Worried? Anxious? Losing sleep? It’s hard not to be stressed in the 21st century
There is hope, though: sleep, mindfulness, exercise and a good support network all help
Are you feeling stressed? Do your days bring more OMGs than LOLs? Do you lose sleep over finances, violence, politics or the country and planet’s future?
Small comfort, perhaps, but you are hardly alone: global surveys show an increase in negative feelings and experiences over at least the last decade.
Consider:
●The Rhode Island Department of Health’s annual Behavioural Risk Factor survey in 2017, the latest year completed, found 14.6 per cent of respondents in the state experiencing “frequent mental distress”, up from 13.3 per cent in 2011. That year, 22 per cent of respondents reported experiencing depression, which rose to 23.1 per cent in 2017.
●The Gallup 2018 Global Emotions Report, based on interviews with more than 154,000 people in more than 145 countries and released last September, showed a dramatic rise since 2006 of individuals experiencing anger, sadness, stress and worry. The United States ranked as the most worried nation, with more than half of adults saying they were stressed “a lot of the day”.
The effects of stress are not limited to mental health.