Why am I always stressed out even when nothing bad is happening?

This is one of the top questions asked about stress on social media, and something I was asking myself quite frequently until recently.

I also wondered very specifically if my mum's life felt as continually pressurised and crammed at the same stage of her life, when she was bringing me and my sisters up.

The stories I was telling myself

I had been telling myself a few interchangeable dialogues:

• That I was failing for not being able to stop feeling impatient and sometimes raising my voice with my boys in the morning when they didn't stick to the regimented pre-school and work schedule.
• That the Universe was being deliberately harsh and somehow I have been gifted children and a dog that are less compliant than everyone else's children and dogs, who all behave beautifully every morning.
• That everyone else does experience some of the morning chaos I do, but they are just better at it and manage to dry their hair and arrive at work without their dress inside out (this actually happened, and my boss kindly spotted it and saved me from huge embarrassment).

This is all before the working day starts.

A typical day: nothing bad, but the stress is real

Then there's the pressure of work: deadlines, expectations, big workloads, difficult conversations, lots to remember and tons of meetings about different things.

Maybe 15 minutes to eat some lunch at a desk or in a meeting room before the next meeting…

Drive home to pick up the kids… praying there will be no unexpected accidents or roadworks to delay the finely timed journey to the pick-up deadline.

Pick up two tired children, hoping they don't decide to break out into a fight before dinner, or even before you have them in the house where no one can hear or see the tired carnage.

Then there's the quick cooking, feeding the dog, and maybe trying to finish off a couple of emails without the gorgeous four-year-old wanting to role-play "work" and banging all sorts of things out on your keyboard.

Bath and bed (for the kids), somehow trying to convey a calmness that isn't authentic to help them feel sleepy. Sometimes lying with them, half enjoying your moment together but half thinking about the work you need to complete, the big pile of washing, the WhatsApp messages to reply to in the family group, and when you are going to fit in the gym this week.

Nothing BAD is happening, but the STRESS is real.

Are we more stressed than our parents were?

My mum did also work when my sisters and I were a similar age to my sons, but she was able to work part time in school hours. That was at a time when a mortgage for a family home was affordable on a police wage, and my mum's wages paid for family days out and towards our annual family holiday.

Is there evidence adults are more stressed now than our parents were at our age? Or are we all just imagining it?

I did some digging, because dialogue number three was really bugging me. Is everyone else just managing it OK and it's just me finding it all super stressful? Is it worse for me as a woman, or am I just feeling sorry for myself? My husband is great and generally we split household chores 50/50, but he can't do the school run as much as he leaves the house for work at 4:30am, so he never experiences the pressure and unpredictable variables before work. He just gets up and goes; his trousers have never been inside out at work!

The surveys, statisticians and clever people who research this confirm that adults in 2026 DO in fact experience more chronic stress and pressure than our parents did at the same age.

What a relief! So I'm not alone! It's not in my imagination! It's not a ME problem!

What the research says

As this is a blog and not an academic paper, I'll keep it to the headlines.

Money and housing

First off is finance: it's much harder to afford a home or reach the financial stability to have children. Adults are reported to reach peak stress at 25 now, compared with older generations, who purportedly experienced peak stress at 40.

Caught between children and ageing parents

Penn State University research concluded that middle-aged adults experience 19% more daily stress (64 days) than adults the same age in the 20th century. The research put this down to a squeeze between caring for children and looking after elderly parents.

Technology and information overload

While technology has brought many benefits, it has also increased pressure, blurring the line between work and home life and creating information overload.

Less community support

Society is different. People are more alone, and the community support that was more common when our parents were the same age has eroded.

When self-care becomes one more thing to fail at

The icing on the pressure cake is that the systems and wellbeing methods designed to help put a heavy emphasis on self-care and resilience. That creates a sense of failure for individuals when the reality of the pressures of the world we now live in is not considered. Ah ha, this explains a lot!

What are people stressed about right now?

When this question is asked on Reddit, the most common answers are the cost of existing, a "nothing works" culture, AI disruption and its impact on work, exploitative work cultures, world instability and feelings of isolation.

For me, life has recently become a little less crammed and pressurised as I'm no longer in full-time employment. I am establishing a new business, though, and that brings new pressures, challenges and responsibilities.

Easy, low-effort ways to deal with stress

Hugs

At home I swear by a hug, and this is actually scientifically backed!

Exercise

As much as exercise can become a pressure in itself (another thing to be good at: how often you go, whether you can do the flying lizard in Saturday's yoga, or whether you have the courage to join the tennis box league), it definitely makes a positive difference. Also scientifically backed!

Nature

A walk, run or bike ride through the woods or fields near us. I can't tell you how powerful this is in almost immediately calming the whole family as soon as we are on the bridle path by our house. It's magic! And guess what: scientifically backed too!

Sophrology

Now there's sophrology in our lives too, and it's a real game changer for relieving stress in any number of situations, including work, traffic jams, family events and when it all gets a lot at home. Even the boys join in with age-appropriate breathing exercises: blowing up imaginary balloons, and choosing and imagining licking exotic-flavoured ice creams. My personal go-tos are shoulder pumping and square breathing, which can be done anywhere to calm myself.

For a full house of scientifically backed methods, sophrology was developed over a period of 40 years by Alfonso Caycedo, a psychiatrist and neurologist.

The bottom line

All in all, the reality is that there generally is more pressure in our adult lives now than our parents had at the same stage of life. There are many reasons for this that apply to all genders, but they are all the more profound for women, as statistically we absorb more of the childcare and the life and family admin on top of all the other pressures we all experience nowadays.

For many of us, reducing these pressures is not an option, so having a few simple methods to call on to manage stress levels, and to help in especially difficult moments, is a real gift.

A short stress-relieving gift

If you'd like to know more about how sophrology techniques can help with stress for adults and children, get in touch, mention "gift", and I'll send you a short stress-relieving gift.