Animal Stress: How Does It Compare To Humans?

When talking about stress, it\’s good to remember that it\’s served us well in the millennia that we took to evolve. Stress is ancient and vital to survival, and if a panic response didn\’t kick in when we saw a predator looking at us with a glint in it\’s eye, none of us would be here today. This being said, we primates have managed to evolve enough intelligence (combined with other factors) to make stress bad for us, getting so clever that we have plenty of spare time and brainpower to worry ourselves into all sorts of health problems.

Mind you, it may be taken for granted that humans are the smartest of all the animals, but if you take a moment to consider the lifestyle of an average cat, our relative intelligence is thrown starkly into question.

$\"humans$ What you see here is a genius

You can, of course, make any kind of animal very unhappy if you are a terrible sort of person or they are in a consistently unpleasant situation – even a goldfish\’s little brain is going to register some misery if you make it live in a pint glass. Cats can also get stressed out, but usually only in situations when there\’s something upsetting them – like living with another cat that they don\’t like. Flashbacks to the hygiene-lax flatmate who, while making a sandwich, managed to tread tuna into the carpet and leave it there (sadly, a true story, but funnily enough also something that a cat would probably quite like) makes this entirely understandable.

Despite this, it\’s us monkeys that get the most stressed out in general. Other wild animals experience peaks in their stress levels when something intends to eat them, and can then recover during the less dangerous moments. Humans, on the other hand, tend to ruminate, and we can imagine threats and future misfortunes that trigger our stress response even though there\’s no real danger. In the humans vs animals stress contest, the other primates are on our side, but literally everything else (even honey badgers, who\’ll happily get in a punch up with some lions just to let off some steam) is doing better than us.

$\"stressed$ At least we aren\’t the only ones.

When the stress response is mobilised for immediate action it works incredibly well, from slamming your foot down on the brakes to catching the vase that\’s about to fall off a table. Without this hormone-induced ability to think on your feet with optimised speed and strength, we would never have had enough \”fight or flight\” within us to survive for long. The problems start when stress is instead experienced over a long period of time, with no rest or resolution. For human beings, this could come in the form of worrying about money, demands at work or social anxiety, while other primates may feel the pressure of being a low-ranking member of their group.

The solution to all this is to take a leaf from all the other animal\’s book and find time to relax, switching off your brain from it\’s monologues and worry. For an example, take a look this bear. This polar bear could rip you apart and has shrinking polar ice caps on it\’s mind – but it\’s still more relaxed than us! And she\’s got two kids trying to bite her ears off! If this isn\’t an example to live by I don\’t know what is.

$\"polar$ Parenting 101

Or you could start taking life in a little more of the spirit that this sloth takes it. There\’s definitely worse ways to spend an afternoon than lying stretched out on the floor joyfully eating carrot sticks from a plate of prepared vegetables (get someone else to do the preparing part though, you\’re relaxing! You may have to draw the line at employing a dedicated keeper and going full sloth though). Switching off so completely once a day is bound to make you feel brilliant.

$\"humans$ Num num num

Or maybe if a day is just far too stressful, you can just put yourself in an enormous sock (or sleeping bag – whatever first comes to hand) and say no to it with the power of sleep, like these rabbits. One of the big stressors of modern life is lack of sleep, and as you get more stressed the more disrupted your sleep becomes, leading to a cycle that\’s hard to break. Getting enough sleep is very important, so it wouldn\’t do you any harm to snuggle up in this manner whenever the mood takes you.

$\"sleepy$ Giant sock= new dream bed

One thing that\’s guaranteed to help us humans lessen our propensity towards stressing ourselves out is meditation. With extraordinary stress relieving qualities that ensure that we do not over-worry, meditation will leave you even more contented and chilled out than this puppy. Which I think we can all agree, would be a brilliant thing to be.

$\"26.$ Naaaw.