So, as you know I traverse the WWW and I stumble on articles all the time pertaining to stress anxiety and depression. The American Psychological Association has just released a report on stress in America. I thought it was a great read, a link to the report is here This will open up as a PDF, FYI.
Obviously, stress affects all cultures, but this particular study deals with U.S. population only. I’m pretty sure the data is transferrable, most of us worry about the same things. Here is a summary of the top 3 things that are causing stress in America in 2019.
- 71% of the adults surveyed said mass shootings
- 69% of the adults surveyed said Health care
- 62% said the current political climate
Now the report goes into detail on many subjects. The survey was conducted via 4000 (roughly) adults for the time period of 8.1.19 – 9.3.19. I think this is a decent sampling. It’s always prudent to put surveys in context of who is likely to reply, the time period and events during, demographics etc. Meaning this may or may not be representative of the populace as a whole at any given time.
However, the top 3 are logical. It seems every year or, so we have a mass shooting or event in the U.S. of random death. As a % of the total deaths via violent crimes its not that big but it’s the randomness that worries people. Health care is always a worry, because you never know when a major health event is going to occur.
Politics is an outlier for me, let me tell you why. What is happening now is akin to what happens when a snow storm is coming. The news becomes dyer, there is foreboding music in the background, etc. so on. The political strife in the U.S. right now is real, but it is to a degree sensationalized. On a day to day basis we are all going about our business, there are not rampant running brawls of groups of liberal’s vs conservatives
Trump is divisive, and the other side to their discredit has played along willfully. The economy is good, companies are making money, we are disengaging from foreign wars. I understand people are worried, but a lot of that worry is misplaced. There are enough checks and balances in the U.S. political system to make sure no one person, or group can circumvent the institutions. It was an interesting read, well presented. I’m going to be interested to see what the survey for 2020 says as that is an election year.
