Excerpt from Dr. Stuart Shanker’s new book, Restoring Resilience
The Toxicity of Stress
Children are exhibiting stress-related illnesses that used to be seen only in older adults. Teens are struggling with feelings that used to be characteristic of a mid-life crisis and young adults are giving up and opting out in droves. Health problems, mental as well as physical, have reached epidemic proportions. Tempers are flaring and empathy is withering in our homes, schools, communities, and public forums. The Happiness Index (Musikanski et al., 2017) is in steep decline and The Misery Index (Clemens et al., 2022) has gone through the roof. It seems that stress is crippling us.
One way to measure stress levels is to look at the rise of maladaptive ways of dealing with stress. We have at our disposal such a rich variety of options for escapism:
- alcohol
- cannabis
- dopamine inducing drugs
- energy drinks
- excesses of junk food
- screens
- gambling
- pornography
The explosion of maladaptive modes of self-regulation tells us more about the amount of stress we’re under than any survey ever could.
