is stress a modern phenomenon?
by Wendy Moore
'Life is speeding up. Everyone is getting unwell.' It sounds like a typical comment you might overhear in a busy office, overcrowded train or noisy pub. In fact the words were written by an anonymous citizen of Rome in AD 53.
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Most of the time it certainly seems that stress is a modern phenomenon. For lots of us life seems to have more demands with less time to meet them. At the same time, stress is in the news more than ever. But are we really more stressed than our ancestors or are we just more aware of the issue?
While academics argue over the question, the Hymers family from Yorkshire have been 'back in time' to find out for themselves. The family – Lyn and Michael, their daughter Kirstie, and grandsons Benjamin, 10 and Thomas, seven – took on the role of a wartime family for Channel 4's 2001 series The 1940s House.
war pressures
For nine weeks the Hymers, from Otley near Leeds, recreated 1940s life in a specially converted semi in Kent. They were forced to survive on meagre wartime rations, without any of the modern labour-saving devices like washing machines and microwaves that we now take for granted, and away from the demands of telephones, computers and mobile phones. At the same time they were woken frequently in the middle of the night to head for the garden air-raid shelter during mock bombing attacks. So was life more stressful?
Definitely not, says Lyn, 52. She acknowledges that without actual bombs falling and family members away at the front, the family had no true experience of wartime strains. But the war aside, life certainly seemed less stressful in the 1940s, she argues. 'It was hard physically,' she says, recalling hours washing at the kitchen sink, cooking from fresh ingredients and cleaning without modern aids. 'But not mentally.'
'For women especially they had a more clearly defined role. They knew what was expected of them. They didn't have to juggle career and foreign holidays and children,' she says. 'They just had to keep house.'
The war, she says, brought anxieties over food shortages, worries about men being away fighting and sleep deprivation from repeated air raids. But there was a closer community spirit too. 'People were more stoical. They just got on with it,' she argues. She also believes life was less materialistic. 'The more possessions you have the more complicated life becomes,' she adds.
lessons for the 21st century
So impressed were the Hymers with their time travelling experience, that they have brought their new insight into modern pressures back into the 21st century.
'My priorities are different,' says Lyn, who was shocked on returning home to see the family's three televisions and other modern paraphernalia. She has now decided not to return to work and to concentrate on keeping house, despite this meaning less money. She also shops and cooks daily instead of making weekly trips to the supermarket for ready-made dinners. 'I live more on a day-to-day basis instead of hankering after something else or worrying about the future,' she says.
what the experts say
Experts are divided over whether stress has really got better or worse. Certainly a ground-breaking study on stress published in 2000 by Bristol University, The Scale of Occupational Stress, estimated that the number of people reporting themselves stressed had increased by 30% between 1990 and 1995 – although it admitted this may simply reflect more awareness of the problem. Their survey found that one in five people described themselves as 'very' or 'extremely' stressed. Our own Channel 4 survey also revealed that people believe stress has worsened. A total 41% of workers said their stress levels had risen in the previous 12 months. Read more of the survey details at our stressful lives.
But historian Juliet Gardiner, who advised the Channel 4 series, believes the stresses were neither better nor worse in the past – they were simply different. There were huge pressures on working class families during the depression of the 1930s, she points out, while the war also brought extreme stress for all, in the form of sleep deprivation and air raids.
For many women in the war, she says, roles were not clearly defined. Many struggled to run their homes as well as taking on jobs left behind by men. But she also believes that women in the 1950s, who often became bored and restless as labour-saving devices made their housework easier, had stressful lives. 'I think the stresses are just very different now,' she says.
Stress advisor Dr Malcolm VandenBurg is also doubtful stress has got worse. The first mention of the term stress that he knows of, he says, came in 1955 at a conference run by the Royal Society of Medicine which explored the 'modern day phenomenon of stress'. However, primitive humans also obviously suffered stress at being chased by wild animals.
Modern day concern about stress may simply be better recognition of the problem, says Dr VandenBurg, who teaches stress management workshops and is co-author of the book Positive under Pressure. Although we now work longer hours in the UK than the rest of Europe, this is nothing like the 12 hours a day Victorians spent working down mines or in factories, he points out. Yet we may feel more under stress, he believes, because we have less opportunity today to relieve stress through exercise.
However, Cary Cooper, the renowned stress expert and Bupa professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Manchester's Institute of Science and Technology, is convinced that stress today has worsened. He agrees that stress has been a human factor since primitive times and that many periods in history – such as the two world wars – have brought extreme pressures.
But he believes changes in work and society in the last few decades mean we do now suffer more stress. The fact families have become more mobile means we have less community support from other family members and neighbours who used to act as stress counsellors. At the same time, as most women now work, the roles of men and women are less clear, causing instability and confusion.
'We feel stressed and we don't know where to turn to for help,' says Professor Cooper.
help and info
See our other features on stress for more resources.organisations
Body Stress Release
9 Shrublands Drive
Lightwater GU18 5QS
Tel: 01276 475651
E-mail: Paul@bodystressrelease.co.uk
Website: www.bodystressrelease-uk.co.uk
Body Stress Release is a gentle technique that encourages the body to release stored tensions, which usually manifest as backache, headaches, postural distortions or fatigue. It is suitable for all ages.
The Stress Management Society
PO Box 193
Harrow HA1 3ZE
Tel: 0870 199 3260 (National rate) (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm)
E-mail: info@stress.org.uk
Website: www.stress.org.uk
Provides help and support through both paying services and free guides, including an online 'desk-yoga' guide and a free stress management guidebook.
websites
Exam Stress
www.childline.org.uk/Majorriseinexamstress.asp
Easily forgotten by adults is how much stress today's children and young people are put under by the constant cycle of assessment at school. This Childline report explains childrens feelings and provides links to further support.
Health and Safety Executive
www.hse.gov.uk/stress/research.htm
Several key papers on work-related stress research from the Government's HSE.
Making the Modern World
www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/learning_modules/psychology/02.TU.01
A learning module about stress, its development and effects including sections on our stressful lives, stress in the workplace and the evolution of the stress concept.
The Site
www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/mentalhealth/anxietyandstress/copingwithstress
General information on identifying what is causing you to feel stressed and how to deal with it, including some stress-busting tips.
reading
Mind Guide to Managing Stress |
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Work Stress – the making of a modern epidemic by David Wainwright and Michael Calnun (Open University Press, 2002) |
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(updated September 2002, resources updated April 2005)
