More and more people are feeling stressed and anxious in recent years, according to research published by the American Psychiatric Association.
There are many reasons for these heightened levels, from increasing costs to political uncertainty to our reliance on smartphones with near-constant notifications. But experts say the phone-based interconnectedness, in particular, is raising “low-level stress,” which can have major impacts on both our mental health and physical health.
Low-level stress is stress that essentially constantly simmers under the surface. You may not even clock it as stress at all; it feels more like stimulation. This type of stress is “something that’s becoming more apparent, especially with how interconnected we are,” said Dr. Jace Reed, the director of emergency psychiatry at Cedars Sinai in California.
Think about it: You likely wake up to an alarm on your phone. A phone that has near-constant news alerts and social media pushes. You also then likely use your phone for work, where emails and requests from co-workers come in at all hours. “And so this just adds to our baseline stress levels,” Reed explained.
How can you tell the difference between low-level stress and just the day-to-day life stress?
