This informal CPD article on Modern Stress was provided by Endorphin, which offers Counselling and Psychology Courses with practical implementation bringing in neuroscience research and approaches.
Stress is becoming increasingly pervasive in our life. It is not just due to an individual’s inability to handle ups and downs in his or her life but it is due to the change in the fabric of our society. In olden days, the societies were less demanding. The pace of economic activities was slow. Productivity was not under pressure. And people were not crazily trying to fulfil every demand around them. Probably, as a result, there were lesser stories of exponential financial success.
The ideas of life were rooted in the traditional ideas of happiness which often involved having a steady income, upholding cultural values and raring studious kids. However, with time, the things changed. Rate of change of technologies, systems and methods kept accelerating. Within every few decades, disruptive changes were brought about by technology. With every new invention, new breed of entrepreneurs came to the fore and a new list of billionaires kept toppling the old list.
When it happened over and over again, it started invading our lives! New social expectations came to exist. Cascading effect of this phenomenon increased the pace of life for everyone – kids, grown-ups, males, females, professionals and commoners. Parents now expected their kids to learn more things early in life so that they maintained competitive edge when they grow up. Kids took it as a part of their life to do a lot in less time. Every formative year became a mission of skill acquisition. As they grew to become young adults, they had ambitious goals for themselves, parents looked at them with menacing certainty and social circles demanded an enthusiastic achiever.
All of this resulted in a race of doing more, achieving more, being more perfect, accomplishing more in the workplace, a race in relationships and a massive race in mind!
The stress became an obvious outcome as the person started working more, sleeping less and relaxing lesser. With the advent of social media - appearing happy became more important than being happy. Pleasure trips needed to be more appealing for the watcher. This, on one hand, increased stress of organizing it for the experiencer and on the other, increased the stress for the observer because it had set-off another expectation from him/ herself.
We as human beings are not designed to bare this kind of stress which is continuous and high. Stress management is an essential skill of this century. If not managed well, stress moves from psychological to psycho-somatic and then from Somatic to Organic, ultimately ending up becoming chronic stress. During this progressive movement, it shows emotional, cognitive, physiological and physical problems respectively. They show various skin and stomach problems. This kind of toxic stress can also result in mental health issues like anxiety, phobia and depression. Events related to stress often ruin relationships and social isolation. Addiction is also caused due to stress.
We hope this article was helpful. For more information from Endorphin, please visit their CPD Member Directory page. Alternatively, you can go to the CPD Industry Hubs for more articles, courses and events relevant to your Continuing Professional Development requirements.
