The Pandemic Is Over But Our Pandemic Stress Isn’t
A new survey shows more Americans now rate their angst as at least an 8 out of 10.
So much adulting, so little time.
Photographer: Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Survey after survey tells us that Americans are struggling. The latest, the American Psychological Association’s annual gauge of stress in the US, reveals that people continue to feel worse than before the pandemic. The question is what to do about it.
And it’s no wonder that people are so stressed out: Humans have finite mental resources, and they’ve been decidedly depleted by years of dealing with Covid and its fallout, plus economic woes and worries about geopolitical upheaval. In the APA survey, which was conducted in August, nearly a quarter of adults reported operating at the highest levels of stress, rating it at least an 8 out of 10. Among parents, self-reported stress was so extreme that nearly half said it was “completely overwhelming” on most days, and 41% reported that it impedes their function.