Medium: Why We Glorify Stress and Why We Should Stop Doing it

A little bit of stress is probably a good thing because it kicks things into gear, protects us from harm, gets things done, but my question is, there is a large number of people who glorify it. Should we?

A little bit of stress is probably a good thing because it kicks things into gear, protects us from harm, gets things done, and honestly speaking, the human system works in a way that when we get a little stressed out, there’s an urgency, an adrenaline rush. Sometimes, we chase after that.

But what about the countless other things that we ignore, glorify, and pretend are not there? It could be a result of us having to contend with the daily traffic gridlock on the way to and from work. It could also be a result of conflict at home, financial problems, or just our kids kicking up storms of tantrums on a daily basis.

OR…there could simply be no reason for it because we imagined it.

Now, think about that for a moment to see if you’ve ever been in such situations?

We’re wired for movement and fear immobility

As with many in-depth studies, the most recent studies on stress are done within the United States. According to a recent one, 1 in every 5 employees is either experiencing or have experienced extreme cases of burnouts.

It’s quite unsettling for me to read that in those people, they tend to shut up, keep quiet and bear with it when they’re bothered by stress. Is it because it’s simply seen as a weakness? There’s an Instagram account @mastinkipp that I follow and he posts snippets of his talks on the social media account.

He contends that people have a hard time sitting still when they’re wired. He argues that we’re made for mobility, for movement, for action, for doing something…anything. And that is why so many people fail at meditation. Human beings have a morbid fear of being immobile because being immobile, to our brain, means ‘we will be eaten’.

And if you think about it, you’ll find it to be true too. That’s the primal part of our brain that evolution has yet to improve on.

That’s why we run around so much, we try to get as many things done within the shortest period of time as possible, and we end up being stressed because we’re wearing too many hats and juggling too many balls all at the same time.

We don’t want to be viewed as ‘not doing our best’. We yearn for praise, compliments, and we want people to see that we’re getting shit done.

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This article was first published on my Medium account so, if you’re interested in reading the rest of this article, hit this link! You have my word that this is not an ad or promotional article. It’s just something I think we can think about at a deeper level.

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Image credit: A drop of sunshine by Radu Florin on Unsplash