Maslow’s hierarchy of needs doesn’t map 1:1 to stress.
I’ve never been in immediate danger of starvation or exposure, so I don’t know the stress levels associated with it. I have definitely had serious health scares and death among myself and my family. And that is deeply stressful. More than anything I can imagine.
But after the physiological needs layer of the pyramid, the stress levels with all the rest do not seem to follow a pattern of getting less as you move up.
In fact, it’s hard to discern any pattern at all in stress across the hierarchy. After physical survival, the other needs may ascend in order of importance, but the stress at each level is fairly constant, or at least has a similar distribution over events at each layer.
At each level, you imagine the next level up is easy street. If you’re struggling to have a steady job and live in a decent neighborhood, you feel like if you only had solid income, a safe house and car, and a rainy day fund, any problems beyond that would be easy and fun to solve. The stress would disappear. But it doesn’t.
When you’re physically and economically secure and healthy, you think just having great friends or a perfect mate would end the stress. But it doesn’t.
The stress over finding meaning, working out a moral code and purpose, spending your time in ways that feel significant is real. In fact, if you’re struggling to find meaning you might find yourself longing for the simpler times when you were just struggling to make enough money to pay the bills.
I don’t think stress is ultimately a function of our external position in the world. I suspect it’s really about our ability to make peace with existence itself, whatever our level of need. It won’t fully go away by achieving any external goal or meeting any other need. It must be continuously wrestled with. If you get good at dealing with and reducing the stress of your existence at the lowest levels of the hierarchy, you will also be good at dealing with new stresses as you move up. It’s a skill that translates.
Stress is best treated as an entity all its own that needs to be confronted on its own terms, independent of other problems you’re trying to solve.