Stress: An Introduction
“Velocity of thought and action’ now required, and of the stresses imposed on the brain forced to process in a month more information ‘than was required of our grandfathers in the course of a lifetime”
- James Crichton Browne
I didn’t find a better statement to exactly describe what we are facing today in this modern world. Internet, social media, news, politics, work, technological advances, unlimited needs from families and peers. All of this and much more are making the world today a very tough place to live in, unlike the past. In the past, our grandfathers’ life was much simpler and easier. No long working hours, they are not connected to their mobiles and emails all day, their needs and requests were not that much complex, there is no much variety of brands to make them puzzled while shopping. What a life! For sure they didn’t feel stressed.
Let me clarify something about the above quote by Browne. He said this quote in 1860. Yes, people who lived here 160 years ago were suffering from stress just like us, maybe even more! Hence, stress is not a new thing that we only face because of our modern lifestyle and technological advances. Stress is deeply rooted in our DNA. The good news here is work stress is not inevitable, a lot of stress management techniques and strategies exist to help us gain stress awareness, and achieve increased resilience.
To give you a more vivid picture, assume that you traveled back to 1860, during the journey in time you had a few injuries. You headed to the hospital, you found it dark. When you asked why there is no light you knew that the electric light bulb was not yet invented. You went to the doctor to tell him that you suspect that your hand may be broken, he answered you that there is no way to confirm this because the X-ray will take about 30 years more to be discovered. Even those small scratches may kill you because antibiotics haven’t been invented yet. How stressed you will be? What is the level of work stress those doctors suffered from?
If you still think that our modern lifestyle is the cause of our stress, and people who lived in the past were more relaxed, please think twice.
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