Religious Anxiety
Anxieties of modern life are very different from the existential threats experienced by people in underdeveloped countries. In developed countries the main cause of rising anxiety is over what other people think about us rather than threats of hunger, disease, or violence.
Religion serves as a sort of psychological security blanket that helps people to deal with the pain of uncertainty. That is why people who live in miserably poor countries where life is dangerous and short are highly religious.
Apologists for religion might argue that people are becoming more anxious and depressed because they no longer rely upon religion as a source of emotional security. This explanation is almost certainly wrong. Some of the least religious countries, like Denmark, are also consistently scoring as among the happiest in the world.
Social psychologist Jean Twenge attributes increasing anxiety time to fear of social evaluation, people have become more narcissistic, more concerned with aggressive self-promotion.
Modern anxieties have nothing to do with the sort of existential threats that prompt people in poorer countries to seek refuge in religion. On the contrary, modern anxieties are largely focused on how other people evaluate us. The younger generation are both more narcissistic and less religious. This suggests that religion has no remedy for the anxious narcissist.
The only answers for frustrated vanity are good friends who support the ego, endless self-promotion, or old-fashioned career striving.
Its better to plan, any initial steps must feel like swimming for experience.
Psychology Today
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