Paradoxically, the feeling of accelerated aging most often affects people between 18 and 34 years of age. It is this group that most intensively experience stress in everyday functioning. A nationwide study conducted on a sample of 1060 people shows that as much as 54 percent respondents are admired to feel stress at least once a week, and 22 percent. He struggles with him every day.
This phenomenon is not limited to subjective feelings. According to expert opinion, stress actually accelerates the aging process at the biological level.
– Stress not only affects the subjective feeling of aging. Accelerates biological and mental processes, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, sleep disorders, depression and a decrease in cognitive ability. Life in chronic tension receives energy and a sense of agency, and ignoring this state of affairs realistically reduces the time of healthy functioning – comments dr hab. n. med. Andrzej Silczuk, psychiatrist, expert in multi.life.
Daily voltage sources
The analysis of the causes of stress among Poles reveals that The biggest problem is excess duties and lack of timeto which 48 percent indicate respondents. Almost equally often (47 percent), information overload and excess stimuli are mentioned as a voltage source. The pressure of family, professional and social obligations (45 percent) is in third place.
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A significant stress factor is also constant worrying about health (42 percent), Sleep problems (35 percent) and the need to make many decisions in a short time (36 percent). The uncertain financial situation affects 33 percent. respondents, while conflicts at work and tension in family relations, although less frequently indicated, still constitute a problem for 17 and 21 percent respectively. respondents.
Women more exposed to stressful “aging”
The results of the study indicate clear differences between sexes in the field of experiencing stress. Women more often than men feel the “aging” mechanism caused by stress (40 % compared to 34 percent). They also more often report overloading of duties (53 percent of women “often or very often” up to 41 % of men) and pressure of obligations and expectations (50 % to 40 %).
A particularly clear difference concerns information overload, which is declared by 54 percent women against 39 percent men. This shows that it is women who feel the effects of constant information noise and pressure associated with the need to make decisions.
Challenge for employers and the health system
Experts emphasize that the problem requires action at many levels. Prevention must combine both individual activities, such as training of emotion regulation techniques, sleep hygiene or regular physical and organizational activity.
– Stress today results from both personal and professional situations, as well as from objective realities of changing and dynamic reality that we simply have no influence on. That is why it is important to learn how to manage stress, because such skill is an indispensable element of prevention in the field of physical and mental health – sums up dr hab. Andrzej Silczuk.
Employers are increasingly seeing the relationship between stress stress and the growing scale of sickness absence. According to the McKinsey report, 59 percent employees expect support from the company in the area of mental health. The Willis Towers Watson survey shows that as much as 66 percent The organization today recognizes care for emotional well -being as priority and plans to extend the support offer by 2027.
The younger generation requires special attention. Statistics regarding sick leave indicate that mental problems most often affect people aged 30-39, and the data of the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences suggest a deterioration of the situation along with the entrance to the labor market of people between 18 and 24 years of age.
In the context of the upcoming World Wellbeing Day. As Multi.Life shows, ignoring stress not only affects the quality of life, but literally deprives us of years of health.
