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Why Have We Become So Anxious As Humans?
The Consequences Of The World We Have Built
I Remember a Time...
When I Felt Constantly Anxious about My Life.
I Thought...
That is Just How it Is...
Life is Full of Anxiety...
It is a Part of Being Human.
As I Grew Up...
I Began to Discover My Identity Better and Grew Tremendously...
Figured Out How to Experience Less Anxiety.
Then, I recall seeing My (Now) Sister-in-Law preparing for a Large Project in her Senior Year of High School...
And I Remember Thinking...
Wow...
Her Levels of Anxiety seem Disproportionate to the Assignment.
She is Smart and Talented, and was Overly Prepared for the Assignment.
Yet...
Anxiety Dominated Every Aspect of Her Life.
It was around that Point where I Began to See that Anxiety was Spreading So Much Further...
This was Not the Normal for Me and those I Grew Up with Only a Couple Years Before.
Then...
Last Night, I saw a Quote that Really Struck Me as Relevant...
"The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s.” - Scott Stossel
Now...
I have not Delved Deep Enough into the Scientific Literature to Confirm is this is "True" based on the Data...
But...
My Lived Experience, and the Very Clear Data that I am Seeing in the World of Business seem to Indicate that there is Some Validity to the Idea...
That We, as Humans, have Become Significantly More Anxious in Today's World.
But Why?
What has Caused Us to Become So Anxious?
And Importantly...
What are the Consequences of these Levels of Anxiety?
To Understand This Problem...
We First have to Understand "What" is Causing Anxiety.
The Challenge with that?
It is Complicated...
Extremely Complicated.
But to Simplify it as Much as Possible, we can look at One Specific Aspect of Psychophysiology...
Dis-Stress.
We All have Stressors that We Experience in Our Lives...
It is Unavoidable.
As Humans, We can Only Handle So Many Simultaneous Stressors at Any One Moment.
This is Known as Our "Stress Threshold".
If We are Below the Threshold...
We can Handle Our Stressors Well.
Maybe Not "Perfectly", but Well Enough to Overcome Them, Given Our Current Level of Skill and Ability.
But...
If We Go Above Our Stress Threshold...
We Begin to Go Into Dis-Stress.
When in Dis-Stress...
Our Bodies Begin to Go into Specific States of Being with a Few Different Names...
Default Modes.
Survival Modes.
Sympathetic Activation.
Fight-or-Flight States, sometimes also called the Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fawn Response.
All of these are Different Words Explaining a Similar State of Being...
Dis-Stress due to Moving Past Our Stress Threshold.
It is Here where Anxiety is Felt.
Now, Our Responses to Anxiety May Differ...
But Anxiety is Underlying this State of Dis-Stress.
And...
It Actually Goes Further in Our World Today.
When You Hit Dis-Stress...
It can Impact Your Stress Threshold.
Over Time...
If You Continue to Move Into Dis-Stress without Enough Eu-Stress (Good Stressors that We "Can" Handle Well)...
Our Ability to Handle Stressors Decreases...
Meaning Our Stress Threshold Decreases.
This Makes it So that Fewer Stressors Cause Us to Move into Dis-Stress.
This can Continue to Happen, Even to the Point Where We Experience "Constant" Dis-Stress...
Also Known as Chronic Dis-Stress.
Another Factor at Play is Our Baseline Stressors.
These are Stressors that We are Constantly Carrying from Any Number of Causes.
The More Stressors that Combine in Our Baseline Stressors...
The Smaller the Gap Becomes Between Our Baseline Stressors and Our Stress Threshold.
Which Creates a Dual Problem...
Simultaneously...
Our Baseline Stressors Can Increase...
And Our Stress Threshold Can Decrease.
Can You See the Problem?
If Both of these are Occurring...
Then We Begin to Descend into Constant, Chronic Dis-Stress...
And Anxiety Becomes Our Norm.
But it Still Gets Worse...
Because if these Trends Continue...
Where the Stress Threshold Continues to Decrease...
And the Baseline Stressors Continue to Increase...
Then Our Levels of Anxiety Will Worsen.
That is Simple and Basic Psychophysiology...
Or at Least as Simple as I can make it.
But this then begs the Question...
What is Causing Our Baseline Stressors to Increase?
This is Where it Becomes More Difficult to Answer because the Reality We are Facing in Today's World is that...
There are Many Factors Simultaneously Adding to Our Baseline Stressors.
Just to Name a Few...
Constant Negativity in News that Contributes to the Frequency Illusion of Constant Danger...
Corruption and Abuse of Powerful Leaders around the World...
Social Media that Purposefully Plays to the Worst of Humanity...
Processed Food and Farming Practices that have Made Food Less Nutrient, Causing Our Bodies to Get Fewer Needed Resources from the Same Amount of Food...
Synthetic Ingredients and Drugs that Cause More Damage than Help...
Addiction, both Physical and Emotional, that are Utilized Against Us Constantly in Most Types of Businesses...
The Epidemic of Loneliness that has Decimated a Sense of Community...
Fear and the Desire for a Sense of Belonging Being Weaponized Against Us...
Being Told that We Cannot Trust Anyone and that We Must Fight Solely for Ourselves...
Experiencing Constant Lies, Broken Promises, and Misinformation from People We are Supposed to Trust...
The Lack of Movement Causing Sedentary Lifestyles...
Poor Leadership Practices in Organizations based on Broken Models and False Ideology of How Business Works Best...
The Neurocardiological Impact of HRV Entrainment that can Literally Spread Feelings of Anxiety from One Individual to Another Individual...
The False Beliefs and Expectations of What it Means to be Human...
A Lack of Development of Understanding Our Psychological Identities in Today's World...
All of these...
And More...
Contribute to Our Baseline Stressors Increasing...
Causing Us to Constantly be Above Our Stress Threshold...
And Live in Chronic Dis-Stress.
The Consequences of All of This?
Worsening Physical Health.
Worsening Mental Health.
Worsening Communities.
Worsening Ability to Solve Problems.
Higher Likelihood to Make Poor Decisions Causing More Problems.
Increases in Burnout at Younger Ages.
Less Ability to Handle Emotional, Mental, and Physical Stressors.
Fear of the World.
Fear of Ourselves.
Anxiety.
Destruction.
Chaos.
Death.
None of these are Hyperbole or Embellishment...
We are Watching this Play Out Constantly in Today's World Across the Globe...
Occurring in Individuals at Younger and Younger Ages.
Heart Attack Diagnosed in a 16-Year-Old.
Alzheimer's Diagnosed in a 19-Year-Old.
Death by Burnout Diagnosed in a 26-Year-Old.
The Increase in Chronic Disease is Expected to Be the Cause of 86% of Deaths by 2050...
With an Increase in Multimorbidity, or Having Multiple Types of Chronic Disease.
These are the Consequences of the World We Have Built.
It is Why Anxiety has Spread...
And Will Continue to Spread.
If We are Not Careful Moving Forward...
This Spread Will Destroy Us.
But...
We Can Overcome the Spread of Anxiety.
It Is Possible.
But...
We Must Come Together, First, In Unity.
Only Together Can We Turn the Trends Around.
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So if We are to Overcome and Change the Trends on Anxiety…
How Do We Accomplish It?
The Solution is Simple…
But Understand Me Correctly…
“Simple” Is Not “Easy”.
Let Me Reapeat…
“Not” Easy.
I can Break Down the Process into Three Steps…
Simple.
But it Takes Work to “Do” It Successfully.
I Can Also Tell You This…
It Takes Longer if You Do Not have the Roadmap.
Trust Me…
It Took Me Years to Build the Roadmap because Others had Not Laid it Out.
Pieces Existed Here and There…
But there was Not a Singular Roadmap for Me.
But…
I have Worked with Others Through the Roadmap…
And it Took Them Significantly Less Time than it Took Me.
So, Let’s Look at the Roadmap.
Let’s Dive In…
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