4 ms·

Stress is neccessary to grow and even to keep going, I'm with you in that. But I think the article is right in pointing out that there's too much focus into som

Stress is neccessary to grow and even to keep going, I'm with you in that. But I think the article is right in pointing out that there's too much focus into some inner force that makes you accomplish everything. This has been going for a while, and coupled with other factors, I don't think it's paying good dividends. I think that everyone paying attention can see the steep increase in depression and medication. It's not only the US, it's happening in Europe too. My impression is that we're removing people from their support networks, manufacturing lonely individuals, and eroding their financial float line through housing. I don't think mental thoughness or resilience can overcome this for too long, and many people is exposed to this stressors for many, many years, if not their entire life. Even Taleb, who is really tiresome talking about stress, recognizes that stress is only useful if it is more or less bounded.

kiba 3y ago
As I find myself often saying: Why not do both? Improve your friendship network and improve resilience.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Something really thrown into stark relief by becoming a parent is that “doing both” is often a lie. We only have time for so many things.
- Arainach 3y ago
  Both cost time, which is finite and precious. Stress reduces the amount of time you have available - if all of your time not working is spent destressing, you're not much fun to be around, and that impact your ability to make and retain friends
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Find a hobby that you de-stress with others with so even though you're not fun at the beginning of the class/session, by the end of it you've screamed your frustration out and are pleasant to be around. Make friends at the end of this de-stressing event.
  - haswell 3y ago
    > Both cost time, which is finite and precious As social animals who will eventually face the loss of every friend we've ever made, cultivating both a good network of friends and a kind of internal resilience is probably the best way one could choose to invest their time. There are many very questionable ways to invest this finite/precious time, and most of us don't think twice about how much of it we squander (e.g. spending time online). There is a small category of things to focus on that is almost universally worth the effort: sleep, diet, exercise, social connection. Focusing on these things also tends to help establish that inner strength.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    This is why most friends are made in high school and college. The difference is very stark. I probably made 1-2 good friends in the _10 years_ after college, compared to 30+ friends in the 10 years prior to that. Luckily, I managed to keep most friends from before starting work. Full time work is an absolute black hole of time and relationships. People who don't have good networks _before_ they start full time work are absolutely boned and I don't think there's an easy solution.
squidbeak 3y ago
You're right, there's a certain point beyond which stress is just wear.
- KittenInABox 3y ago
  An example of this is that obese people don't legendarily have the strongest joints in the world, since they are constantly adding additional strain on every single joint all the time. In fact being significantly overweight does the opposite!
wins32767 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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.
naremu 3y ago
Stress seems best for the primordial hunt and battles of my ancestors who needed a powerful drive to see through an ideally short term situation with more response than they might have otherwise been able to muster, I have always found it living hand in hand with adrenaline. Stoicism seems to also provide plenty examples of people finding stress and emotion to be first reactions muddying the waters of perception necessary for loftier goals and work than simple hunter gatherers. Stress long term is unusual for the body and a major disadvantage imo. And stoicism seeing some quantifiable research into aiding in depression leads me to believe the individual in the current cultural hegemony of western culture is simply a victim, a child never truly raised. "Work, play - at sixty our powers and tastes are what they were at seventeen." - Brave New World
prewett 3y ago
I think the increase in depression is due more towards the increasing isolation in our (American) society, and not so much stress. I moved to a new city a few years ago, and between living alone, working remotely, the pandemic causing many things like tech meetups online, and people in the groups I have been involved with not appearing to reciprocate my interest in getting to know them, I've had a lot of times where life has felt pretty meaningless. This is despite a fair amount of internal energy, interest in learning things, etc. (personal growth / fulfillment). My conclusion is that relationships are a fundamental human need. But we have designed ourselves into isolation. Half of marriages (built-in community) end, most people no longer go to church, there are not really civic organizations any more, etc. I can spend an entire, active Saturday without interacting with anyone: drive to the park in the morning and walk in the woods, go to the art museum (electronic tickets, so not even interaction purchasing a ticket), check books out from the library (self-checkout), buy groceries to cook dinner (self-checkout is usually faster), watch a movie on my home theater setup. That's even without mobile phones, or the numbing false sense of community of social networks. So not only do we not have the normal human difficulty in actually caring about and loving another person, but we do not even have the social structure to find people to care about. As a result it's easy to live a life where you experience little of enjoying others and being enjoyed by others.
- cableshaft 3y ago
  Yes that is the tendency, but it's still possible to fight it to some extent. Unless you're in a pretty rural area there should be local meetups you can attend. They might not be about exactly the subjects you're interested in, or be attended entirely by people you like, but if you give a couple a chance and keep showing up they might surprise you and you might get some friends out of it. I still periodically hang out with about a dozen people I met via meetups like 9 years ago. Used to be a lot more, and some moved or drifted off (on both sides, I'm guilty of it as well), but that's still a decent number. That's not including the group of game designers I befriended by hosting playtest nights, or the local writing group I still do things with every November for Nanowrimo, or a handful of people I met from a couple new meetups I started going to recently. I've attended funerals, friendsgivings, baby showers, and the like for a few of them too, so we're not just casual friends (although a love of board games and geeky things does tie a lot of us together).

kiba 3y ago

As I find myself often saying: Why not do both? Improve your friendship network and improve resilience.

emodendroket 3y ago
Something really thrown into stark relief by becoming a parent is that “doing both” is often a lie. We only have time for so many things.
Arainach 3y ago
Both cost time, which is finite and precious. Stress reduces the amount of time you have available - if all of your time not working is spent destressing, you're not much fun to be around, and that impact your ability to make and retain friends
- fragmede 3y ago
  Find a hobby that you de-stress with others with so even though you're not fun at the beginning of the class/session, by the end of it you've screamed your frustration out and are pleasant to be around. Make friends at the end of this de-stressing event.
- haswell 3y ago
  > Both cost time, which is finite and precious As social animals who will eventually face the loss of every friend we've ever made, cultivating both a good network of friends and a kind of internal resilience is probably the best way one could choose to invest their time. There are many very questionable ways to invest this finite/precious time, and most of us don't think twice about how much of it we squander (e.g. spending time online). There is a small category of things to focus on that is almost universally worth the effort: sleep, diet, exercise, social connection. Focusing on these things also tends to help establish that inner strength.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  This is why most friends are made in high school and college. The difference is very stark. I probably made 1-2 good friends in the _10 years_ after college, compared to 30+ friends in the 10 years prior to that. Luckily, I managed to keep most friends from before starting work. Full time work is an absolute black hole of time and relationships. People who don't have good networks _before_ they start full time work are absolutely boned and I don't think there's an easy solution.

squidbeak 3y ago

You're right, there's a certain point beyond which stress is just wear.

KittenInABox 3y ago
An example of this is that obese people don't legendarily have the strongest joints in the world, since they are constantly adding additional strain on every single joint all the time. In fact being significantly overweight does the opposite!

wins32767 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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.

naremu 3y ago

Stress seems best for the primordial hunt and battles of my ancestors who needed a powerful drive to see through an ideally short term situation with more response than they might have otherwise been able to muster, I have always found it living hand in hand with adrenaline. Stoicism seems to also provide plenty examples of people finding stress and emotion to be first reactions muddying the waters of perception necessary for loftier goals and work than simple hunter gatherers. Stress long term is unusual for the body and a major disadvantage imo. And stoicism seeing some quantifiable research into aiding in depression leads me to believe the individual in the current cultural hegemony of western culture is simply a victim, a child never truly raised. "Work, play - at sixty our powers and tastes are what they were at seventeen." - Brave New World

prewett 3y ago

I think the increase in depression is due more towards the increasing isolation in our (American) society, and not so much stress. I moved to a new city a few years ago, and between living alone, working remotely, the pandemic causing many things like tech meetups online, and people in the groups I have been involved with not appearing to reciprocate my interest in getting to know them, I've had a lot of times where life has felt pretty meaningless. This is despite a fair amount of internal energy, interest in learning things, etc. (personal growth / fulfillment). My conclusion is that relationships are a fundamental human need. But we have designed ourselves into isolation. Half of marriages (built-in community) end, most people no longer go to church, there are not really civic organizations any more, etc. I can spend an entire, active Saturday without interacting with anyone: drive to the park in the morning and walk in the woods, go to the art museum (electronic tickets, so not even interaction purchasing a ticket), check books out from the library (self-checkout), buy groceries to cook dinner (self-checkout is usually faster), watch a movie on my home theater setup. That's even without mobile phones, or the numbing false sense of community of social networks. So not only do we not have the normal human difficulty in actually caring about and loving another person, but we do not even have the social structure to find people to care about. As a result it's easy to live a life where you experience little of enjoying others and being enjoyed by others.

cableshaft 3y ago
Yes that is the tendency, but it's still possible to fight it to some extent. Unless you're in a pretty rural area there should be local meetups you can attend. They might not be about exactly the subjects you're interested in, or be attended entirely by people you like, but if you give a couple a chance and keep showing up they might surprise you and you might get some friends out of it. I still periodically hang out with about a dozen people I met via meetups like 9 years ago. Used to be a lot more, and some moved or drifted off (on both sides, I'm guilty of it as well), but that's still a decent number. That's not including the group of game designers I befriended by hosting playtest nights, or the local writing group I still do things with every November for Nanowrimo, or a handful of people I met from a couple new meetups I started going to recently. I've attended funerals, friendsgivings, baby showers, and the like for a few of them too, so we're not just casual friends (although a love of board games and geeky things does tie a lot of us together).