A stressed nation?

On the whole I find my phone reassuring as I know what the family are up to and that they are all ok. Except when they aren't of course - as when they text just before bedtime to say a child is all and what should they do, or they are stuck in a traffic jam and might miss a flight etc! Also the national news is almost always upsetting and stressful. I feel I am switching my phone on in the morning these days to check Trump hasnt started WW3!

Seerken I have sent a PM.

the only thing that gets me stressed is me eldestGD.If she texts me and I don't reply,she phones my landline,if I don't answer she'll phone my mobile and if I don't answer that (I leave it in the car if I'm out and about),when I get home I usually find she's sending me messages to my ipad.When I eventually get back to her ,I get where've you been? I've been trying to get hold of you for ages.I've made it clear to family my phone when I'm out is for me to get help if needed,not social. Another thing I get called for is if there has been an accident on any main roads near where we live ,she wants to knowhere I am then.( around where we live, on a daily basis so I can understand that part..there are a lot of nasty accidents).I just try to hold my tongue and be grateful that I'm cared about.

In this week's The Week Junior the big debate is
Is 24-hour news a good thing?
Apparently CNN became the first TV channel to broadcast news for 24 hours a day in 1980.

Hi imperfect27 does it help your son to be on an acute mental health ward, I have a nephew that has mental health issues and I wonder if any kind of intervention would help because I believe that sometimes these places and this kind of help can do more harm than good ? ?

I do find playing plant v zombies relaxing.

I have a phone for emergencies....never chat on it. I have a smartphone for "facetiming" with my son...and don't use it for anything else. I have a laptop for banking and shopping and educational purposes...refuse to stare into a kindle.... that's me..no stress! Technology has its place.

I do leave my mobile on at night but that is in case I should be taken ill, I live on my own now so if I need help I have to ring for it. However I don't have sound on for any notifications just the alarm.

I use my laptop in the morning to check Bank Account & emails. Other than that I only look at laptop when I feel like it. Not a slave to it.

Stress! the plague of our lives these days, due to modern technology, if we let it interfere.
I remember once asking a Doctor I worked with if he was stressed, as he seemed to be, his answer was " I dont allow myself to be stressed" good for him, I wonder what he says nowadays with computers, smart phones, on 24/7

I find the constant bombardment of terrible news about tragedies very stressful. I've realised, as I'm away from home at the moment that every time we're here I get woken up by the S.O to the news of yet another terrible tragedy on an unimaginable scale. Like lemongrove I only have a phone for emergencies, but my family are constantly checking theirs.

These posts brought the following lovely poem to mind;

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I do think technology has taken over some people's lives but, where it is possible, they should try and set boundaries. As others have pointed out, there are also benefits in, for instance, being able to keep in touch with people who might otherwise be hard to contact.

I think that several other things probably contribute more to the stress and anxiety that is being experienced by many people - insecure work and housing, stagnant wages coupled with increasing costs, and, of course, a world that seems more and more unstable and frightening as each day passes.

On balance I prefer the way things are now. When we left our DSs with a babysitter I used to give them the phone number of where we were going and then knew that if I didn't hear anything, everything was OK. No one in our babysitting circle ever did that with me so I must be more of a worrier than others.

Now I know that everyone important to me can contact me if they need me which is comforting.

When I was working I used to get phone calls from my boss on my mobile when I was on holiday. That was not a good thing!

I routinely check my bank balance each morning, so much more useful than having to wait for the monthly bank statement.

I choose when to look at my emails, Gn etc. It hasn't suited me to be on Gn for some days but today it does.

Technology is a tool, it is up to us how we use it.

Having discussions regarding the pros and cons of modern 24/7 technology with my primary school aged grandchildren I found myself using the phrase that like many things it "was a good servant but a bad master." Then I had to explain what servants were. I think we got there in the end.

I work on a 'could I live with the worst case scenario?' basis. That is to say, whatever is going on in my personal/professional life, I consider all the options and decide whether I have done all I can to meet the needs of others, then what my own needs are and how best to meet them - not necessarily in that order.. We have a history of severe psychiatric illness in our family and have had to consider ' worst case scenarios' a few times; also with physical illness. I work out a plan for these and put boundaries on my availability so that I can meet my own needs (and those of DH). Having been that patient in an acute psychiatric ward myself on 2 occasions many years ago, as well - I believe that it is sometimes important to give people space to find their own way forward...... It is a difficult judgement to make and will be different for everyone, but this approach has worked for us over the years. Being constantly available to respond or interrogate some device is not an option for me, especially when on holiday/with family.

No HthrEdmndsn*, I disagree. Out of sight would, of course, not be out of mind for me with my DS, but there is little / no boundary for me at times and little I can do except listen and sympathise. If he could not contact me, I know he is in a safe environment and I could allow myself a bit of emotional breathing space.

I am not a 'worrier' by nature and just casually checked my bank balance today as I know a significant payment is due - doesn't matter to me if it arrives today or next week.

My point is that because I have technology at my fingertips, I can make my brain busy when it might actually need to be still. I think it is up to me how I set my boundaries, but I am very conscious that we live in a working climate where personal boundaries are more commonly not observed and we have so much access to information, we may be overloading ourselves.

I have taught mindfulness wit primary school children. Interestingly, when asked, they reported thinking of gaming, going on YouTube and the like as 'relaxing'. It is not - it is being busy. I think we need to teach and encourage the art of 'being still' as an aid to building resilience and lessening stress.

I hope your son is OK. Well for the first time in my 60 odd years I have had to go to my GP for seomething to help with stress, so I agree things are getting more stressful.

imperfect I understand exactly where you are coming from with DS: my daughter also has MH issues and much though I would like to turn my phone off at night, I need to keep it on. Having said that, I have asked her not to ring me after 11 unless it is an emergency which has helped, as she would ring later than that for a 'chat', usually just after I had gone to sleep! and I needed boundaries. I realise of course this may not be possible with DS - and I do agree about all the advantages of modern technology.

Those thing that were worrying you, poorly son, bank balance etc. would be worrying you for hours or days in previous times. You were able to ease your mind about these things thanks to technology. Problems, worries etc. which used to take days to sort are now rectified in minutes. This equates to less stress, not more!!

When you are running a stall at an antiques fair for two days, the first day opening time is 7.00am, with a day travelling/setting up/stalling down each side of it, you do not have time to check emails, text messages or answer phone calls.

It is amazing how little you miss them.

I think that you are right there Imperfect that there is too much processing going on constantly.
Think how lovely it is to sometimes go on holiday and not take phones/iPad etc with you, that glorious free feeling.

Humbertbear yes, many benefits from modern tech, of course, but I guess it is about boundary. Having been a teacher for some time, we used to have an unspoken code of 'no emails' over the weekend. That has gone out of the window now. Typically, in recent years, I could arrive in work on a Monday and attend weekly briefing to the senior management refrain of ' Didn't you see my email?' sent at 8 o'clock last night!

For my DS, awful as it is that he has had to be on an acute ward, I have had literally no respite from caring for him. How could I turn my phone off / ignore is calls? Yet, very often I am just absorbing his stress and there is really nothing much I can do sixty miles away. This is hard.

I think /I am generally pretty good at compartmentalising and, for example, allocating a time of day to look at emails. I don't 'live and die' by my phone and I aim to keep work and life balance by keeping them separate where possible, but I think for the younger generations the boundaries are increasingly blurred.

And maybe our brains are just not meant to have to do so much processing.

Look at it the other way round. You can keep in touch with your son no matter where he is (you can turn the phone off when you go to bed).. you can maintain control over your finances and you always know what your balance is. As someone wrote in The Times this morning you have a clock, phone, camera, video recorder, music, photo album not to mention an A to Z in your pocket. We don't have to look at emails every five minutes or even every hour. My very elderly mother had a fall a month ago and I was on my way out for the day. Her carer was able to contact me and I could turn round and get to her quickly. Without modern technology she would have been in hospital on her own all day.

A sad situation for you and your son Imperfect and no wonder you are constantly looking at texts.?
gillybob as you run a business you will be looking at email from the minute you wake up, also anybody still working on GN will be checking phones/ email.
I am retired, so only look at email once a day, and don’t have a mobile phone ( shock, horror!?) I do have a very basic mobile in the car, kept just for breakdowns or to ring friends on a journey to say we will be late.Therefore, I don’t send or receive texts.
So, luckily for me, am not stressed, but can easily see how most people are.

We are all expected to do more, more more Imperfect27 and have to keep up, or be left by the wayside. Trying to cram 30 hours into every 24 no wonder we are all stress heads. My DH and I are "at work" in our heads 24/7 and the phone, emails never stop for a minute.... And everyone expects a reply right NOW. No one can wait.