,

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I think that there's a variety of
reasons, but let's take a look

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at what they're dealing with today.
Right. Our film actually looks at kids

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in their toddler years, middle school, high school, and college years.

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And I think what makes us anxious
when we're younger is definitely something that changes,

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right, anxiety and the shape shifter. I know from my own daughter

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what made her anxious when she was
in middle school, certainly not was making

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her anxious in high school. But
I mean our kids, they're dealing with

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all sorts of think like our kids
just with through a global pandemic. They

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were isolated from their friends, they
have active shooter drills in schools, they

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are bombarded with information twenty four to
seven. They go on to their social

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media and they're comparing themselves to all
of these incredibly beautiful, wonderful people who

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lives look so glamorous, when in
fact we're all dealing with anxiety on some

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level. We only see the happy
face on social media. I think there's

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just a plethora of reasons that kids
are struggling today, and I don't know

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that you can point to just one
thing. I talked to my daughter about

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this all the time, and you
know, I never is a parent.

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I never know what the trigger is
going to be. What triggered her yesterday

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is definitely not what triggers her today. And I think that's really important for

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parents to understand is that Invite is
a shape shifter. And Kathy, you

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went to high school. I went
to high school. When I went to

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high school, there was a certain
amount of it that you could the real

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world, you could kind of put
you could put a pin in it for

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a little while while you went into
class and study the topics that you were

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being taught. But it seems that
with social media and digital technology, the

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kids are bombarded with it no matter
where they are. Oh my goodness,

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Lee, Absolutely, it is a
different world and everything that we went through,

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it's magnified. It's twenty four seven, and it can also be addicting.

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Social media it can be very addicting. It's not the only cause of

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anxiety, but it's certainly one.
Kids have it coming at them from every

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area of life, and so for
us as parents, as grandparents, as

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people who love young people, it
impacts all of us, and we need

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to be alert to this. We
need to recognize that we're not alone,

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and these young people suffering from this
are not alone. And that's a powerful

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first step. And I really believe
that young people watching this will see themselves

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in this film, because Laura and
Vanessa have brought such a wonderfully diverse group

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of people who are so courageous and
they are so raw. They share their

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stories, their most vulnerable moments,
and I believe people see themselves. To

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attend to screening and to hear the
size of relief from the audience. The

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audience is so with this group of
people. I mean, they're just you

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feel it, and it's wonderful the
comments, the letters that people are so

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grateful, you know, thank you
so much. I thought that we were

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the only ones. We were suffering
alan in this and now we're having conversations.

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This is powerful. Kathy Ireland is
along with us, along with Laura

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Morton, and the documentary is Anxious
Nation, out now in select theaters.

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It's about how an alarming statistic almost
forty five percent of students have said that

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they feel anxious, or sad,
or uptights and even suicidal in some cases.

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One of the things I had Laura
growing up was I fell in love

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with this business. At a very
early age fourteen and fifteen, I had

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a job. It's harder these days
for young people to get work. It's

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harder for employers to employ the younger
people. How much of that do you

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think would would help the ability for
some of these kids to actually get out

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and get a job. That's a
really interesting question. I think that any

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place that we can take that energy, right, that anxious energy, because

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that's what anxiety is, and we
can repurpose it, I think is positive.

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So whether it's getting a job or
writing music or doing dance or art.

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In the film, we use artwork
that we curated from kids from all

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over the world between the ages of
eight and twenty six, and it really

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is a wonderful outlet. There's there's
so many ways we see kids, you

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know, pouring their energy into sports, right into acting. So the idea

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is that we can harness anxious energy
and we can use it for good.

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Anxious energy doesn't necessarily have to be
the thing that holds us back in many

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many cases, and we see it
a lot with athletes, professional athletes and

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act and you know, that's the
thing that thrusts them forward. So I

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think it's really gaining the tools and
the knowledge to understand that anxiety doesn't define

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who we are. The sense of
permanence that this is you know, this

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is going to be me forever is
not realistic. I think that that is

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absolutely possible that you can learn to
manage your anxiety so it doesn't manage you.

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So I think getting a job is
a great idea. I think that

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employers in particular need to understand that
they are they have they have a crisis

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on their hands as people are coming
back to work, and that crisis is

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how will anxiety impact their bottom line. You've got parents who have been home

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for the last couple of years who
want to be home. You've got parents

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that now have anxious children and they
don't know what to do. So I

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think there's a lot that needs to
happen in recognizing that anxiety impacts all of

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us, whether it's in our home, or in our workplace or at school.

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This is something that we we need
to talk about, We need to

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offer resources. Kathy Ireland along with
Laura Morton, they bring you Anxious Nation.

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The documentary is out now in select
theaters and we thank you for joining

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us. Lady, Thank you Lee, Thank you Lee. Thanks for listening

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to Later with Lee Matthews, the
Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen

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to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from
five to seven and Ihearts Media presentation