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Today’s level of stress is far greater than that experienced by any previous generation.
Imagine this: today, we have the best living conditions in human history. And the greatest opportunities.
We are safer than ever, protected from the natural elements, with food available in abundance practically everywhere… And yet, we experience the highest levels of stress.
Stress has two dimensions: intensity + duration.
If a bear is chasing you, as our ancestors were sometimes chased, your cortisol levels may shoot extremely high. If a car brakes dangerously close to you and your child, cortisol can shoot through the roof. But the human body is designed to withstand moments of enormous stress. Evolution, nature, or God – whichever you prefer – did not intend for human beings to live with constantly elevated stress. And it doesn’t even have to be extremely high. Cortisol naturally fluctuates throughout the day, but when we are constantly under stress, those fluctuations occur at a higher level. That is chronic stress, and it is far more damaging than momentarily being chased by a bear.
The problem with stress is not just its intensity, but also its duration. The immediate level of cortisol elevation is less important compared to the length of time cortisol remains elevated – in other words, living with regularly elevated stress. Previous generations experienced periods of extreme stress followed by periods of rest. Modern humans almost never completely switch off their stress-response system.
Dopamine and stress
That is why the pursuit of quick dopamine is greater than ever today. Very often, that pursuit is also a natural response of our biology to our unnatural exposure to stress.
That is why today we have more tendencies toward unhealthy eating and harmful habits than ever before. Accompanied by more chronic diseases.
The best-selling products are ultra-processed foods, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and psychoactive substances. Social media receives enormous attention – providing quick dopamine (“anti-stress”) surges.
We need to understand that our way of life is itself inherently stressful, and that stress comes from sources we often do not even suspect – sources we welcome with open arms. This is not even a question of character. If you lived somewhere where the temperature was 60 degrees, you would feel extremely uncomfortable and exhausted even if you had excellent character. Despite exceptional character, 60 degrees is a burden in itself. The same is true of today’s culture.
This does not mean that we cannot do anything about it. On the contrary, we can. But we must understand that it is not entirely about us in the sense that “we are to blame.” The search for someone to blame is itself already a symptom of high stress. When we calm down, we do not think about chasing down those responsible, even if we ourselves are responsible. Instead, we look for a solution. A person under stress fundamentally thinks more about blame than about solutions.
Modern society, with all its comforts and dazzling opportunities, is more stress-inducing than ever before – stress today remains elevated much more often and for much longer. On top of this comes the constant stimulation of the dopamine centers, which directly dulls dopamine’s (anti-stress) effect. When dopamine decreases or becomes less effective, the effects of cortisol become more pronounced.
Who will experience more harmful consequences to their mental state:
The child who was chased by a bear 35,000 years ago and survived?
Or the child growing up today with a phone in their hand?
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The child chased by the bear went on living happily and peacefully after the incident. No anger, no crying, no resentment.
The child whose phone is taken away as a “punishment” experiences “trauma” every time because their pleasure centers have become fused to the phone. The child may then scream, cry, become angry, change their behavior, become bitter, remember the incident, and may come up with various clever “tricks” to avoid finding themselves in the same situation again.
Which stress damages quality of life more? The situation involving the phone – but not because of the device itself, rather because of the state in which the dopamine centers have become “fused” to the phone.
Another example. If you regularly drink coffee in the morning, try skipping it and see how you feel. Sit without coffee for 3–4 hours. What you will feel are the effects of your dopamine centers being “fused” to caffeine.
This is precisely the extent to which we must strike back through deliberate, intentional, and healthy steps. This is precisely the extent to which we are obligated to work on ourselves.
Striking back
Why are we today far safer from the natural elements and natural disasters than we were 100,000 years ago? Because we struck back through deliberate, intelligent steps and gained such control over the material elements around us that protection from cold, rain, floods, bears, and similar threats is now something we barely think about during the day, let alone something that dominates our lives and survival. We have overcome the material elements – we have excellent homes, protection from weather conditions, and so on – because we worked toward it. Just as we worked to overcome the threats that existed in our environment, today we must work to overcome threats of another kind, far more dangerous because they are disguised as part of society, ourselves, and everyday life.
It is possible to overcome these kinds of threats. And imagine this: we do not necessarily have to eliminate the threats themselves from society. Just as we never had to eliminate cold weather and heavy rain from nature. It is enough to eliminate harmful habits and adopt healthy ones. It is possible through a systematic approach.
It would certainly be desirable to eliminate society’s destructive influences from our way of life, but do not let the attractiveness of that idea deceive you. Because the very organizations that present themselves as the answer to such elimination indoctrinate the world into believing that the solution lies in society itself – that in order for things to get better, we should wait for harmful habits to be eliminated at the societal level. What a foolish idea. Thousands of years ago, people appealed to the gods for nature’s favor, but at the same time, they built and worked on their homes and societies. And for the most part, we overcame the threats of nature because our ancestors did not wait.
Today, people constantly “turn to” sources of quick dopamine and, for the most part, do not work on their character and psychophysical resilience – while these very sources of quick dopamine drain their character and psychophysical resilience.
So we still have to build better places to live. Our body is our first home. And that is where the main protection against society’s threats lies. A healthy body, a strong mind, and a healthy spirit. These three elements are under attack from every direction today.
That is our mission. We work with a functional system through which a person can overcome unhealthy societal tendencies and rise above them.
Only then can a person be free, healthy, and live life to its fullest strength.
