Signs and symptoms of stress

Signs of Stress

To take the second question first: no one will persuade me that, for the average individual in a Western country, modern living is more stressful than it was for his parents or his grandparents. We all have our private difficulties and sorrows, but at the present time, the average man’s expectations for long life and good health are greater than ever before. In fact, we are now at a stage where certain illnesses are the result of affluence rather than deprivation: for example, overeating leads to obesity, hypertension and heart-disease; excessive smoking to lung cancer; and excessive drinking to alcoholism. We may persuade ourselves that we have fundamental worries, but many of today’s problems come nowhere near the life-and-death level of those experienced by previous generations. So, I take more than a little convincing that mental illness is due to the increased pace of modern life