Americans are Experiencing a Stress Pandemic

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, feeling stressed out about the pandemic, you’re not the only one ,  nearly a year ago  Tom Smith presciently wrote:

“Deliberately closing down the economy, which has never been done before, has created a more infectious, possibly more lethal disease than COVID-19. Let’s call it the Stress Virus… Stress is an insidious, multifaceted enemy of good health. The immune system is weakened. It can encourage counterproductive conduct.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/16/the_stress_pandemic_142944.html

Now a new survey from the American Psychological Association quantifies just how bad the stress pandemic has been.

42% of U.S. adults report undesired weight gain. Of those, they gained an average of 29 pounds (the median amount gained was 15 pounds) and 10% said they gained more than 50 pounds!
Two in 3 Americans (67%) said they are sleeping more or less than they wanted to since the pandemic started. Similar proportions reported less (35%) and more (31%) sleep than desired.

Nearly 1 in 4 adults (23%) reported drinking more alcohol to cope with their stress during the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly half of parents (48%) said the level of stress in their life has increased compared with before the pandemic. 75% of parents say they could have used more emotional support than they received, 32% received treatment from a mental health professional, and 24% were diagnosed with a mental health disorder since the pandemic started.
Nearly half of Americans (47%) said they delayed or canceled health care services since the pandemic started. Additionally, more than half of U.S. adults (53%) said they have been less physically active than they wanted to be since the pandemic started.

Other than that, lockdowns have been a fabulous success.

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2021/one-year-pandemic-stress