Our Chicago: How To Cope with Stress In America
CHICAGO (WLS) -- It's not a secret - Americans are stressed. A nationwide survey called "Stress in America" for the American Psychological Association provides a picture of just how serious the problem is.
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means a great deal of stress - nearly a quarter of adults in the U.S. rated their average stress levels between 8 and 10.
In 2019, just 19-percent of adults said their stress levels were that high. The Stress In America survey also found that the majority of adults, 67 percent, downplayed their stress, saying their problems aren't quote "bad enough" to be stressed about.
April is National Stress Awareness Month. The goal, bringing attention to the negative impact of stress.
Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler, a clinical psychologist and associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, spoke about the impact of stress on people's health.
"Stress is the physical and emotional tension that a person feels when the demands of a situation outweigh the resources," Dr. Burnett-Zeigler said. "So, it's what a person feels if they have too many things to do and not enough time. Too many bills to pay and not enough money. Or a problem that's in front of them that they don't feel like they have the knowledge or the wherewithal in order to solve."
Stress is something everybody experiences from time to time as a normal response to everyday situations, she said. Stress and anxiety are often thought to be the same, but are actually different.
"Anxiety, on the other hand, is when stress has been mismanaged and internalized. And leads to this global, excessive fear and worry that is out of control," she said.
If you are looking for advice to manage stress, Dr. Burnett-Zeigler says "pay attention, pause, slow down and breathe."
"When we are stressed we're wound up, we're on autopilot, we're going from one thing to another. Stress is impacting not only our moods and our body," she said. "When stress impacts our body, it impacts our health. And so it's important we pay attention to our minds, we pay attention to our bodies and we manage the physiological response to stress."
The Mayo Clinic reports that stress that's not dealt with can lead to health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, obesity and diabetes.
"Sometimes the discomfort of the stress is overwhelming," said Alexa James, chief executive officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Chicago.
"Everyone's going to have to numb sometimes," James said. "Sometimes it feels too much. The challenge is if we're numbing too much. The concern is, that's actually causing too much stress. We're not learning to move through the process with healthy coping strategies like movement, yoga, breath, connecting with people, breathing, relaxing and insight."
It's important to remember that stress can be helpful.
"Stress can be a way in which our body is saying like 'pause, what more information do we need here, what questions do we need to ask, what am I powerless over, and how do I advocate for myself?' So I think we do need to reframe a little bit," James said. "Stress feels yucky, I get it. But what we want to remember is that we can't get rid of it. It's surrounding us all the time. So, how do we manage through it? Because the truth is, the more we manage through it, the more resilient we become."
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