Postcard From London: Thrive, With a Distinctly British Accent

LONDON -- "The English are not very spiritual people," goes the quote, often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, "so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." Having recently arrived in London, I can happily say that, when it comes to matters of the soul, the British have evolved quite a bit since Shaw's quip. I'm here for the UK publication of Thrive and for a meeting with all of our HuffPost international editors, and what I've found so far is that the renowned stiff upper lip is softening.


Of course, as in the United States, the picture is mixed. On the one hand, this country, known for its proud independence and zealous maintenance of very old traditions, is no stranger to all the ills and afflictions that come with our modern, tech-driven and decidedly broken definition of success. On the other hand, in many ways, Brits have surpassed their Yankee younger sibling both in terms of realizing the extent of the problems they face and in moving to institutionalize and scale up the obvious solutions. Perhaps this is no surprise, since many of these solutions are themselves products of ancient wisdom that have since been unambiguously validated and confirmed by science.


There is an abundance of evidence that this island -- so much of whose history has been shaped by physical separation and isolation -- has been ensnared by what Belgian philosopher Pascal Chabot called "civilization's disease": burnout.



[ltr]To wit:[/ltr]

• Stress is now the single biggest cause of illness in the U.K.
  
• There are over 100 million days lost to stress in the U.K. each year, costingbusinesses £1.24 billion.
  
• Anxiety and depression, the two biggest mental health conditions in the U.K., costBritish business £26 billion per year in sick days.
  
• Of nearly 10,000 employees surveyed, 85 percent of workers had health risk profiles of someone four years older, and 20 percent had the same risks as someone eight years older.
  
• Human resource directors at leading British companies believe 30 percent of workers are suffering from burnout.
  
• From 2007 to 2012, prescriptions for anti-depressants went up from 33.8 million to 50.2 million, and since 1991 they're up a staggering 495 percent.
  
• The cost of sleeping pills to the National Health Service is increasing every year, and is now at £50 million.
  
• Nearly a third of British women report feeling stressed all the time.
  
• British workers receive among the lowest number of paid holidays in Europe.
  
• Of 1,000-plus working parents surveyed, 83 percent felt guilty about how much they work, and half said it had a negative effect on their relationships with their children. "If we are slaves to work, our family life seems to suffer by default,"said Cary Cooper of Lancaster University. "Work smarter, not longer should be our mantra."
  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/postcard-from-london-thri_b_5392561.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ir=UK

We are obsessed with buying houses, keeping houses, making more money, material possessions, keeping up with the rest of society and buying the best of everything.

Greed.

That's why people are fucking stressed.

eddie wrote:We are obsessed with buying houses, keeping houses, making more money, material possessions, keeping up with the rest of society and buying the best of everything.

Greed.

That's why people are fucking stressed.

Partly agree, think there is more to it than that, social and peer pressure as well plays a part I think Eddie as well as other aspects, but very much agree greed plays a massive part.

eddie wrote:We are obsessed with buying houses, keeping houses, making more money, material possessions, keeping up with the rest of society and buying the best of everything.

Greed.

That's why people are fucking stressed.

We are stressed because the govt takes so much of what we earn to pay for a bloated public sector that we have to run faster and faster to keep enough to actually pay for our families.

The number of days we actually work to pay our taxes has grown and grown. Cost of living crisis you bet there is and its primarily Labours fault. As a result of their spend spend spend philosophy and the huge debt and deficit we will be paying more in interest than of Education.