Simplify your Life Week – August 4-10, 2025

History of Simplify your Life Week

Simplify Your Life Week has an unclear history. However, its purpose is obvious — encouraging people to rid their lives of physical and psychological clutter. This week is for simple living and eliminating things that cause stress and unnecessary chaos. It not only focuses on physical aspects but also pushes people to remove mental and emotional blockages. These could be toxic relationships, negative thoughts, or unhealthy work environments.

Unlike what the term connotes in modern parlance, ‘stress’ was originally a physics term. In physics, it refers to the strain on a physical object from a force exerted on it. For instance, when a piece of plastic undergoes stress, it bends and breaks. Hans Selye borrowed this term and began using it in the 20th century concerning humans after completing medical training at the University of Montreal. He observed that patients in the hospital, despite having different illnesses, all had one thing in common — they all looked sick. Thus, he surmised that they were under physical stress. He proposed a theory that stress was a non-specific strain on the body caused by an irregularity in normal body functions, leading to the release of the stress hormone. Several researchers had a problem with the word ‘non-specific,’ arguing that psychological factors could also cause stress.

Later, researchers conducted experiments and discovered common elements that generally caused stress — whatever the specific stressors may be. These elements were ‘novelty,’ ‘unpredictability,’ ‘threat to the ego,’ and ‘sense of control,’ forming the acronym ‘N.U.T.S.’ Selye also propounded the “General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)” with three stages — alarm reaction, resistance, and exhaustion. To date, this is one of the most popular stress theories.