Tail Docking and Cribbing

As I have become more acquainted with the animal world, it's alarming to recognize the vices that our animals in confinement are inflicting on themselves. What's even more amazing is the parallel that can be drawn to the human behaviors we have also adopted in our own confined worlds.
My daughter has a fantastic obsession with horses. She reads horse books almost exclusively, which includes horse ownership encyclopedias. Recently, she read me a chapter on horse habits, where they mention cribbing. In case you aren't familiar, cribbing is the nasty habit of stalled horses to bite the edge of a stall or something metal or wood and arch their neck and inhale huge amounts of air. It provides them with a sort of natural high. It can become a destructive habit to both the horse and the stall. They can wear down their teeth to a point where they no longer touch when the jaw is closed and develop colic. They do this primarily because they are bored or they observed another horse doing this and have adopted the habit. It is a vice, a sort of pacifier to occupy their time during their long hours on confinement in the stall. The horses have been deprived of their simple need to be horse like in their behavior.
Another phenomenon is the tail biting that occurs in the confined concrete pens that pigs are raised in. To soothe themselves, they will suck or bite on their neighbors tail. This is not usually seen in nature, where pigs spend their time rooting their noses in mud, chasing one another, and rolling in the grass. To stop this damaging vice, industrial pig farmers have been docking their tails at birth to cause the stump to be in such a considerate amount of pain, that they couldn't possibly tolerate their neighbor nibbling on their hind end. Again, these pigs just want a chance to act like pigs.
We see it in the observable animal world all around us; the zoo harbors a wealth of animals struggling with their own devices like plucking out their feathers, or the lion that paces. Our own domesticated animals present with signs of stress like scratching at their skin until it's raw or urinating in the house because you left them for longer then usual. I suppose you could walk into any human caged (mental) institution and see a rainbow of these vices and habits. It's easy to see it there. Of course I am concerned for these animals, but I am not on an animal rights rant right now.
How is it that Christians, who claim to be living the saved life, who have already been "set free" in a sense are struggling with so many habits of the confined? My concern is for the humans who suffer from their own vices. We all have them. Nail biting, scratching, picking, yelling, shopping, eating, exercising, obsessing... it could go on forever. It seems that life cannot be tolerated without our short (or long) list of pacifying behaviors to help us make it through. I entitle myself to a venti Starbucks to numb out, I like to scratch at the follicles of my hair like a baboon, and I can easily be found clenching my jaw. All signs of a stressed life. But why? Am I living in some type of confinement that I can hardly stand to sit here and be still? Did I observe someone else doing these things, and adopt them as my own, as the horses?
Why do we not experience the freedom that we tell ourselves on Sunday that we have? I'm not just talking physical manifestations of stress like the nail biting and leg shaking. I'm talking destructive behaviors and patterns in our lives that over time cause damage to us physically, emotionally and spiritually as well as damage to the world around us (like our stall). If horses are cribbing out of boredom, does that mean that our pacifiers are also caused by a life of boredom? Do we also long to be set out in the pasture where we can run and frolic, graze and socialize?
How interesting that the natural world around us displays such similarities to our inner turmoil. Perhaps the answer could be that simple. Instead of ironically waving the red, white, and blue flag and marketing that we humans have this "freedom", why don't we take it upon ourselves to demonstrate an actual physical freedom by letting ourselves out of this cage, recognize that Christ did come to set us free, and live a celebrated life. If the horses and pigs see relief when they are finally allowed to act according to their natural inclinations within their species, what does a human in it's natural behaviors look like? Then, how do you balance that with earning a paycheck, getting the kids to school on time, and being obedient to Christ?
These are big questions. I'm hoping to discover some small answers in my lifetime. In the mean time, I will be eagerly searching out a life that is symbolic of the pasture rather than the stall.