It’s beginning of summertime. The days become longer, which means that we have more time to work, or to stay with our families, either to get into fights and get back together, or not finding any solution for our issues, or even trying to fight the system... yes, you’ve got it! We finally have enough time to stress out.
But what to do when we stress out due to the thought that the entire world is against us? Magenta Consulting tried to find the answer to this question through the quarterly study Magenta National Screening, carried out on a sample of 1400 respondents from 24 towns in Moldova.
The study shows that 40% of Moldovans prefer to sleep in order to fight stress. It is also interesting to remark that the higher the education level of the respondents, the more likely they are to resort to sleep as a tactic of fighting stress. As a confirmation, only 29% of respondents without studies opt for sleeping, while those holding a postgraduate degree represent 49% of participants.
Eating - the national sport, is the favorite weapon used to fight stress in large families. The study reveals that the greater the number of people in a household is, the more likely they are to eat in order to calm themselves. Also, 15% of those who live alone and up to 29% of those who live in a large family (more than 6 persons) tend to eat to fight stress.
Sport, as an efficient activity against stress, is mostly preferred by the young people aged 14-19 (27%), but also by those who live in large households – more than 6 members (21%). One might believe that people, who feel that their house or apartment is too crowded at times, might want to literally run away from everyone and everything…
Fig. 1. Preferred methods to fight stress, %
It seems that the common place for getting together for the stressed youth represents the bar in town/village, since those who mentioned choosing the bar for such a reason are the respondents under 29 years, those with unfinished studies (15%) or only with high school finished (19%), those with income ranging from 4001 to 5000 MDL (22%). Meantime, with the increase in age, increases also the weight of those who choose to read at the end of the day, in order to get away from the daily stress.
Some of the respondents, who have not chosen any of the above mentioned options, said they prefer to fight stress by doing household chores (2%). Indeed, it is a well known fact that when you occupy your mind with an activity different from that which has caused anxiety, there is a tendency of somehow ignoring the problems that represent stress.
In the end, stress is a matter of attitude. The more we think about it, the more it affects our lives. Doctors recommend becoming “natural managers of stress”. These people are the ones whom we see attending all sorts of fun activities, while the others whine in front of their TV, stressing out about the misery of their life. These are the people able to stay calm in a crowded bus, and walk down the street smiling, giving us all a memorable life lesson.