Is stress the root of all evil? Or is it our relationship with it?

“I’m stressed.”

I hear those words so frequently.

With the pressure, pace and intensity of our lives, are we really surprised that everyone we know seems to be stressed?

Stress has a bad reputation.

It gets blamed for a whole lot of things.

Our family hiking holiday in the Dolomites had me pondering this.

Climbing up endless steep, rocky paths ⛰️ certainly stresses the body, and with our different levels of fitness, expectation, nourishment, our moods fluctuated, turning all that beauty, fresh air, nature into anything from bliss to torture.

Yet we know that this physical stress (movement) and exposure to nature also benefit our mental and emotional health, and our longterm healthspan.

So what is it about our daily lives that makes so much feel so intense? So under pressure? So stress-full.

Some life circumstances come with unavoidable intensity of stress; ill health, job insecurity, changes to life circumstances etc.

What’s puzzling is that we experience almost as much stress from the seemingly minor daily events:

- scrolling through the morning news

- getting stuck in traffic

- arguing over something trivial

- demanding email at work

- difficult conversation

- a deadline

- things not working as we expect…

Stressful? Can be.

But does it always have to be? And to what intensity?

How much of our stress experience is actually fixed, how much pre-programmed physiology, and how much a habit?

Stress is perhaps not the problem.

What meaning we give it and how we respond to it internally can make the difference.

Maybe it’s what we expect from ourselves. Or maybe what we think we should be able to cope with.

What do you think:

Is our societal stress crisis mostly a consequence of the lives we’re living?

Or our relationship with how we live them?