How to deal with stress - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service — Transcript

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1. 0:00There is more evidence that more younger people are feeling burnt out.
2. 0:03There is evidence that more younger people have increasing levels
3. 0:07of difficulties like anxiety or depression.
4. 0:10I'm probably not even graduating till I'm 24.
5. 0:13The feeling of being left behind is so, so overwhelming to me,
6. 0:20like it consumes my whole being.
7. 0:23Morning. It's 7:15 in the morning. I'm in my flat in London.
8. 0:29We're starting the episode in a bit of a different location today,
9. 0:32because I thought I would bring you guys on my journey into work.
10. 0:37I can't lie, I'm a little bit late.
11. 0:39I don't know how I've managed to do it again. Okay.
12. 0:41I have about a 20 minute walk to the tube station.
13. 0:45London is not kind when you're late.
14. 0:53And I've made it. That was pretty painless compared to normal.
15. 0:56I'm just going have to frantically search for my pass
16. 0:59so I can actually get into the BBC building.
17. 1:05Okay. I'm back. I'm Iqra,
18. 1:07this is What in the World from the BBC World Service.
19. 1:10That was a bit of my morning.
20. 1:11It might be similar to some of you guys as well.
21. 1:14One thing's for sure that overwhelmed feeling hits most of us at some point
22. 1:18in our day. And that's what we're getting into today.
23. 1:21I know there's a bunch of Tik Tok videos out there about this,
24. 1:24so we wanted to talk about why we're all feeling so stressed
25. 1:27and overwhelmed in our lives and how we get around it, too.
26. 1:30We've got some of your questions and we're putting them
27. 1:32to the BBC presenter and psychologist Claudia Hammond.
28. 1:36She's also written a book about being overwhelmed. It's called Overwhelmed.
29. 1:40Claudia is right here, right now. Hey, Claudia.
30. 1:42Hi. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thank you for coming.
31. 1:45I know we've got a bunch of questions to get through.
32. 1:48Before we get to the questions, though, I wanted to actually get
33. 1:51into the definition of overwhelm.
34. 1:54When we say overwhelm, what do we mean?
35. 1:57What is that? So overwhelm is an emotional state
36. 2:00where you are struggling with your current situation.
37. 2:02So you might feel overloaded, you might feel you can't cope,
38. 2:05and that might be a temporary thing, hopefully.
39. 2:08But if it's not in the longer term, if that becomes more of a kind
40. 2:11of chronic kind of stress, then that might lead to burnout in the end.
41. 2:15Yeah. And have you noticed this has become more common for Gen Z?
42. 2:18I see all the TikTok videos about burnout, stress.
43. 2:22There is more evidence that more younger people are feeling burnt out.
44. 2:26There is evidence that more younger people have increasing levels
45. 2:29of difficulties like anxiety or depression,
46. 2:32and it is a time of transition when you're young,
47. 2:35there's so much uncertainty, there's uncertainty about your own life,
48. 2:38there's uncertainty about what's happening in the world as well.
49. 2:41There's uncertainty about what will happen with the world
50. 2:43in the future, if you think about things like climate change.
51. 2:45There's a lot going on. I'm glad you said it.
52. 2:49So I guess let's focus on different aspects of life.
53. 2:52And we look at social media. It's so easy to pick up your phone
54. 2:56and you've got that instant access to whatever is going on in the world.
55. 3:00There can be a lot of bad stuff going on in the world.
56. 3:03How does that affect how overwhelmed we feel, that kind of instant access?
57. 3:08Yeah. If people find themselves, you know, doomscrolling
58. 3:11and looking for the bad news in a way,
59. 3:13and then carrying on and on, looking at that bad news and getting alerts
60. 3:16all the time that are telling them what's happening in the world,
61. 3:19then when it's bad, there is evidence that that can be damaging for people.
62. 3:23There was a really interesting study that was done
63. 3:26after a Boston Marathon bombing that took place in 2013.
64. 3:31And there were some people even back then who watched more than six hours
65. 3:35a day of coverage of it, either on TV, on rolling news or online.
66. 3:39And they found that those people who did that actually had
67. 3:43more acute stress than people who were actually
68. 3:46at the bombing, which seems really extraordinary.
69. 3:49But it's because if you keep watching the worst bits of it,
70. 3:51there's no beginning, middle and end. If you were actually there,
71. 3:54thankfully, the experience does end in the end,
72. 3:57and so if people find themselves drawn to watching negative things
73. 4:00all the time, we know that if they're already in a low mood,
74. 4:02they're more likely to then carry on looking
75. 4:05for negative things, and then that puts them in a lower mood again.
76. 4:08So I think we do have to be careful how we consume news of what's going on.
77. 4:13Do you need to know immediately? Do you have to have alerts
78. 4:15that tell you immediately when a news story has happened?
79. 4:17Or would it be okay to find out at the end of the day?
80. 4:19Something that me and my sister talk about a lot when it comes
81. 4:23to overwhelm and social media is, I sometimes say to her,
82. 4:27why do you not reply to my messages?
83. 4:30Like, I know you've seen them instantly when they come up on your phone.
84. 4:33And she says, sometimes I just get overwhelmed
85. 4:36when when I see the messages or there's a few coming through,
86. 4:38or maybe there's not even a few coming through,
87. 4:40but there's like they're building up, you know,
88. 4:43a backlog that she needs to reply to.
89. 4:45And I've heard a few of my friends say that too. So why does that happen?
90. 4:49Yeah, I think there can be a real pressure because we've got
91. 4:51messages coming in via loads of different methods now,
92. 4:54and it is really hard to stay across those and answer them all immediately.
93. 4:58And especially when people know whether you've seen the message,
94. 5:00then it feels rude if you don't answer, but then that can add
95. 5:03to the pressure of all the other things you've got to do as well.
96. 5:06And maybe at that moment you didn't want to engage with that person.
97. 5:10Not because you don't like them at all just because you're thinking about something else. You know,
98. 5:14maybe you're watching something, you're watching a film or something.
99. 5:16Maybe you're chatting to friends, maybe you're out enjoying nature.
100. 5:20Maybe you don't want to be interrupted at that moment and that that's okay.
101. 5:23So I think in a way we need to give ourselves
102. 5:26a bit less of a hard time about that and
103. 5:28not expect to be able to be perfect and answer everything straight away,
104. 5:32but also to let our friends off a bit, you know, to not take it personally.
105. 5:36If they don't answer straight away, it's not because they hate you,
106. 5:39it's because they're doing something else.
107. 5:40Okay, maybe I'll give my sister some time. Yeah give her a break.
108. 5:45And we know sometimes big news headlines can make us feel overwhelmed.
109. 5:49Sometimes these headlines hit closer to home as well.
110. 5:53We have heard from someone who's experiencing just that.
111. 5:56Here's Sonia, who's from Ukraine.
112. 5:59I felt overwhelmed lately because of all the news
113. 6:01about my country and the world in general.
114. 6:04It just feels like the future is so unpredictable and hectic,
115. 6:07and it's very hard to build any plans.
116. 6:09And what's really helpful for me is to stay off the social media as long
117. 6:13as possible and also go to the gym regularly.
118. 6:17So Claudia, Sonia there mentions about going to the gym
119. 6:20is a really helpful tool for her. Is that something you would recommend?
120. 6:24What other ways can we kind of help ourselves?
121. 6:27Totally. I think it's really important to find the activity that you find
122. 6:31helps you switch off. And this will be different for different people.
123. 6:33And I did a big piece of research on this, where
124. 6:35for some people it was exercise, 15% of people
125. 6:38told us that exercise was the thing that allowed them to rest in a way
126. 6:42that allowed all those thoughts in their brain to stop whirring around.
127. 6:46But for other people, you know, it might be watching a video.
128. 6:49It might be reading a book. Reading actually came top.
129. 6:53And I think particularly if, like Sonia, you're living through
130. 6:56a difficult, uncertain situation.
131. 6:58It's so important to find those moments where you do the thing
132. 7:02that will make you feel a bit better and feel a bit more restored.
133. 7:05Moving on to, I guess, another big stressor that hits a lot
134. 7:09of our lives - exams,
135. 7:11being in school. It can be a huge source of overwhelm.
136. 7:16We've actually heard from someone who's going through just that as well.
137. 7:19This is Mari Suomi, who's from Finland. Let's have a listen.
138. 7:23So I come from a background of two very different cultures,
139. 7:27but the common thing in these cultures are succeeding in life.
140. 7:31And I think quite many people my age are that come from a family
141. 7:35where academics succeeding is a priority, can feel the pressure
142. 7:39of having to fulfill people's sometimes unrealistic expectations.
143. 7:44So in my country, in Finland, at high school,
144. 7:46we have matriculation exams on our last years of high school.
145. 7:51Months of studying and preparation for these exams
146. 7:55that last six to eight hours in a big hall.
147. 7:59There is so much pressure on little 18-year-olds to make
148. 8:03huge life decisions about what they want to do or have as a career.
149. 8:07It can become quite overwhelming to constantly think
150. 8:10how you can be better or do better.
151. 8:13And when you, for the first time, don't meet the unrealistic expectations
152. 8:17and feel the disappointment, that's the point you never want to go back to.
153. 8:22How does she deal with that pressure? It's hard, isn't it?
154. 8:24And six to eight hour exams. Wow, that does sound hard.
155. 8:27Yes when the pressure comes from outside, that can be really difficult.
156. 8:30And there is this thing called socially prescribed perfectionism,
157. 8:33which is where other people, which might be your school,
158. 8:36it might be your parents, it might be others,
159. 8:38it might be society are expecting you to be perfect.
160. 8:41And that that feels really difficult.
161. 8:43Now, sometimes it's the case that we might be misinterpreting that pressure
162. 8:47and they might not be quite as harsh on you as you imagine. You know,
163. 8:51if you ask most parents, if you say to them, what do you really want?
164. 8:54They will say they want their child to be really happy,
165. 8:56but they also want them to have, you know, the best start in life
166. 8:59and the best opportunities and get them to work hard
167. 9:01for their exams is one way of doing that. But I think it's very normal.
168. 9:05And I think an important thing for Mari to remember is
169. 9:07that it's very normal to feel stressed while all this is going on,
170. 9:11and that actually to tell yourself one of the reasons you feel so stressed
171. 9:14is that this is something that's really important
172. 9:16to you, and this is something that really matters.
173. 9:19And that also particularly in the exam itself,
174. 9:22if you feel stressed, then just knowing
175. 9:25that you may well perform better while you're stressed that this.
176. 9:28It concentrates the mind, it sharpens and, you know,
177. 9:32nerves sharpen your thinking and allow you to really do your best.
178. 9:35And if as you're sitting down to that exam beforehand or you're thinking,
179. 9:38I'm really, really worried about this, I feel really,
180. 9:41really stressed that stress is actually helping you to do better.
181. 9:44It's helping you to perform like an actor on a stage
182. 9:47feels nervous beforehand. They need to feel a little bit nervous.
183. 9:50If they were too laid back, they might not do their very best performance.
184. 9:54It's good to hear that stress can be the fuel. It can be a good thing as well.
185. 9:58Sticking with the theme of school, we've got Yusaira,
186. 10:00who's from Bangladesh. She's studying at the moment.
187. 10:04She's just started her university applications. Here she is.
188. 10:07The university admissions system in Bangladesh is very, very hectic.
189. 10:11For example, in the last one and a half months
190. 10:14I've sat for nine different exams.
191. 10:17And it's very - and the competition is so, so fierce.
192. 10:22For example, the last exam that I sat for had 6000 plus applicants
193. 10:26and they're only going to take 100 of them.
194. 10:29So getting in is nothing short of a miracle.
195. 10:32And nine exams like that competitive -
196. 10:36or somewhere even more competitive than that.
197. 10:39So it has taken a toll on me and I've been so overwhelmed.
198. 10:44And also the fact that people who are my age,
199. 10:47or even a two or three years older than me, living in another country,
200. 10:53and I see them getting graduated, graduating,
201. 10:56and getting their own apartments or like even getting a big girl job and
202. 11:02all I can think of is I'm probably not even graduating till I'm 24
203. 11:07and, I'm - it, I don't know it.
204. 11:09The feeling of being left behind is so, so overwhelming to me.
205. 11:16Like it consumes my whole being.
206. 11:19So Yusaira speaks there about feeling left behind,
207. 11:22like especially on social media, and how that can contribute to things.
208. 11:26What would you say about that?
209. 11:27I guess it's such a - it's a feeling a lot of us can relate to.
210. 11:30Totally and such and such a horrible feeling as well.
211. 11:33And I think one of the difficulties with social media is,
212. 11:36of course, that you used to be able to only compare yourself to say,
213. 11:39I don't know the rest of your class and, you know, you may well be top
214. 11:42of your class, but now you can compare with everybody else.
215. 11:46So now you can compare with millions of people who we know are
216. 11:49very much curating what's on their social media feeds.
217. 11:51And we know people will do this in loads of ways.
218. 11:54People, on average, now are less satisfied with their appearance,
219. 11:57and how much of that is down to who they're able to compare themselves
220. 12:01with now on social media, but also in terms of success as well.
221. 12:04And I think it's really hard because what you're seeing is
222. 12:06the other people who are all going on to do these things,
223. 12:09and you're often not seeing the people in just the same situation
224. 12:12who are also waiting, you know,
225. 12:14and feeling frustrated at not knowing what's going to happen.
226. 12:17And so then I think it's a question of really trying to take things one step
227. 12:21at a time. Things really often do work out.
228. 12:24And I know that sounds really easy to say, but it may not feel like that
229. 12:27at this moment. But these periods of transition,
230. 12:29it's really normal to feel uncertain about those.
231. 12:33It's been really good to hear all these different experiences,
232. 12:37tapping into feeling overwhelmed. So if someone's listening and thinking,
233. 12:41I want some top tips on just feeling overwhelmed generally in my life.
234. 12:44What would you say to them?
235. 12:45So first I would say accept that your to do list is never going to end.
236. 12:49It's always going to be there.
237. 12:50So even - I know that might sound defeatist, but even if you get
238. 12:53to the end of it today, tomorrow there will be something else on it.
239. 12:55And that's just life.
240. 12:56And then I think the second thing is to really ask what is good enough?
241. 13:01You know, do I have to be perfect at everything? Or will good enough do?
242. 13:06And then the third thing I'd say is to take rest seriously
243. 13:10and be really kind to yourself. And that could make a real difference.
244. 13:14Thank you. I'm going to take those on board as well.
245. 13:16Claudia, it's been so good to have you come by and answer those questions.
246. 13:20Thank you so much. You're very welcome.
247. 13:21And if any of you guys have managed to find your own ways to beat feeling
248. 13:25that overwhelmed feeling, I want to hear from you.
249. 13:27Remember, you can comment below, like and subscribe.
250. 13:30I'm Iqra, this is What in the World from
251. 13:33the BBC World Service and we'll see you next time. Bye.