Stress is becoming more of an integral part of modern day society.  With everyone working longer hours, almost no time can be found for leisure, vacation, or just a day off.  The term “working vacation” has come into common use, and the term itself is a good indicator of not where society is headed, but already is.  Substantial evidence can be found supporting the idea that the stressful modern human lifestyle is contributing to the decline in the overall health of society.  If we, as a society, continue down the same path, the result will be increasing amounts of stress related disease.  It seems then, that our need, as a society, is for some genius to come along and invent a new lifestyle that is free of stress.  This better lifestyle would be a welcomed change to the modern way of life.

The environment of the modern day business world has been more competitive than a professional sports contest.  Within business, fierce competition is not exclusive with the competitors in the marketplace, but internal competition within the ranks exists as well.  Internal corporate politics have become a serious form of a one-upmanship competition because individual survival depends upon the salaries the corporations pay.  To move up the corporate ladder, one must be able to “prove” themselves to the higher-ups in charge, which is traditionally accomplished by doing much more work than is normally expected.  Since all employees have the desire to occupy the higher rungs of the corporate ladder, everyone can be found working longer and longer hours, thus setting the new standard of work performance.  When the annual performance reviews come along, everyone is quite shocked when all those extra hours yield nothing more than “average” performance, and the suggestion that next year’s performance should be better.  Any salary increase is usually minimal, followed by the usual lecture regarding budgetary constraints and economic conditions.  Suggestions by the management given to the employee are typically followed by the promise of a promotion and a raise next year if the goals are met.  When someone is finally promoted within the group, it is usually the person who was the least expected to move up within the ranks, and it is later discovered that he is the nephew of the vice-president down the hall.  This drives departmental morale to an all-time low, resulting in countless résumés and cover letters cranking out of printers after hours, e-mails being sent to every online employment website, and dedicated employees searching for better positions in new companies.  When someone finally does leave the corporation, they find themselves again starting at the bottom, only to find themselves in a more fierce game climbing the corporate ladder, with a new and different set of rules, and in a worse mess than the job they left.  The employee who left for that better situation quicky realizes that the grass is greener on the other side of the street because the dog has visited that yard more often.  The person who decides to stay, after giving 110% and finally due that promotion that they have been looking forward to, finds out through the grapevine that their position, along with the rest of the department, has been contracted out to consultants in India who cannot speak English.  At the same time, upper management pretends to know nothing about the situation, and the layoffs occur right before the holiday season, when no one is hiring.  As it turned out, the color of that special credit card did not matter much in impressing upper-level management after all.

In most households, two wage earners are generally needed to make the monthly budget balance.  With housing costs, utility costs, insurance premiums, college tuition, and other budget items outpacing any salary increases, other sources of income are required to maintain the same standard of living.  Additional sources often include a second job, a spouse going to work, or joining some multi-level marketing group promising six-figure incomes while working only ten hours a week.  Any of these usually result in even more stress, with any additional income earned ending up in the U.S. Treasury due to the new higher tax bracket and a daycare center to take care of the children during the longer working hours.  If any additional money manages to make its way to the savings account, the water heater breaks or the car is suddenly in need of an overhaul.  It is long forgotten that, in the 1960s, one wage earner is all that was required to support a family of five comfortably.

With the arrival of modern technology, everyone always seems to need the latest electronic toy.  Cell phones, MP3 players, faster internet connections, and GPS navigation devices are all required to become an active member of the in-crowd.  This is not limited to teenage social circles, but is evident among the adults as well.  In teenage circles, however, the reasons for needing the newer, more modern technology goes far beyond reasons most parents can comprehend.  These advanced reasons generally include indisputable facts such as their friends have one, or they will somehow feel left out.  Having a cell phone is not only important, but it must be the right cell phone, with the right features, and the proper ring tone.  The same applies to any other electronic gizmo, whether it is working properly or not, if it does not have the latest and greatest features, it is a social embarrassment and must simply be replaced.  Modern day parents, in the eyes of a teenager, cannot simply comprehend these necessities of life.  After all, in this complicated modern day society, it is next to impossible for a teenager to drive a half mile down the street to their friend’s house without a GPS to tell them how to get there, a cell phone should they get lost, and an MP3 player to keep them entertained throughout the journey.  While purchasing such items may cause financial stress upon the adults, not having the item often places social stress on the teenagers.  With the teenager, whether this social stress is logical or not is, for the most part, immaterial.  It is still stress, and carries the same burden of any other type of stress.  The stress, in the case of either the teenager or the adult, is perceived as the same.  As a result, the stress response in the body is the same.

The electronic generation has introduced another problem that is becoming more difficult to deal with, which affects almost every age group.  The brain normally discards much of the sensory information it receives as irrelevant, or just simply background noise.  At any given moment, much of this noise is present, such as a ticking clock, phones ringing, automobile traffic outside, conversations down the hall, radios playing, not to mention the background hum of flourescent lighting and air-conditioning equipment.  This background noise is considered both irrelevant and unimportant, and therefore is ignored by the brain, thus preventing an overload of the senses.  In today's fast paced society, multitasking is becoming more common.  E-mails pile up in the inbox, the newest hand-held gizmo demands immediate attention, cell phones are ringing, text messages are being sent back and forth, and instant messages come across the computer screen, all of which are top priority and must be addressed immediately.  This puts us in a position where we must give constant careful attention to every form of stimuli around us, otherwise that important call or e-mail might just be missed.  This, in effect, is another form of a sensory overload.  It is no different from listening to five radio stations simultaneously and expecting to make coherent sense out of every program.  Simply put, the mind is not designed to function in continuous overload mode.  Naturally, this type of continuous sensory and mental overload results in stress.

Modern electronics has brought us another highly technological group of inventions that promises to raise stress levels to even new heights.  These new advances of technology are in the form of sophisticated snooping devices developed to watch a person’s every action.  Miniaturization techniques make it possible to place hidden cameras in just about any location.  Telephone conversations may be listened to secretly, or recorded, so no one even feels comfortable placing a personal phone call from their corporate office.  In attempts to avoid the corporate snoopers, personal calls are often placed from cell phones that appear to have much greater security.  Most people, however, are unaware that anyone who has any knowledge of electronics can easily modify a radio scanner to listen in on these supposedly secure digital communications.  Worse yet is knowing that someone can point a device at your home and listen to what has thought to have been said in private.  Snooping is no longer limited to the video and audio level.  Internet communications are monitored to the point that no personal business affairs dare be conducted at work in fear that one may lose their job.  Spyware can be easily installed on most any computer, tracking every keystroke and website visited.  If someone finds the spyware and removes it, they quickly are informed by a co-worker that a gateway-based employee monitoring tool tracks every website visited.  The local intersection has even been fitted with a sophisticated camera connected to a computer that will send an automated traffic ticket to anyone caught running the red light.  Newer technology, including biometric identification and radio frequency identification devices, (RFID) promise to end terrorism and make the world a safer place to live.  However, once these tools get into the hands of corporations, they will be used at an absurd level to protect even the coffee machine from unauthorized users.  The trend is clearly moving toward the end of any personal privacy at all.  With no personal privacy, people often feel as if their life is put under a microscope, adding even more stress to any existing stress.

Another factor contributing to chronic stress is the time pressure exerted upon us because of social schedules.  This is most commonly seen among parents of both preteens and teens who are involved in sports, after school activities, church groups, and other societal obligations.  Planning a schedule in which every minute of every hour is accounted for has become the norm of today's society.  Any free time is quicky filled with another activity, which is later found to conflict with that special event at school written on a notice that got lost on the school bus.  Then comes the unplanned event, such as an unexpected trip to the doctor, which usually results in frantically trying to find someone to transport the remaining healthy kids to their scheduled events.  With a schedule that demands such precise timing, we go from event to event without stopping, leaving no time to get a massage or read a book.  Any means of escaping such a demanding lifestyle seems to be a glimpse into a fantasy world.  This tremendous preoccupation with time and scheduling may as well be called an incapacity for pleasure.  When rest and relaxation finally calls, it gets a busy signal.

Just what is this stress that is all too common in today's society?  Does everybody react differently to stress?  Are some fortunate few somehow been granted immunity to stress?  Does this thing we call stress actually have a definition, or is it just another vague medical term?  To understand stress, and understand what happens to the body during stress, we must look at stress from a biochemical and physiological viewpoint.  In looking at stress at this level, we not only gain an understanding of stress, but the proper way to handle stress becomes evident as well.