Generation Stress

It's 8 a.m. on a Tuesday, you wake up, head flying off the pillow, drenched in sweat. That midterm you've been dreading has finally arrived. Your weak knees, aching stomach, twitching eyes and hands flying in a nervous manner indicate that you, my friend, are stressed. This all-too-common disorder (yes it is a disorder) is defined as a biological term for the consequences of the failure of a human or animal to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined. It includes a state of alarm and adrenalin production, short-term resistance as a coping mechanism, and exhaustion. That doesn't sound normal.

This generation, or "The New Breeds" as we will call them, has been baptized by fire in a way. Times are not like the 70s or 80s. We, people as a whole, are in a state of perpetual panic and worry. Whether through external stimulus or internal afflictions, each and every one of you reading this article is stressed out in some way. Scientists state that stress decreases our immune system and thus decreases our life expectancy. Notably, ‘Hostility' is the type of stress that most affects your life expectancy; it is a leading cause of heart disease. So the amount of stress that is inflicted upon us actually decreases our life expectancy and may be the reason you are sick all the time.

I conducted a visual survey. I sat in the lobby and watched my fellow students pass, each one unique in their own way and each one showing definitive signs of stress. With so much pressure to succeed, so much pressure to satisfy our own expectations, are we losing sight of the more important things? When was the last time you went out with a good friend or friends and just relaxed? No real direction, no set plans, just you and your buddies with the city that never sleeps at your disposal.

It has probably been longer than you originally thought. Don't let yourself be lost in the massive amounts of stress we get put through every day. This doesn't mean that you need to go binging to relieve stress or go on a full-blown sex weekend, that, my friend, brings more stress on than you realize.

With everything we have to do and the expectations we have to live up to how then can we relieve this culprit? For yourself and for those around you, I'm resurrecting an old saying: Take a chill pill. The world won't end if you take a day to reset and restructure your thoughts. Find out where it all went wrong and work things out. You will thank yourself later when you actually see healthy nails beginning to grow and the color returning to your face.