Why You Should Avoid Stress at All Costs @Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Watch on YouTube · 2025-12-01 · 22 min

0:00 Hi, as requested by a subscriber, I'm gonna be reviewing a video by the channel Kurzgesagt. It's called You're more stressed than ever. Let's change that.

[video] 0:12 Stress is an ancient superpower that's slowly killing you.

0:18 It's an ancient superpower that's slowly killing you. Since when do superpowers kill you? They start off the video with a completely illogical sentence. They are right that it's slowly killing you. If you want to define stress in the most basic way possible, then it's you experiencing something which you don't want to experience. Your intuition will right away tell you that it's bad for you. That could be because you were brainwashed to do something which you don't want to do, or it could also be out of your hands. It will feel unpleasant. And you will feel how it's aging your body. You will feel how your lifespan is decreasing.

[video] 1:05 It evolved as one of the most powerful tools for survival that has turned into a double-edged sword in the modern world. It grants your wish to rise to a gnarly challenge or to work hard.

1:17 Nobody in nature would climb a mountain for no reason.

[video] 1:32 All living things strive for homeostasis, a state where their body is in balance. To maintain this balance, they make adjustments like moving into the sunlight or eating nutrients. But the world is a cruel place with death lurking behind every corner, and organisms need a way to react to extreme situations. This is how stress evolved as a physical response to a stressor, which is anything challenging or dangerous. Stress is a very fast, drastic change of the state of the body that prioritizes survival, an emergency program that lets the organism push way out of its comfort zone to survive.

2:02 Right, it's an emergency program. It's not something that you should be experiencing in your everyday life. Ideally, not at all. But as I said, sometimes it's out of your hands. But people today stress themselves on purpose.

[video] 2:22 Let's visit a scene 50,000 years ago. The superpower awakens. A group of early homo sapiens are huddled around a fire when suddenly a desperate and starving saber-toothed tiger attacks their camp. Their leader, Ur the Bear Smasher, jumps up as time slows down. His brain classifies the tiger as a critical stressor and unleashes the stress response. Adrenal glands pump out adrenaline that rushes through Ur's body, activating fight-or-flight mode. His heart starts beating faster and his lungs accelerate, providing an emergency supply of nutrients and oxygen to all critical...

2:56 Exactly, and this is what ages you. Of course, such a short moment isn't going to actually age you severely, but people stress themselves way more than this nowadays.

[video] 3:13 systems adrenaline dictates that his muscles have energy priority over his other organs and activates them for rapid action their strength and speed are ramped up pain and fatigue signals are muted while his senses become super sharp and lock in on the threat or perceives every detail with maximum clarity

3:30 Yes, exactly. This is why when people run outside for no reason, they are very focused, very stressed, because the body believes that it's in a dangerous situation.

[video] 3:46 ...realizes the tiger is getting ready to pounce. There's only a split second to react. Adrenaline forces Ur to make a quick impulsive decision.

3:56 Typically, animals wouldn't attack you if you're close to fire, but whatever.

[video] 4:02 Without thinking about it, he chooses to fight and attacks with full force. But the battle is long and arduous. The animal is desperate and will not back...

4:11 It wouldn't be very long. ...down.

[video] 4:14 Our humans risk exhaustion. A new hormone joins the battle, cortisol. Cortisol is the slower, more strategic hormone that manages a longer stress response. It orders a total shift of all body systems, ramping up the...

4:27 This is of course an animated video but still all that you will ever see will be 3D animations at best when it comes to these molecules which we cannot observe. It should be clearly understood that it's not something that's actually traveling in your blood in such a form. People nowadays watch these kind of videos and believe that there's actually some little molecules, balls, such as cortisol and adrenaline traveling in your blood to specific spaces. When they measure the cortisol or the adrenaline, it's of course just chemical reactions. I have different videos where I explain the idea behind it. And that's all that it is. It's an idea.

5:22 This video portrays it as if there's actually little balls flying around your bloodstream.

[video] 5:28 fuel supply while suppressing all non-essential functions like resting, disease defense, or digestion. Boar's body isn't his own anymore. It belongs to stress. Finally, Boar the Bear Smasher deals the killing blow. The tribe gathers in celebration. Their bodies shut down, fight or flight, and activate rest and digest. Wounds begin to hurt and muscles cry in exhaustion. It's time to recover.

5:51 Right. And that's a bad experience. It's something which you don't want to experience. And that's why it causes stress, pain, injuries. And the more stressed you are, the longer you will need to recover.

[video] 6:07 And heal, bond and tell stories about how they killed the angry tiger god. Some fall asleep, others eat to replenish.

6:15 Nobody used to believe that it's a tiger god. They always portray people as religious and stupid back in the day.

[video] 6:29 These people are your ancestors. When did this amazing superpower turn into a curse? The deadly email. Our world has changed so quickly and profoundly that our biology couldn't keep up. Stress is still the same it was 50,000 years ago. Sense a stressor. React immediately and with full force. Prioritize present moment survival. Make sacrifices if necessary. That works well when you have to jump out of the way of a car, but most stressors we encounter nowadays are abstract, acute and more numerous, often intangible. Well, persist for much longer and usually don't even require physical action. The tigers of the past are now angry emails.

7:11 Exactly, no actual physical reactions simply because it's not physical, meaning that it's not real.

[video] 7:20 Deadlines, online dating, rush hour traffic or doom scrolling the news and social media. But our brains are built to take fear very seriously. So if you experience even a short burst of anxiety over an email or because you scroll through Twitter, the helping hand of stress springs to action. You can have dozens of these micro-stresses per day, constantly activating your stress response, even if you barely notice anymore.

7:42 You can stress yourself because of all of this, but it's not comparable to an animal attacking you at night, come on.

8:01 healthcare, inflation, the rent, none of it exists. Nothing that he named actually exists. It's all ideas. As he said, it's all abstract ideas, it's concepts, it's all in your head only. Can you sense the rent that you need to pay? Can you sense inflation? Can you see it, touch it, smell it and so on? No, of course not, because it's not real. It's not in this physical reality. That's the big difference between humans in nature and modern slaves, because the slaves of today are stressed because of something that they imagine, because their lives are imaginary. So they imagine that they need to pay rent with money which doesn't exist. Then there is inflation.

8:58 They hear about ideas and concepts all the time. They imagine that they are real and then they are worried about that. It's not as bad as an animal attacking you, as I said, but it's still stressful if you believe that it's real. It's all brainwashing. If you cannot sense it with your senses, it's not real, it's not in this physical reality. Humans in nature are stressed by what's actually visible or by what they can touch, because it's real. Whereas people nowadays imagine that there is something out there which they should be worried about, afraid of.

[video] 9:43 making our future more uncertain. But the boost we get from stress can also be extremely helpful if you have to study for an exam, run a marathon or comp... Who wants to run a marathon?

9:54 Nobody. You can only be brainwashed to do that but you never want to do that because it's stressful and this is what decreases your lifespan. Who wants to do an exam? You simply put man-made symbols on a paper. Somebody looks at it and tells you if your answers are correct in their minds.

10:20 Why? To get a paper with symbols on it telling you that you succeeded? You can do it if you want to for whatever reason, but why would you be stressed about it? It's nonsense. It's irrelevant. Whether you succeed in an exam or not is completely irrelevant. It doesn't change anything.

[video] 10:48 Even addictive. So many of us end up abusing it. Especially if you work in a competitive field, you may keep pushing and challenging yourselves and others, relying on stress to get your best performance possible. The problem is that stress was only ever intended to be used in short spurts and critical situations. If it's activated... Okay, that's correct days weeks and months with no release it becomes chronic stress one of the deadliest conditions for humans How chronic stress destroys you? The price of chronic stress is the slow destruction of every part of your body and brain. As the stress cascade is activated over and over, adrenaline and cortisol keep flooding your body. Your fight or flight systems are over-activated, while your rest and digest functions are constantly suppressed. Your muscles tense up for a fight that never comes. Instead, your back, shoulders, and neck...

11:36 for a fight that never comes. Very well said.

[video] 11:39 There's no actual proof for that. You will have digestive issues if you eat unnatural food. No matter how stressed you are, if you eat raw meat,

12:03 You're not gonna have these issues. I've never heard of that.

[video] 12:07 A lot here is based on unscientific beliefs.

[video] 12:23 blood vessels aren't built for this constant over activation and get destroyed in the process massively increasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke your immune system gets weaker and stronger at the same time in a way that causes maximum damage to you the parts that protect you weaker and stronger at the same time a lot of illogical sentences Stress is bad for you, but you shouldn't blame everything on stress. They ignore the unnatural food that people are eating today.

13:05 your tissue all over.

[video] 13:07 Your brain gets rewired to serve stress. Perceiving an ongoing critical emergency, it slows down calm reflection and thinking, instead favoring quick and rapid reactions. You literally get worse at thinking clearly and lose wisdom points. You're much more likely to make bad impulsive decisions like breaking up, eating junk food, or using drugs. You become worse at solving your problems while creating new ones. Under chronic stress, you're simply a worse version of yourself. If this persists, your memory and cognitive abilities get worse as you slide into anxiety and depression.

13:38 It's interesting how they only show a guy sitting at the computer talking about tariffs, the rent and so on. They don't show people actually physically stressing themselves at the gym, running outside for no reason.

[video] 13:58 Your chances of getting out of a stressful situation in the modern world

14:01 This is not good for you, but exercise is so much worse. It's such extreme stress and it's also chronic stress for most people, seeing as most people do it a few times a week.

[video] 14:15 Worsen the longer you're chronically stressed. A hellish, vicious circle. If you can't escape it, odds are that you may die earlier and suffer greatly along the way.

14:27 Yes, that's why marathon runners die from heart attacks so often.

[video] 14:32 Not to use stress as intended. Stress can be your friend.

14:37 You cannot use stress. No, stress cannot be your friend. It's simply you experiencing something which you don't want to experience, as I explained at the beginning. And you can get over that, you can try to adapt to that as much as possible, if it happens often to you, but this will leave you aged.

[video] 15:02 in measured doses acute stress enables you to conquer mountains and push beyond your comfort nobody does this naturally there's no reason to do this so helps you to improve your skills and grow as a person and it can make it feel amazing also you wouldn't have a safety belt nothing would you do that in nature to perform at your very best

15:24 Oh yeah, dancing at the top of the mountain, I'm so happy. You can see how happy these people are. Stressing themselves, risking their lives for nothing. For no reason, just because their lives are empty.

[video] 15:38 But to get the good without the bad, it's critical that you properly wind down your fight or flight response and relax. Listen to your body. If you feel stressed, you are stressed full stop. There's no universal threshold you have to reach before you're allowed to do something about it. Next, ask yourself, is your stress response productive in your situation, and is there an end in sight? If you're studying for exams or moving house, stress is a superpower, helping you unlock your full potential. But your health needs breaks from fight-or-flight mode, be it meeting friends...

16:07 The thing is that you won't achieve anything when you do all of that because it's slave activities.

[video] 16:13 Working out or going for a walk in nature?

16:16 Working out, they mention it as if it's something good. You go to a gym, you lift manmade metal up and down and then you achieve what? Tell me. Give me one thing that you achieve or give me one benefit of lifting metal up and down. Yeah, I'll be waiting forever. Nobody can give any kind of benefits.

[video] 16:37 Relaxation is not being lazy. This is serious self-care. If you relax actively and regularly, you'll keep stress from claiming a price on your body and mind and still be able to use its power.

16:49 It's really funny they try to say that there's some activities which are worth it. You should be stressed.

17:07 What's the point of any of that? Going to the gym, doing exams, doing your taxes or whatever. In the system, yes. But not naturally. Not actually.

[video] 17:19 If you can't do this at the moment, plan active relaxation time as soon as you can. Yoga is not really stressful from what it seems like, I've never done it.

[video] 17:45 This email is not a deadly tiger. But the single most effective way to remove stress from your life is to remove the stressor itself. Become your own personal assistant and assess where tiny bursts of stress are coming from during your day. Do you feel stressed when you doom scroll? Social media doesn't show us what we want, but what makes us engage. And negative emotions make us engage the most. So simply getting rid of the apps or unfollowing stressful people can actually remove a lot of stress from your life. They compare that to an animal attacking you all the time. It's not that bad. Yeah, easier said than done for a lot of people.

[video] 18:32 Oh my god, and then they portray babies as these crying beings stressing you. It's not the case.

18:54 if you feed them natural food. Maybe a formula-fed baby is going to cry all the time. That might as well be true, but not a healthy breastfed child, especially if the child gets natural food afterwards.

[video] 19:10 If your brain is stuck in stress mode for too long, it will get worse and worse at solving problems. You may not be able to think clearly to get out of your situation. In these cases, the most powerful move is to ask for help. Open up to friends or family or get professional help. An extra pair of hands can make a huge difference. In the end, life will throw stressors your way. This is unavoidable, and that's okay. Stress is your superpower. Use it, but never forget to get to the other side.

19:36 Makes no sense. They gave examples of activities which you would do in the system as a slave, which give you nothing, no fulfillment, it's all meaningless. How is it a superpower if you're doing something which you don't even want to do?

[video] 19:59 That's why we created a health journal. We've collected all the latest health science and designed a framework. Health science. Science, yeah, for sure. To help you figure out what actually works for your life without pressure or guilt. If you want to reduce stress, start with the rest and mental health chapter.

20:17 Or dive into new... You simply need to do what you want to do. Why do you need a book? Why do you need to listen to other people? You don't need other people's opinions to know what you want to do. You already know it. Do you want to go out and run today? No. You want to go to the gym? No, you don't. You want to eat broccoli, which tastes like death? No, it's all stressful. It's all bad for you.

[video] 20:39 nutrition or physical fitness. Each chapter is packed with real science, lots of examples and inspiration to get you started.

20:57 I understand what they were trying to say in the video and how they were trying to manipulate their audience. But stress is something which you don't want to experience, as I explained at the beginning of the video. Therefore calling stress a superpower makes no sense at all. A superpower would benefit you. Stress only harms you, it ages you. You could say that being able to adapt to stressful situations is a useful so-called power. I wouldn't call it a superpower, of course. If we wouldn't be able to adapt to situations which are dangerous, painful, then we would suffer a lot or possibly even die very quickly. But the stress itself is not a superpower.

21:56 It's you being able to adapt to these stressful situations. But they talk as if experiencing pain is something good. And that's why the viewer will believe that they should work out. They should do the exams. They should be a good slave. Thanks for watching.