Stressed? Don’t feel alone if you are – in our modern world, stress is increasingly common. For many, it’s a part of their day-to-day life.

But does it have to be this way?

Almost certainly not, and the more stressed you are, the more your health and wellbeing are likely to suffer.

But according to a new research paper from evolutionary anthropologists at Loughborough University and the University of Zurich the chronic stress that many of us suffer from is vastly impacted by the modern lives we live.

In the study, which was recently published in the journal Biological Reviews, the researchers point out just how much the environments that we live have changed over what is, in evolutionary terms, a very short space of time.

We don’t just have houses, we have apartments in tall buildings, surrounded by tall buildings, and we go to work (and sit down all day) in another tall building. We’re surrounded by noise pollution, air pollution, light pollution, and everywhere we look we’re being blasted with advertisements – all while we inhale processed food at our desks.

And our poor bodies aren’t adapted to this constant demand, the stimulation all around us, leading to constant stress, as researcher Colin Shaw explains in a statement:

“In our ancestral environments, we were well adapted to deal with acute stress to evade or confront predators. The lion would come around occasionally, and you had to be ready to defend yourself – or run. The key is that the lion goes away again.”

But what happens if the threat – the lion – doesn’t go away?

In our modern lives, we’re not chased by lions. But in this case, the lion is social media, or work, or money, or health concerns – and it is chasing you day and night.

As Daniel Longman continues, this has a significant effect on your nervous system:

“Our body reacts as though all these stressors were lions. Whether it’s a difficult discussion with your boss or traffic noise, your stress response system is still the same as if you were facing lion after lion. As a result, you have a very powerful response from your nervous system, but no recovery.”

How to solve this? Well it’s going to be thousands of years until our human bodies are sufficiently evolved to take all these stressors in our stride. But what can help is getting back to our ancestral roots, by spending time in nature and embracing its power.

As Shaw notes:

“Biological adaptation is very slow. Longer-term genetic adaptations are multigenerational – tens to hundreds of thousands of years. We need to get our cities right – and at the same time regenerate, value and spend more time in natural spaces.”

A stroll through the woods, anyone?

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