Does anyone else feel stressed at how busy/overcrowded everything is all the time?

[Walkyrie]

Just that really. Supermarkets, the roads, even what used to be fairly quiet dog walks. Pavements, beaches, bus stops, it just feels like everything is really busy and there are very few places you can go outside your home, even at off peak hours, that are peaceful and quiet. Even then our house is very overlooked with constant traffic and mopeds outside.

I totally appreciate I am also a person and therefore contributing to this by the way! It just feels like everything is so hectic. I’m having a tough time at the moment and just went out to what used to be a fairly quiet dog walking route, hoping for a bit of quiet, but nope - people everywhere. Just constant mental noise.

Life in general is much busier. There’s not as much physical or mental space. I think people are craving a more analogue life as a result.

More people WFH so can do things locally in their lunch hours? Or around their working day

Think of how many used to be on the commute and then in offices/business districts full time.

Plus schools are on exam leave
Uni students coming home for summer

The explosion of dog ownership

Closure of local high streets do more people in cars travelling further just to do normal errands
Closure of places obviously pushes everyone into what remains open.

It’s not surprising, and can’t see much changing.

Yes.

Most American states have much lower populations to equal space in comparison, we're a very overpopulated country. Losing green spaces constantly is not helping either, there's no escape.

I also hate it. Too many people.
The worst is having to go on holidays in school holidays. We literally do nothing on BH.

Driving to devon we dont go on weekends.

Theme parks. We got there on opening time and were in overflow parking.
By the time we got in first ride q it was 35min wait already.

Our area traffic is awful and yet the city is set to grow hugely. The schools have doubled!

My particular hatred is how our school is 2 firm entry and does everything together so any play they did had 120 parents and relatives and it was pointkess you couldnt see and all kids had to stand still. The xmas show is whole of key stage - cant see.a thing.

Of course it’s logical that more people equals less space and more noise. I don’t actually mind crowds, in the sort of way that you expect to see them - gigs, bank holiday at the beach, Christmas shopping and so on. I can cope with ‘busy’. But now it just feels relentless, like there is almost nowhere you can go to have fairly good odds of getting a few minutes peace. And I live in a town in the south west, not London or somewhere you would expect this. Driving is a nightmare - everyone seems so rushed, stressed and angry.

Yes I think you have a point about wfh - it used to make town centres busy during working hours, and residential areas more quiet. But now everyone runs errands on and off throughout the day so a lot of people coming and going, plus we have the usual renovations going on constantly around us so a lot of doors slamming, power tools and tradespeople yelling to each other.

Few people can afford to live outside of busy roads and estates

I can confirm that lots of North Yorkshire fits the bill too. The most common number of people I see when out for a run on the moors is zero. When I go back to visit my parents down south I am struck by how busy everywhere is though so I do get it. It used to be a bit of a backwater when I was growing up but these days it's considered London commuter territory so the towns have all greatly increased in size and it seems you're never more than six feet from an aggressive stressed out cretin. I've never been great with busy places so I couldn't live there now (and lots of city slickers would die of boredom living where I do).

Couldn't agree more.
I live in a busy seaside town and dread the hot summer days because of the influx of tourists who leave the place like a shithole 😤. Everywhere is gridlocked no matter what time of day. People don't seem to have spacial awareness so not only is it busy, they just stand in the middle of shop doorways or pavements to have their conversations, they don't look behind them before changing direction or just suddenly stop dead right in front of you! 🤣😬

No such thing as 'just popping into town' which is a 2 mile journey because the roads are nose to tail the whole way. Major shopping centre near me, you have to allow additional 10 mins to get in or out because its gridlocked.

I'm a Londoner, but do not like the constant movement and noise of towns and cities. I left London a long time ago to live in a rural location. I visit London for a few days once a month to see DM. I feel irritated and on edge when I'm there. The constant noise, emergency service sirens, dodging people to get out of their way, etc.

Has it? So why do we keep hearing all this stuff about how career bitches aren’t having enough kids and the UK is going to be an aging population and etc?

It’s increased through immigration not a rising birth rate.

Yanbu i think because less people work 9 to 5 now and more people work from home , you don't get the quiet times in the middle of the week like you use to

Is this a typo?? I actually went to look up the last time the population of the British Isles was estimated to be that low - the 1500s!

I went to an out of town shopping centre today (Monday) and was surprised at how busy it was. Carpark was nearly full.

I live in suburban Birmingham. It's crowded, noisy and dirty. There is rarely silence, I don't sleep well so often get up in the night and even then if I look out of the window there are cars going past. I hate saying it, but there are just too many people for the space we've got. More countryside is going to be taken to build more houses, destroying more of the natural world. I'm not surprised people have so many stress related mental & physical health problems.

Not far from where I live there is a Bronze Age ancient monument. Sometimes I think about the Bronze Age people who must have walked across this area & how different it was here 4000 years ago. The air must have been full of bird song and butterflies. What wild flowers they must have seen.

Move to Scotland or maybe not 🤣. England is only 1.65 times the size of Scotland but your population is 10 times the size and 70% of Scots live in the centra belt. And our population long term is declining. A busy day on my local beach is 4 people. A local beach very popular with tourists etc on a sunny summer day maybe 50 if you’re unlucky. I so rarely meet people when I walk my dogs I’m always completely surprised when I do!

Go out in the rain?
I live 20 m from a big park which was nearly empty on Saturday, even when sun was shiny ,bcz it's been so rainy. I also went to a busy shopping centre on Saturday which was heaving. But the park, the nearby streets, very empty, just bcz of threat of a little rain.

Tbh, I don't think it's busier than it used to be. I think we just cope with it less as we get older.
I used to love busyness and hustle and bustle when I was in my 20s.
Now I'm pushing 40 and it's all too much.
I am so glad it's not my turn to host Christmas this year because I literally don't think I can face another Christmas food shop with all the PEOPLE buying their sprouts. It was incredibly stressful.
20 years ago, I'm not sure I'd have even noticed them

Ok another anti immigrant thread. Haven’t had one of those for a while. 🙄

At times, yes. I live in London, work in The City, and commute in on the train, so there are a lot of people around.

It helps me to make my home as much of an oasis of calm as is possible. My husband and I have separate bathrooms and dressing rooms, and separate home offices (and yes, I know this is a luxury.) We take time out alone when we want, with the other taking over the child care, to get some space.

Listening to music alone helps, as does reading.

What? Do you mean 30 million? Where did you get 3 million from? There were 5m people in England alone in 1700.

To be fair, I can still walk out of my door for 5 minutes and experience birdsong trees, wildflowers and a few Bronze Age burial barrows.

Please don’t suggest this! It’s got way busier in the last decade!

Lying in bed and have bloody helicopters circling

Have recently moved to a new family home in the middle of nowhere to get some peace. I open the windows and all I can hear are the birds. And some cows !