Bookshop shelves are rammed with self-help titles that dig into how we should deal with problems in our lives, such as anxiety. It is a very real problem. Research has found that between 2000 and 2019 the incidence of anxiety, depression and stress has boomed in the UK, with rates more than doubling among 16–24-year-olds. Experts blame this growth on all sorts of factors: economic uncertainty, Brexit, Covid, social media and climate anxiety.