Stress evolved in humans as a way to lead people in the right direction, as a pointer or inner feeling to guide many to survival. Now, in the ever-so-changing modern age, this feeling, or for some: a weight, has become a major problem. From an evolutionary standpoint, stress was always meant to be a short-term boost, as a final reserve that feeds people adrenaline to get through a hurdle.

However, this isn’t how it’s being used. It’s too often that the human body “treats. . .everyday tasks as threats” to survival, according to the Mayo Clinic. For a student forcibly cramming too much for tests after a long period of anxiousness, or an adult struggling to pay the bills due next month, stress can be channeled for too long. Constant stimulation, or rather, adrenaline, can create situations where people become irritable or withdraw from hobbies and friends due to the normalized feeling of anticipation.

This doesn’t mean stress is useless in the present day. It’s important for bonding with others, whether it’s going through a tough time with parents or riding a rollercoaster with friends. Even “tolerable stresses,” which Harvard University named, seem to be something that everyone goes through in their lives, like losing something or someone who was loved, or facing significant adversity from an injury, can be a root cause.

A freshman at CdM, George Zhang, feels he has faced similar emotions in his lifetime. When informed about various kinds of stresses, he cited how he felt he had “gone through those before,” citing a few close experiences as he approached the end of last year. “The finals,” he mentioned, were unnecessarily nerve-wracking. In the end, he stated that if he could have avoided those emotions or chosen a steadier pace, he would.

Despite being seemingly an obstacle in our modernized, constantly changing world, stress can still provide the necessary energy that some people need to push through. The real problem is not the emotion itself—but how people control it. Stress isn’t an easy emotion to overcome—but even just understanding the basis it is built on can help people in the long run.