It's TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. We're all stressed out, and we know it. The data backs this up, our feelings back this up. In his 2021 talk from a TED salon, social epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson offers a reason for our anxious emotions that might surprise you.

Understanding this can point us toward collective solutions to improve our well-being.

I'm sure you've noticed a difference between posed photographs and pictures taken of people

who are unaware of the camera.

The pictures where people are unaware,

they often look haggard, depressed, anxious.

Some of them look quite angry, not a smile to be seen.

And yet if you look at pictures of people posed,

they put their arms around each other. They smile. That's, I think,

how we'd like to be seen, how we think we should be together. Unfortunately, the data tells a different story. In the UK, surveys have shown that 74% of adults have felt so stressed are overwhelmed and unable to cope.

32% have had suicidal thoughts.

16% have actually self-harmed.

In the USA, pictures very similar.

79% felt stressed every day.

And almost 60% have felt paralyzed by stress.

When there are new figures that come out in the media showing levels of stress, depression, self-harm, drug abuse, eating disorders, what's the response? It's simply to demand more services, more psychotherapists,

more psychologists, more psychiatrists. It's as if a large majority of the population were being seriously injured and instead of finding out what's going wrong,

we simply want more surgeons to stitch them up.

The crucial question we must ask is why is this happening?

Why even in rich countries?

I'm an epidemiologist, which means I spent my career

doing research on the causes of health and illness in populations.

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