The Mismatch Problem

For your ancestors, the alarm rang rarely and ended fast. You escaped the predator or you did not, and either way the episode was over and your body dropped back to calm within minutes.

Modern stress is a different animal. It is chronic, abstract, and impossible to settle with your body. You cannot outrun a mortgage, fight a tense relationship, or flee an uncertain future.

So the alarm keeps firing and never fully switches off. You end up living in low-grade chronic stress — quiet enough to ignore, constant enough to do real harm. Your nervous system never learned the difference between real danger and imagined danger. Dreading a deadline brews the same chemicals as being chased.