An alarming 86 per cent of us are worriers, thanks to work stress and smartphones
It’s become almost a cliché in 2015 to complain about being stressed but a new study has found that the majority of us really are burnt out.
A whopping 86 per cent of adults consider themselves to be a worrier, with everyday stresses from work to family weighing massively on our minds. The average adult surveyed spent one hour and 50 minutes a day worrying, according to the study conducted by Rescue Remedy. That adds up to 12 hours and 53 minutes a week – that’s nearly 28 days a year spent worrying.
While 34 per cent of us are happy to share our concerns, one in four keep their worries bottled up leading to even more stress.
Social media and smartphones are being cited as the biggest stress-inducers, with many employees finding it impossible to switch off from work at the end of the day. The Sunday night blues are very real and even though we know we shouldn’t, many of us are guilty of checking our work emails when we should be unwinding after a tough week at work.
“The rate and flow of information due to the changing ways we communicate and smart technologies like phones and watches have resulted in many of us being bombarded with information that can cause us to worry about things that we wouldn’t have even known about in the past,” explains Neil Shah from The Stress Management Society.
“For example you receive a complaint, or a message from a manager adding to your workload, by email, pop up on your phone at 9pm and you end up losing sleep over it! In the past you wouldn’t even find out about it until you got to work in the morning and had the opportunity to immediately address it.”
The survey found the top 30 things that we, as Brits, worry about - and unsurprisingly work came in at the top, closely followed by financial worries and being late.
Top 30 Worries:
1. Work 2. Financial worries 3. Being late 4. A relative or friend’s bad health 5. Bad health 6. Relationships 7. Missing a plane/train/bus 8. Not waking up for an alarm 9. Appearance 10. Family safety 11. Eating too much 12. Dental problems 13. Whether or not people like you 14. Pet’s health 15. Missing out on life experience 16. Growing old alone 17. Children staying healthy 18. Remember everything you need to do 19. Parents ageing and needing care 20. Being a victim of crime 21. Terrorism 22. The economy 23. Pension plan 24. What to wear at work 25. Being single 26. Partner having an affair 27. Drinking too much 28. Getting a mortgage 29. Children getting a good education 30. Hair loss
Are you a worrier? What stresses you out?