Stress - Is life more stressful today?

[teachercd]

Just now, TGHusker said:

Yes, if it is that call from family far away that you aren't expecting - first thought is 'What happened now?"

Yeah for sure!

[knapplc]

3 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

It would also be less stressful if we turn off talk radio and yes 24 hour news - whether it be CNN or Fox.   I got off talk radio some time ago and my wife noticed a big difference..  

 

Cutting cable, and thus getting rid of all of those news channels, has been a good thing for me. Forced me to branch out and get my news from more sources than the one or two habitual ones I'd watch.

 

I used to think CNN was fantastic and the criticism of it was unwarranted. After being away from the TV side of it for a while, catching it on at someone else's house shows how much of a train wreck it can be. Seeing it with different eyes is a good thing. Not seeing it at all is better.

[Guy Chamberlin]

I'm a Baby Boomer with Gen Z children and Millennial colleagues. Using my vast accumulated wisdom, I'm saying the world right now is more stressful for every demographic.

 

I think they've done empirical research on this. It's not our imagination. 

[TGHusker]

12 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

Cutting cable, and thus getting rid of all of those news channels, has been a good thing for me. Forced me to branch out and get my news from more sources than the one or two habitual ones I'd watch.

 

I used to think CNN was fantastic and the criticism of it was unwarranted. After being away from the TV side of it for a while, catching it on at someone else's house shows how much of a train wreck it can be. Seeing it with different eyes is a good thing. Not seeing it at all is better.

Good points.  Yes, now if I happen to hear a bit of talk radio on the car radio - it drives me   It is amazing how you can see the bias once you step away and open up your mind to viewpoints that are different. It doesn't mean you are tossed by every whim but that your not frozen into a positions - 'have to agree wt the GOP or the Dem line of thinking on everything'

 

The bold

[FrankWheeler]

The hell with reality! Let's have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let's all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality -- and if old reality ever does pop out and say Boo we'll all get busy and pretend it never happened.

[TGHusker]

Speaking of 'adulting'  this article says there is scientific (brain scan) evidence we don't become adults until we are in our 30s - along wt the normal disclaimer that we are all different in our development.

My wife is still waiting on me to reach adulthood.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-47622059

Quote

 

Professor Peter Jones, from Cambridge University, said: "What we're really saying is that to have a definition of when you move from childhood to adulthood looks increasingly absurd.

"It's a much more nuanced transition that takes place over three decades."

He added: "I guess systems like the education system, the health system and the legal system make it convenient for themselves by having definitions."

When you reach 18, you can vote, buy alcohol, get a mortgage and are also treated as an adult if you get in trouble with the police.

Despite this, Professor Jones says he believes experienced criminal judges recognise the difference between a 19-year-old defendant and a "hardened criminal" in their late 30s.

"I think the system is adapting to what's hiding in plain sight, that people don't like (the idea of) a caterpillar turning into a butterfly," he said.

"There isn't a childhood and then an adulthood. People are on a pathway, they're on a trajectory."

Prof Jones is one of a number of experts who are taking part in a neuroscience meeting hosted by the Academy of Medical Sciences in Oxford.

 

 

[TGHusker]

The 'happiest countries' index has the USA at # 19 -   those socialistic Nordic countries are leading the pack - "So Happy Together"   (Turtles for those of you not familiar wt 60s music)

 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6826655/The-worlds-happiest-countries-REVEALED-Finland-comes-South-Sudan-bleakest.html

 

Quote

 

He said the happiness revealed in the survey derives from healthy amounts of both personal freedom and social security that outweigh residents having to pay 'some of the highest taxes in the world.'

'Briefly put, (Nordic countries) are good at converting wealth into well-being,' Wiking said. The finding on the happiness of immigrants 'shows the conditions that we live under matter greatly to our quality of life, that happiness is not only a matter of choice.'

Four different countries have held top ten spots in the five most recent reports- Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and now Finland.

All the top countries tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity. 

 

 

Not so happy here in the USA  - even the link between social media stress

Quote

 

The US was 11th in the first index and has never been in the top ten. Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, explained this citing several factors.

He said: 'The long-term rise in U.S. income per person has been accompanied by several trends adverse to subjective well-being (SWB): worsening health conditions for much of the population; declining social trust; and declining confidence in government. 

'Whatever benefits in SWB might have accrued as the result of rising incomes seem to have been offset by these adverse trends... [It's] apparently due in part to the astoundingly large amount of time that young people are spending on digital media: smartphones, videogames, computers, and the like.

'The prevalence of addictions in American society seems to be on the rise, perhaps dramatically... They include gambling; social media use, video gaming, shopping, consuming unhealthy foods.

'These addictions, in turn, seem to be causing considerable unhappiness and even depression.'  

 

 

[mrandyk]

On 3/19/2019 at 9:57 AM, TGHusker said:

I saw a newscast last night on 'adulting'  I guess that is the new contemporary word.  There is an organization that is teaching millennial how to become adults - how to do the basic everyday things like unplugging a sink and basic around the house stuff or changing a tire to how to look for a job.  The story noted that millennial parents are partly to blame (of course) because we (some) were too busy trying to get their kids prepared for college by getting them involved in every sport and school activity that they didn't have time to teach kids the basics of life.  No time to really sit down around the dining table to talk about useful, needful things.    There is a youtube series of videos on the subject and books written on how to become an adult.  

 

adult·ing

/əˈdəltiNG,ˈaˌdəltiNG/

noun

informal

noun: adulting

1. the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.

I work in a credit union (you can call me a banker) and opened a simple savings account for one of our part-time tellers who was also going to grad school (straight from undergrad, so probably 21-22 years old) so that her wages could be easily accessed right there. She repeated a few times "wow, I'm adulting so hard right now" while filling out the one form we required, which only asked for contact info, SSN, and driver's license info. Maximum of 90 seconds to fill that thing out.

 

Somehow that task was a spectacle for her, and very much fits your given definition of 'adulting'. I'm sure this phenomenon isn't new to this generation but still it's astounding to me how poorly a parent can prepare their children for the world.

[TGHusker]

13 hours ago, mrandyk said:

I work in a credit union (you can call me a banker) and opened a simple savings account for one of our part-time tellers who was also going to grad school (straight from undergrad, so probably 21-22 years old) so that her wages could be easily accessed right there. She repeated a few times "wow, I'm adulting so hard right now" while filling out the one form we required, which only asked for contact info, SSN, and driver's license info. Maximum of 90 seconds to fill that thing out.

 

Somehow that task was a spectacle for her, and very much fits your given definition of 'adulting'. I'm sure this phenomenon isn't new to this generation but still it's astounding to me how poorly a parent can prepare their children for the world.

That is amazing -  I'm a credit manager for a manufacturing company - I sometimes come across the same thing wt applicants for jobs. 

[BigRedBuster]