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We are collectively obsessed with stress.
Stress has always been a part of life and evolution and always will be, but somehow it seems like in this moment in time, stress is in the spotlight. Why?
Because stress—specifically fixing stress, avoiding stress, combatting stress, and healing from stress—is now an industry.
Every day you open the news or an app and someone is selling you a new supplement to help you sleep that stresses you out about the risks of undersleeping. Or there is a new retreat you are being encouraged to join and pay for because “you deserve a time out and a reset from the stressful world.” Or there is a new meditation or breathwork protocol you need to make time for so that you can reset from the stress of the day and show up as your best self.
It’s true that we have never been more stimulated and globally aware than we are right now, and so one could say that’s the reason we, as a society, are more stressed than any other generation before us; however, isn’t it also true that since the beginning, every generation has faced unprecedented events and stressful circumstances?
Why is it so hard for us then? How come stress and spending money on health and wellness have never been a more central conversation than they are now?
Is everything we are being told to worry about and fix really threatening our well-being to the point where it’s worth our time and money to keep investing in things that combat stress? Do we really need these expensive time-outs and supplements to be the best versions of ourselves?
Is life really more stressful now? Or are we just not as good at coping?
I think about my grandmother who left Germany after the war with a baby (in cloth diapers nonetheless) and got on a plane to Canada with no English and few dollars in her pocket. I’ll never face this kind of stress, but if you asked her if her life has been stressful no doubt her answer would be something along the lines of “there were hard times and good times, but we did our best with what we had and were grateful for what we had.”
No, I don’t think our generation has more stress than any other, only different stress, and our stress now for damn sure has a better marketing team.
The foundation of sales is to make people aware of a problem so you can sell them a solution. If you want people to buy your toothpaste, you just have to make them self-conscious about their yellow teeth and afraid of cavities.
So it follows that as soon as culturally we figured out that health and self-care could cost money and could be said to be associated with status and luxury (as in, having the luxury to spend time and money de-stressing yourself), then suddenly capitalism got its claws into the equation and stress management became something we all were supposed to be doing (read: spending money on and aspiring to). Voila, suddenly headlines, supplements, self-help books, yoga programs, prescription pads, luxury brands, stress coaches, and you name it are selling a stress solution you need and should be scared not to have.
So what is the real source of stress now?
The problem I see is two-fold: we are now stressed about being able to afford in time and money the investment in stress-reduction. Because we are being sold the narrative that these are things we must spend time and money on if we wish to live healthier, happier, more successful lives. Pulls on all our desires.
Second—confirmation bias and the ideas that the more you think about, talk about, believe in, and try to fix something, the more it sticks around.
This brings me back to my earlier point that yes, undeniably, life is stressful, but not in more, only different, ways than previous generations. But for some reason, despite our awareness and the infinite number of solutions and tools on the market, we are still the most self-proclaimed stressed-out generation. It’s as though the constant awareness and monitoring (hello sleep apps?!) is contributing to the struggle rather than the objective stress itself.
The more you look the more you find kind of thing.
The unique variable now being that we are bombarded daily with new stresses we “have to be aware of and spend money fixing.” This constant focus on stress and repetitive coercion toward buying quick fix after quick fix will never lead us to a state of peace.
I would argue that constantly buying external solutions is ten-fold more stressful than stress itself and is making us feel like we aren’t as capable at handling the daily stress of life without that external program or supplement.
Aren’t we supposed to name what’s not working and fix it?
A tricky territory here is that stress is both subjective and objective. It’s easy to see that things like job loss, income instability, war, abuse, and health issues are objectively stressful. It’s also unfair to minimize the stress caused to someone by say, a mishap at the colour salon on a photoshoot day or what it’s like to live next to a noisy highway. But also, not everyone who experiences the objective stress would call themselves stressed or spend their time and money addressing it, while simultaneously, there will be some who experience that more subjective kind of stress and are totally derailed by it.
So it’s layered, nuanced, and definitely individual, and there will not be a definitive solution found, and that’s not the focus of this piece.
Maybe this is a little s and big S conversation like in the world of trauma work; that in a lot of cases, we are using the buzzword of stress and the impact of big S stress as a reason to fixate on little s stress and letting that take over our lives instead of being able to pull ourselves up and out of it and go onward and keep perspective.
The age-old phrase “pain is avoidable but suffering is optional” comes to mind here.
Stressful circumstances have and always will be unavoidable, but subscribing to a mentality that keeps stress…stressful—is optional.
Does acknowledging and trying to fix every stress help, truly? Or is it sometimes healthier to recognise that small stress for what it is and move on with ourselves versus focusing on what is wrong?
Constantly talking about our problems doesn’t make them go away; it makes us look at our life through the lens of our problem, and that is likely to lead us to seeing that problem everywhere.
Constantly being told we should take time out of our life in order to be okay might seem empowering and supportive, but I worry that it also enables us to fixate on escaping what we don’t like instead of empowering us to be resilient and capable and able to find solutions within the life we have.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been more aware of the health benefits I’m missing out on because I don’t have a $5,000 cold-plunge tub than I am now. But guess what—my nana just turned 100 and she’s never heard of a cold-plunge tub and never lost any sleep over it.
So what is the real problem we are facing?
The problem may not be stress but that we are obsessed with fixing, managing, and eliminating stress and are prepared to hand over thousands of dollars doing it versus being empowered to face the gritty moments in life and know that they won’t knock us off center to the point where we can’t function or be decent human beings.
The problem may not be stress but that we are overexposed to perfectly curated and completely unrealistic stress-free realities online that we compare ourselves to and start striving toward.
The problem may not be stress; it’s that we’ve stopped shifting into an energy of gratitude and stopped giving ourselves a dose of perspective medicine when things get bumpy.
The problem may not be stress but that we are addicted to being overachievers and have glorified taking on more than is reasonable. We keep exposing ourselves to overstimulating apps, then we use yoga and meditation and wellness tools and supplements to justify living lives at an extreme pace to extreme standards of perfection.
The problem isn’t the stress of the world; it’s our susceptibility to quick fixes and being sold shiny solutions that help us avoid the discomfort of gritting our teeth through some tough (but not life-threatening) stuff and setting boundaries (even if that means we have to opt out of keeping up) around what is and isn’t reasonable to do.
The way forward:
We have to stop blaming the world for being stressful.
We have to stop believing that we need a yoga class to melt enough stress away that we become chill enough to not bicker with our partner or lose patience with our kids. We have to stop fixating on what’s stressful and focus more on noticing and creating more moments within our daily lives that are nourishing. We also need to remember that we are tough and resilient and that lots of things that are worth it are also stressful in the short-term. Stress is a biological component of growth; you will not wilt under the hot sun of it, and you can still be a good person if you miss your morning meditation.
The reality is we don’t all have the time and resources to buy class passes and take time off. But the empowerment that comes when you realize you don’t need to shuffle your whole life around for a yoga class if it’s too much of a stretch (pun intended) and that you can just decide to stretch and breathe in the natural pauses of your day and be in control of yourself enough that you still show up as a good person without that yoga class—that’s the skill that actually helps you manage stress.
We have to be sovereign and grown-up enough to discern between okay stress (all-nighters to meet a deadline you have committed to, missing yoga because you didn’t have childcare) versus not okay stress (abuse, chronic unaddressed health issues, workplaces with no boundaries). We have to be responsible and aware enough to recognize when we are being sold to and recognize all the things in life we already have at our fingertips for free that give us moments of peace and gratitude—my god who doesn’t feel a million times better after a minute in the sun with the breeze on your face and the sound of birds?
And sometimes when that okay stress pops up, and we are tempted to derail our day so we can take the time to feel it all and process it all—we might be better served quieting that voice down and getting on with our day and reminding ourselves that we can handle what the day is bringing. Other times, we have to put our grown-up pants on and shut up about our stress so that we can take real-life actions to get ourselves to a healthier place.
Don’t make your life about your stress and external things you think you need to achieve wholeness and peace. Make your life about your life and empowering your own capability and discernment and resilience and ability to feel good and care for yourself with the resources you already have within.
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