[wins32767]

I can't imagine that many people in the rich countries in the modern era are among the most stressed humans in history, even despite the erosion of social support networks. Nearly everyone has adequate shelter, food, security, and access to virtually magical health care from the perspective of everyone before 70 years ago. Children consistently make it into adulthood and famine has been kept at bay for a century or more, interpersonal violence is at an all time low. If in the midst of this unparalleled prosperity and wonder we're just as stressed as a peasant farmer who just lost half their family to disease, war and famine then something is badly wrong with how we handle stress.

[poulsbohemian]

Here's another perspective... it isn't just about how we handle stress, it's about the causes of stress...

In her 90s, my grandmother said to me "Your generation has far more money than we had, but we were happier and had less stress." She grew up in a just slightly more than a subsistence level farm family, then with my grandfather achieved just enough farming success to send the next generation to college. She travelled away from home just a few times in life, but as she said - it was a generally low-stress life.

Modern life on the other hand often starts the day with an utterly toxic commute. When we eat, it's often while working at our desk. Our housing costs are far above what was historically considered a safe % of income. We take almost no vacation and when we do, we take our laptop and phone with us. Even if we have health insurance, it is often very challenging to actually get preventative care.

I could go on and on, but my point is - modern life is stressful in completely different ways than the stressed encountered by the historical "peasant farmer." His stress involved things he might be able to do something about, like storing up grain for winter or reinforcing his dwelling. Our modern stress is far more obtuse and difficult to control, like the Fed raising rates or Congress introducing a rider on a bill that wipes out a tax credit that was the only thing keeping us profitable.

[UncleOxidant]

In earlier times when the stress was caused by being chased by predators we at least had a run to deal with all of the adrenaline.

[squidgyhead]

> Modern life on the other hand often starts the day with an utterly toxic commute.

Yet another reason to bicycle (and to have good bike infrastructure!)

[a_cardboard_box]

Stress is subjective. It doesn't have to align with objective measures. Evolution has selected for stress to work to favor survival in a certain environment, but we're no longer in that environment. If we needed support networks in the past, then we should expect to be unhappy without them, regardless of how important they are to survival in the present.

[ketzo]

I don't think it's necessarily just true that there is something wrong with how we handle stress. We also subject ourselves to different types of stress.

A peasant farmer was dramatically more likely to experience violence in a given year. But (from studies I've seen) they probably spent fewer hours in a week working and more with family and friends than a modern-day office worker.

It seems quite possible that the chronic, low-level stress of much modern life

- requires different methods of prevention and healing

- does more damage over the long term if untreated

[robocat]

> If in the midst of this unparalleled prosperity and wonder we're just as stressed as a peasant farmer who just lost half their family to disease, war and famine then something is badly wrong with how we handle stress.

I wonder why your phrasing feels like blame-the-victim?

The people I know under stress in modern society often lack clear options for alternatives or need a completely radical change in their situation.

Or alternatively perhaps we don't actually have prosperity?

[wins32767]

Framing things in terms of a victim blaming mindset is a frame that leads to preventable stress because it takes the locus of control away from someone which is a major cause of stress. Focusing on things you can control, like your attitude and perspective, and learning ways to maximize the impact of those things is much, much better for people. I've had a set of life circumstances that are pretty bad objectively over the last couple years and I've been less stressed than nearly any other point in my life because I've been really focusing on gratitude and resilience. I really hope that others can see the same sort of improvements with a similar sort of mindset shift.

[robocat]

I'm guessing your original comment meant to imply that we all have agency to deal with stress: sorry if I misread that.

I also tend to find the idea that we can "control our attitude and perspective" is sometimes used to blame others or self-guilt ourselves for outcomes that are truly outside ones own rational control. The extreme example of this is the belief in manifestation: we can pay for courses to learn how to remove "blocks" so somehow the cancer is ones own fault for not thinking right.

I agree with you that we need to take responsibility for what we can change. I believe we can learn new mindsets or Jiu-Jitsu our minds into grooves that work better. I also think that doing that is extremely difficult and that also that there is much that remains beyond our control (internally or externally). Also the territory of self-help has many traps and deceptions - a hard road to find.

[injb]

Maybe the amount of stress we feel is narrowly bounded and has little or nothing to do with how bad things are externally.