About 10 years ago, the English language was vastly different. Changes have occurred since then through global war or suffering, medical advancements or changes, while political correctness has caused a significant impact on the way we speak English. It seems however, that certain words have come into vogue, slowly turning into valuable commodities at the hands of the advertising industry’s somewhat conniving marketing money-makers. The word stress has not only staked its frequent claim in our every day language, but is now being realised as a potent cash-cow, intangible as it is. Stress is basically any kind of factor (negative or positive) that effects us – something that has clearly been in our lives since day one.

All of a sudden though (in the case of negative stress) it is imperative that we are acutely aware of something that humans have been suffering from and triumphing over for decades. And who is really to benefit?

Doctors and G.P’s are now seeing (and enjoying) an influx of people suffering from this mysterious irk. Masseurs and masseuses, proponents of Chinese medicine, acupuncturists and pharmacies alike are reaping the rewards from our apparent suffering. – Were it not for a saturation of the word in our every day language and lives, what would we be doing? Perhaps we would be managing alone? – Only subconsciously aware of our inner turmoil. While we are being told “How to deal with stress” (in big bold type in newspapers on glitzy billboards or across the covers of popular books and magazines) what has raised the medical industry’s concern for us, other than their own profit? Would we be so stressed if we weren’t told that we could be suffering from it all the time? – Surely people have been taking “time out” or “getting away from the kids” or “planning a holiday” on their own accord, since the dawn of time? We’ve been administering our own remedies to quell our problems, without want or need for any of the plethora of potions, concoctions, treatments, cures and elixirs that we now seem to be being offered, so its no surprise that medicos want us to be aware of our inner tension.

In the United States tranquilizers, anti-anxiety and antidepressants are accounting for a massive one quarter of all prescriptions each year. The internet is heavy with advertising (no doubt lucrative) offering courses on how to deal with stress, books to help you find your way out of stressful situations and advice on how to cope with stress, which ends up costing you money too. Of the 2.2million people (according to the U.K statistics website) that were suffering a work related illness in 2006/07, almost 600,000 of them (over 1 quarter) reported a stress related complaint. Again, in the U.S (where $7500 per employee is spent annually on stress related compensation) CBS television news reported that complaints about mental stress at work rose by about 700% during the 1980’s – perhaps coinciding with the current trend of media saturation and public awareness of the commodity that stress soon became?

While we certainly cannot deny such negative factors in our life, and we must acknowledge that they ought to be dealt with in a way that will improve our productivity and everyday life, it seems we are being too easily led towards means of coping that seem to deny individual thinking, self-medication, our own free will and willpower and instead greatly benefit the bottom line of the medical industry, and other greedy corporate giants who are benefiting from apparent human weakness. Despite the fact that their intentions may be good, are they really weakening the human race even further still?