Are we more stressed than we used to be?

Probably. Our stress system is attuned to acute, temporary threats such as a hungry sabre-toothed tiger that prehistoric man had to flee from or fight. Today’s stresses, such as the pressure to achieve, are more prolonged and constant: we are almost always ‘switched on’. As a result, our stress system does not recover as well and we experience more stress-related symptoms.

We often read in the news that we are increasingly experiencing stress. Stress is your body’s response to a threat from the environment. Previously, in prehistoric times, that threat consisted of acute danger, such as the aforementioned hungry sabre-toothed tiger. Nowadays, our stress system is still the same as that of prehistoric man.

In a stressful situation, you first produce adrenaline. This stress hormone triggers the well-known fight-or-flight response: your heart rate rises and your breathing speeds up. Next, cortisol is released. This hormone makes more energy available to the brain and muscle cells, for example, and increases the blood pressure. At the same time, it temporarily inhibits digestion and the immune system, giving you more energy to deal with the threat. When the threat disappears and you relax again, the stress system recovers on its own and the release of stress hormones drops. So stress is not bad – in fact, it is necessary for survival.

These days, however, we don’t need to be afraid of sabre-toothed tigers. The stress that many people experience now is of a very different nature: pressure to achieve, work pressure, or study stress. Even this kind of stress is not always bad: a little stress before an important presentation or an exam can help you to perform better as it increases your focus and energy. But if stress is prolonged, it can get unpleasant. In this case, the stress system no longer gets a chance to recover, which can lead to complaints such as sleep problems, memory problems, reduced immunity, and cardiovascular disease. These are increasingly common – not only comparing prehistoric times with today, but also comparing the 1990s with the 2010s, American researchers found. Perhaps this is because we are constantly exposed to stimuli. You can check your work email anywhere, and otherwise the news websites remind you of all the problems in the world, or social media pressures you to ‘be your best self’. If you get stressed by this, it is difficult to calm down again – the ‘threat’ does not go away and your stress system cannot recover. This is probably why we are more stressed than we used to be, because our bodies cope better with a short, acute threat than with the long-term, constant stress of today.

Would you like to read more? Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Henry Holt & Company: New York, NY, USA.