How stress affects health, mood, and behaviour in powerful ways. A compassionate, science-based look at how modern life shapes our stress.
If you feel like life has become louder, faster, and more demanding over the past few years, you’re not imagining it. Constant technology use eliminates downtime, while social media feeds bombard us with endless information, ongoing comparison to others, and instill a fear of missing out. Additionally, financial circumstances and instability, intense work demands, global uncertainty, and a reduced sense of close community, creates a relentless, high-pressure environment.
Elevated stress has woven itself into the very fabric of modern life; into work and career, personal finances, family relationships, parenting methods, medical and health challenges, and the neverending background hum of being on high alert! For many people, stress isn’t an occasional spike in mental demand anymore. It’s the very ocean of water they are swimming in.
And that really matters! Simply put, human physiology never evolved to live in a state of constant high alert and relentless pressure.
What do we actually mean by “stress”?
The World Health Organization defines stress as "a state of worry or tension caused by a difficult situation"¹. Importantly, stress isn’t defined by the situation or circumstances itself, but by whether we currently feel we have the internal resources, energy and motivation to cope with it².
Stress can present itself in a few overlapping ways:
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Mental stress - worry, rumination, feeling mentally overloaded.
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Emotional stress - anxiety, frustration, anger, or feeling overwhelmed.
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Physical stress - illness, injury, poor sleep, overworked, low energy, or even excessive exercise.
Two people may be faced with almost identical challenges, but they may experience them in very different ways. One may be able to move steadily forward with determination and drive, while the other may be almost immobilised and overwhelmed by them. Very importantly, both responses are valid and real. The individual who copes better, should diminish the very real experience of the person who is feeling overwhelmed...but so often this is exactly what happens.
Coping capacity refers to the mental, emotional, and behavioral efforts to manage the stressful demands, while resilience is the capacity to adapt to adversity, and to in effect 'bounce back' from challenges, and even grow from the experience.
Stress is common, and its becoming more prevalent
Large population surveys paint a clear picture: feeling chroncially stressed is no longer the exception.
In the UK, around three-quarters of adults report feeling so stressed at some point in the past year that they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope, and more than 80% feel stressed at least some of the time during a typical week³.
Women (89%) consistently report higher stress levels than men (76%), both in general life and in the workplace³.
Similar patterns show up internationally. In the US, money-related stress affects nearly three-quarters of adults, and overall stress levels have risen steadily over recent years, especially among those in the population without sufficient emotional support⁴.
This isn’t about individual weakness. It’s a systemic issue that is affecting all parts of modern society.
Work, money, and the emotional load of caring
When people are asked what stresses them most, the answers are rarely surprising, but they are revealing. The most commonly reported stressors, in no priority order, include:
Career or work pressures
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The health of loved ones
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Personal health
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Financial concerns³
These are not trivial worries. They relate to things in life that really matter. They’re deeply human concerns often tied to responsibilities, love and caring, and future uncertainty. Stress frequently arises not because people don’t care enough, but because they care a lot.
Stress and the body: a quiet, cumulative effect
The body is remarkably adaptive. Short bursts of stress are not inherently harmful, the whole purpose of the stress response is to activate the physiology of the body to cope with the increased demands that come with managing stressful circumstances. In short doses, the stress response is a protective mechanism. The issue arises when stress becomes chronic, persistent and unrelenting.
Cardiovascular health
Large international studies show that psychosocial stress (33%) contributes meaningfully to an increased heart disease risk, alongside more familiar factors such as rasied cholesterol(49%), smoking (36%) and abdominal obesity (20%)⁶.
Metabolic health
Chronic stress influences dietary behaviours, physical activity, and body weight, amplifying existing vulnerabilities. Chronic stress is associated with:
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Increased appetite and preference for calorie-dense foods
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Higher overall body weight
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Greater accumulation of abdominal and visceral fat
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A higher risk of obesity⁷⁸
Mental health
The overlap between stress, anxiety, and depression is substantial. Among people experiencing chronic, high stress:
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Over half report depressive symptoms
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Around 60% report anxiety
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More than a third report feeling lonely³
How stress changes behaviour
One of the most misunderstood aspects of stress is that it doesn’t just affect how we feel, it can influence and alter our behaviour.
Under periods of elevated stress:
Nearly half of adults report overeating calorie dense, highly palatable foods
Almost a third report increased alcohol consumption
There tends to be increased social withdrawal
Stress is even associated with self-harm or suicidal thoughts³ ⁵
These changes in behaviour are fairly predicatable, commonly occuring stress coping strategies. Sure they are fairly negative coping strategies, but coping strategies they are!
Why stress feels harder now
Feeling over-stressed doesn’t mean something is broken within, it usually means your biological systems have been battling too much for too long. Modern stressors are likely to be very different from evolutionary stressors.
The cuase of stress is much less likely to be serious physical danger and more likely to be:
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Chronic and persistent
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Unpredictable and changing
Mentally taxing
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Emotionally complex
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Difficult to escape
Employment and career pressures are repetitive. Financial pressures linger. Personal time is eroded. Quality time for relationships is limited. Social roles become blurred. Recovery time shrinks. The nervous system rarely gets a clear signal that it’s safe to stand down and switch over to the rest and digest mode.
Calming conclusion
If you are under chronic high stress, it is important to accept that there is nothing “weak” or “broken” about your thoughts, feelings and responses.
Experiencing stress is a real physiological process involving both hormones and the nervous system that signals to your system to manage the high demands that are currently placed upon it.
Understanding what stress is and how it presents will not fix the problem overnight. But it does something important: it replaces negative self-talk and guilt with self-awareness.
And that’s often the first step toward positive change...if, and when, the time is right.
Related video interview:
You may wish to dive a bit deeper into this topic by watching a video interview I did with a leading expert in the field of Stress physiology, Dr Alan Christianson:
References
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World Health Organization. Stress: Questions and Answers. 2023.
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Mendelson T. Stress, Emotional. Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. 2013.
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Samele C et al. Stress: Are we coping? Mental Health Foundation. 2018.
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American Psychological Association. Stress in America. 2014–2018.
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Sandi C, Haller J. Stress and the social brain. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2015.
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Yusuf S et al. INTERHEART Study. Lancet. 2004.
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Ryan KK. Stress and Metabolic Disease. National Academies Press. 2014.
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Geda NR et al. Work stress, life stress and obesity. Arch Public Health. 2022.
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