- If you can commute in a bike, you get some regular exercise. Overall I am more physically active when I work from the office. If the self-employed gig goes well, you may need to scale to more than one person and get an office anyway.
- Lunch break and small talk with your colleagues can be a positive experience, but if you eat what you brought from home, or want to skip meal, or read a book in silence, the truth is nobody really cares.
- Some stress is unavoidable, and as you noted income insecurity stress can be minimized when you are employed, and you can focus on few things you can do well. Also, you can leave work at work, and dedicate free time to family, sport, hobbies, there's more than one way to deal with stress. Overall I think employment is less stressful unless it's a shitty underpaid job.