Are most people stressed most of the time?

[AliceAbsolum]

I'm not talking severe stress, or clinically significant anxiety depression, etc. More 1-4 out of 10 tension, irritability, worry. Whatever words you want to put on it. Low level fight /flight.

I'm very rarely calm and settled. Most of the time it's in the evening watching TV with DH if it does come.

Tbf I have had a very stressful life. Since I was born basically.

If you are generally calm did you have a good childhood?

This exactly is what I’d say. 👏

It's good you personally feel calm.

There's a proven link between stress in childhood and stress in adulthood.

I had stressful childhood & difficult teen years.

im 58 now with 2 teen dds.

most of the time I am calm & relaxed. I can get stressed from time to time, but I put effort into being able to be chilled.

main strategies:
daily exercise- mostly I do yoga
keep relatively on top of work
i meditate badly but regularly
I’ve started going to a sound bath about once a month- building on the meditation
I pick my battles with the teens - harder than it sounds but

No I’m ok.

Work bothers me occasionally, and my husband’s aversion to winging the hoover over the floors - but, I’m fine.

Did anyone die today? No. It’s all good. Nothing happened today that time won’t fix. Now I do have some things on my mind, but 🤷🏽‍♀️ I can’t do anything about them right now, so they’ll wait until I can.

Oops posted too soon:

I work from home
dont put too many things into the calendar
say no to things
take a brownie most nights. This helps me sleep well
get a good nights sleep.

so yeah I’m relatively chilled but looking over things, I put quite a lot of care & attention into making life chilled.

when I was a single parent, 2!young dc, commuting to office etc I was more go go go & more stressed.

Oops posted too soon:

I work from home
dont put too many things into the calendar
say no to things
take a brownie most nights. This helps me sleep well
get a good nights sleep.

so yeah I’m relatively chilled but looking over things, I put quite a lot of care & attention into making life chilled.

when I was a single parent, 2!young dc, commuting to office etc I was more go go go & more stressed.

Oops posted too soon:

I work from home
dont put too many things into the calendar
say no to things
take a brownie most nights. This helps me sleep well
get a good nights sleep.

so yeah I’m relatively chilled but looking over things, I put quite a lot of care & attention into making life chilled.

when I was a single parent, 2!young dc, commuting to office etc I was more go go go & more stressed.

I married late in life and had no children, so my life has been fairly stress free from that perspective. Growing up though I had a very angry dad and I was terrified of him, and I’m not even able to measure the damage that’s done to my psyche. There’s always low level anxiety.

I very rarely feel stressed - only in exceptional circumstances. I’m generally quite a calm person, and I never feel anxious really. I do get irritable at times (like when I come home and have to tidy up, make dinner etc), but it doesn’t last long and I find these things more irksome than stressful.

I’m the same but had a good childhood. The anxiety/stress (as you saw low level, not stoping me functioning but never relaxed or able to rest) began in my teens and has never left me. I’ve paid for a lot of therapy but I’m now in mid life with massive responsibilities and just feel low level sick and miserable most of the time. I don’t really think there’s an answer that doesn’t involve blowing up my (otherwise lovely) life and abandoning my responsibilities to my children and others.

This is also very recognisable. It ramped way up with having my first child

I think probably because I have good boundaries and I put myself first sometimes. I'm very patient, recognise that some things are out of my control and am responsible for my own behaviour only, not anyone else's.

I mostly don't really care what other people think about me, they can think what they like. It makes no difference to me. I hardly ever get angry either. Most of the time I am simply content in my own little world and that's fine by me. I love my life and my family and friends so I just focus on them and other things that bring me joy.

I'm not typically stressed day to day despite having ADHD and being a massive overthinker who finds it hard to relax. I credit this to getting out of office work as that's when I really felt the paradigm shift.

My job in construction certainly isn't for everyone but I've always thought humans didn't really evolve to be sitting in a chair for the vast majority of their lives like many of us have been doing in the last century. Doing hands on stuff feels much less excruciating to me, although of course as an ADHD sufferer I'm prone to being restless - and I'm not one of these people that self diagnosed from watching TikTok vids, I was removed from mainstream education before reaching secondary school due to my behaviour.

I mainly drive heavy plant, so things like concrete mixers, tippers, loading shovels, and recently ADTs (97 ton dump trucks used offroad). Hours are longish, usually ten a day, but it goes fast as I'm not sitting in one place. Currently on nights and getting just over £350 for a 5-6 hour shift. I start at 7pm and latest I've finished is 2am (only once) and earliest was 22:30. I also get Fridays off when working nights and get my basic day rate of around £200 for chilling at home.

I like not having to engage in office politics or deal with Very Important Man types that dump their cups/plates in the sink after meetings for somebody else to wash up - if you're seen doing that at my workplace you'll find it stacked up on the seat of your truck the next morning. And we generally work as a team as we're not really competing for promotions - we have our separate roles.

Making more money doesn't always involve more responsibility or stress. I was making about £50k on the mixers but I'd be doing a fair few 12hr days and sometimes much longer if things went wrong (legal limit is 15 hrs!). And you never know what time you're in tomorrow until today's work is done.

Now I can drive ADTs I'm looking to do that full time as experienced operators can easily make £65k (£24p/h with overtime at 1.5x hourly rate) and it's a steady 7-5 shift usually. But I'm on HS2 for at least a few more months and it's good. I made almost £700 a day over bank hol as we got a £300 bonus and double time, and I only did an hour's work over those two days as they couldn't get the admixtures right, so I just watched films on my phone lol.

So I'm pretty happy tbf, but I defo put in the work to get to where I am. I've driven bin lorries, pulled pallets up people's driveways on a pump truck, etc. Hard non-glamorous work. Did loads of agency and self employed work to find out what I enjoyed. Being outside on a nice day or setting off with windows down, coffee on the go, listening to Spotify never gets old.

Don't miss hearing people wanging on in corpowaffle. Reaching out to Colin in accounts to see if he's got the bandwidth to circle back and run it up the flagpole. 🤣

Probs won't ever be on £100k but ambition isn't just about money for me. It's also about not trading my day to day mental health for financial remuneration. I'm only just past 30yo and I'm debt free so if I'm on £65k by this summer I'll be a happy bunny.

I had quite a traumatic childhood but thankfully I’m able to compartmentalise and rarely think about work in the evening for example. If I get anxious it’s usually about my girls or my SIL who for some reason hates me.

I'm as calm as they come.

What's the point of worrying about anything?

It won't change a thing.

And ya, I had a pretty good childhood.

Not perfect. But good enough.

I’m awfully stressed. I had an awful childhood too. My job and lifestyle is the source of my stress.

Exercise helps a lot in my case. I used to vape weed daily from my late teens as it was the only thing that calmed my overactive mind. Then I replaced it with strength training almost ten years ago in my early 20s and am still going strong with that.

I thought I'd tone it down a bit when I reached the inevitable stage of looking like a Russian shotputter but that never happened and I'm now aiming for a 180kg deadlift this year which puts me well into the elite category. I've got a six pack but don't look too hench with clothes on so I've just carried on.

I get pretty narky though if I stop training for more than about a week so I think it's burning off a lot of that excess energy I've always had.

Stress is different to the daily trials and tribulations of life imo, personally i feel content most of the time, but i have worked hard on this, learning positive reframing techniques, practicing meditation etc.

There will always be stresses - i think the issue is often people dont prioritise their mental or physical health - many people eat shit food, dont exercise, spend excessive time on phones/SM and not enough time in nature. Everyones circumstances are different but i do often think people arent willing to help themselves - its easier to watch tv than go for a walk, easier to eat a ready meal than eat fresh veg, for example.

I agree but I also think poorly managed mental health can often lead to people struggling with the daily trials of life. Not to imply that poor mental health is a choice but I think there are many factors involved, some of which can be addressed but often aren't.

Yes I’m always anxious and a worrier!

I forgot to add that things always go wrong just before my period is due which doesn't help.

Yep I often feel a bit stressed and when something goes wrong I crumble. Work, Money, Kids. Always something to worry about. I sometimes wish I didn't have so much responsibility. I've always struggled to cope with things since I was young. My mum used to stress about anything and everything. So it's kind of been learnt, along with an unsettled childhood.

I feel similar @CeeJay81- it’s learned behaviour and the worst thing is my DDs are probably learning it from me right now. I’ve had tons of therapy and it helps understand it but it doesn’t short circuit the stress response.

I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake having children - unfortunately (despite my mother’s example!) I didn’t realise quite how much stress and worry it would provoke. Also both my kids have complex medical stuff so it’s all just A LOT all the time