Partner Article

Stress and the City

Every individual has a finite capacity for handling stress created during childhood. The tougher the living conditions and lifestyle during childhood, the harder the mind has to work to survive and succeed and the more ‘switched on’ it becomes as a result.

Massive amounts of mental activity generate equally massive amounts of stress thus the mind has to develop a much greater capacity for handling the stress it generates.

People born and bred in major cities develop a far greater capacity for handling stress due to the extra mental activity required for successful city living. People raised in the country, on the other hand, require far less mental activity to succeed and have a lesser capacity for handling the stress they generate as a result.

Thus, people born in big cities with a busy lifestyle and a very active mind find they get bored quickly on beach holidays or after moving to the country; whereas people born in the country find it difficult to handle the extra stress generated by their mind as a result of the additional mental activity required to cope with life in a city.

So, if you’re a city girl or boy who’s starting to experience the side-effects of stress as a result of reaching your stress capacity threshold think twice about moving to the Country – switching off the mind is relatively easy; switching it back on is far more difficult.

As your mind starts to switch gear, tasks you once found easy will become more difficult and also take longer to complete; functionality will reduce as will performance and the side-effects you fled the city to avoid could start to re-appear.

So, if leaving the city’s not the necessarily the best idea, what is?

The best way to address the side-effects of stress such as poor concentration, feeling over-whelmed, itchy skin, foggy/muddled thinking and difficulty making decisions, is to understand the difference between negative and positive stress and the mental activity that generates each.

Identify problems your mind is working on and can’t actually solve. Pinpoint questions your mind is trying to answer and never will. Let go of impossible goals and sop following unrealistic dreams that society insists anyone can achieve.

As you address these areas of negative mental activity your stress levels will reduce and so, therefore, will the side-effects. Your mind, free of a useless load, will be able to perform at its best and do the job it was designed for – succeeding on your behalf.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Helen Wingstedt .