Ever feel like your head is swimming with everything that you’re juggling? Let’s take a snapshot of a typical day in our lives from the moment we wake to the time we close our eyes at night. It’s a never-ending juggle of work, study, family, technology, finances, friends, social life, meal prep, exercise, self-care, and (add your own stressors). With the sheer scope of all that were’re juggling, is it any wonder that modern life appears so challenging to all of us.
How we respond to these difficult situations, however, has a large impact on our stress levels, wellbeing, and mental health. Without addressing the underlying causes of why modern life causes us stress, it’s hard to make more sustainable changes that lead you away from burning out.
The thing is, we’re still evolutionarily maladapted to deal with the world in which we find ourselves. None of our fight or flight instincts are turning out to be particularly helpful. We’re reporting higher levels of stress all the time: according to Ipsos Research last year, 60% of participants across 34 countries report that they have felt stressed “to the point where they felt like they could not cope or deal with things at least once in the past year”. Women, people under 35 and on lower incomes suffered worse, unsurprisingly.
A number of studies (for instance in countries such as the USA) suggest that people currently feel more anxious and stressed than in the 1950s, despite unprecedented improvements in physical health and wealth. Perhaps this reflects increasing dissatisfaction with the pressures of modern industrial societies, in which the pace of change has been accelerating for many decades.
What are the implications of this for our well-being? Physically, it has been suggested that many of our chronic health problems, for example atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), diabetes, high blood pressure and the complications of smoking and alcohol abuse, result from the mismatch between the environment from which we evolved and the environment in which we currently live. For instance, we have an evolved propensity to prefer sweet and fatty foods – this would have been valuable for survival in the past, when these energy-rich foods were rare. Now, in an environment of easy availability and little energy expenditure, indulging this preference can lead to obesity and diabetes, with their often harmful consequences.
Mentally and emotionally, too, many people, particularly in urban areas and the industrialised world, now live in a hugely different environment. For instance, many of the expectations that people face from their families, employers and society, and the perceived pressures from advertising and media to achieve goals of fame, beauty and success are unrealistic and unachievable for most people. This can be highly stressful and demoralising. On this view, the complexity of modern goals and the difficulty and effort needed to achieve many of them play a very significant role in feeding negative emotions such as anxiety and depression.
Life may not come with a map, but everyone will experience twists and turns, from everyday challenges to traumatic events with more lasting impact. Each change affects people differently, bringing a unique flood of thoughts, strong emotions, and uncertainty. Yet people generally adapt well over time to life-changing situations and stressful situations—in part thanks to resilience.
Psychologists define resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress—such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors. As much as resilience involves “bouncing back” from these difficult experiences, it can also involve profound personal growth. There are many aspects of our lives we can control, modify, and grow with. That’s the role of resilience. Becoming more resilient not only helps you get through difficult circumstances, it also empowers you to grow and even improve your life along the way.
Join us for a discussion on exploring resilience; what does it mean philosophical, how is it viewed psychologically, can resilience help you better cope with the world in which we live, can you build a capacity for resilience, what benefits does being more resilient bring each of us.
Links to background materials to come.
