Apparently, we residents of Chicago live in the most stressful city in the US, according to a recent survey. Here is the introduction to the article about the study:
“The crisis on Wall Street has New Yorkers alarmed. But it’s nothing compared to the levels of anxiety those living in the Windy City feel each day. Chicago’s rising unemployment rate, expensive gas, high population density and relatively poor air quality create a perfect storm of stress, according to measures we used to calculate the country’s anxiety hot spots.”
Huh. Where we live causes anxiety. Just the physical space and competing economic factors surrounding us apparently cause measureable stress on the inhabitants. Not completely new information, but interesting to think about again as I am reflecting on health and wholeness a lot lately. For those of us who are “situation dependent” – a term my husband and I joke
One thought on “Environmental Stress”
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I am deeply affected by physical surroundings. Situational uncertainties/stressors also affect my well-being but I am much more able to tune those out, especially when my sensory environment is hospitable. I am an ecologist, so nothing is just an object for me; everything I see has a story and most of those stories are not happy. Some days it takes a lot of work for me to numb myself to the patterns behind the objects I am seeing/dealing with enough to get through basic life activities like grocery shopping, walking near city traffic, or hitting the ‘print’ button on my computer. Other days I am disgusted with what I am able to get used to.