Have you ever noticed that we humans are becoming ever more stressed?
We live in a world where the tiniest provocative remark can result in the most horrific retaliatory acts of violence imaginable. Look the wrong way, say or do the wrong thing and you could be the next target. Why is that so?
But many of us still don’t know why. “He must be crazy”, they’ll say. Why are people so stressed? Many people still can’t answer this.
Sometimes it is said that society itself is decaying, but no one knows why. I know that even when I studied science, I could never figure it out. I could never seem to connect the dots.
And then one day while I was travelling in Tonga, I came across this book with an intruiging title called “future shock”. I read it in about two or three days. It completely altered my world view.
According to the World Health Organisation, the leading causes of death worldwide today are heart disease and stroke.
The following table is based on the premise that good and bad events in one’s life can increase stress levels and make one more susceptible to illness and mental health problems (Holmes & Rahe, 1967). It’s called the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS):
1. Death of a spouse 100
2. Divorce 73
3. Marital Separation 65
4. Jail term 63
5. Death of a close family member 63
6. Personal injury or illness 53
7. Marriage 50
8. Fired at work 47
9. Marital reconciliation 45
10. Retirement 45
11. Change in health of family member 44
12. Pregnancy 40
13. Sex difficulties 39
14. Gain of a new family member 39
15. Business readjustments 39
16. Change in financial state 38
17. Death of a close friend 37
18. Change to different line of work 36
19. Change in no. of arguments with spouse 35
20. Mortgage over $ 50,000 31
21. Foreclosure of mortgage 30
22. Change in responsibilities at work 29
23. Son or daughter leaving home 29
24. Trouble with in-laws 29
25. Outstanding Personal achievements 28
26. Wife begins or stops work 26
27. Begin or end school 26
28. Change in living conditions 25
29. Revision of personal habits 24
30. Trouble with boss 23
31. Change in work hours or conditions 20
32. Change in residence 20
33. Change in school 20
34. Change in recreation 19
35. Change in religious activities 19
36. Change in social activities 18
37. Loan less than 50,000 17
38. Change in sleeping habits 16
39. Change in no. of family get- together 15
40. Change in eating habits 15
41. Vacation 13
42. Holidays 12
43. Minor violation of laws 11
SCORING:
Each event should be considered if it has taken place in the last 12 months. Add values to the right of each item to obtain the total score. Your susceptibility to illness and mental health problems:
Low < 149
Mild = 150-200
Moderate = 200-299
Major>300
Essentially, each of these events results in a change to some part of your life. For example- in 2005, I moved to Tenerife as an Australian expatriate during which time I experienced many simultaneous life changes in a very short space of time: new culture, new society, new work environment, new family, new friends, etc.
I can look back and calculate that not long after moving here my score would have been well over 400, shortly before I contracted a severe case of adult chicken pox, nudging the score closer to 500, then immediately followed by my episode of chronic depression, adding another 50 points onto the score. That’s an extreme level of stress, despite none of the top 10 completely life-altering events occurring.
We already know that stress is linked with increased rates of violence, major illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, cancer & diabetes, in addition to other mental diseases (chronic depression, ADHD, etc). When you consider the top 10 causes of death in developed nations, stress appears to be the biggest killer of all! So in hindsight, it’s easy for me to ask: why can’t we begin to use the Social Readjustment Rating Scale to predict stress and anxiety levels among the general population in order to prevent or at least reduce the negative health consequences from even occurring?
So is it any wonder so many of us have Generalised Anxiety Disorder?
When you have a period of rapid social change (in our highly technological post industrial society), with an insufficient adaptation time, this creates overstimulation. Think of it as a type of “information overload”. For example going shopping, have you ever just been startled by the number of cereals to choose from, or been completely overwhelmed by the current global internet communication network? This in turn leads to increased stress levels (despite our best coping mechanisms such as avoidance, disassociation, idealisation, rationalisation, regression, repression, suppression, denial, fantasy, etc).
I personally think the majority of Personality Disorders and Mental Illnesses are what Alvin Toffler was referring to in his legendary book “Future Shock”, written in 1970.
When your anxiety level is increased beyond normal levels, the resulting stress can lead to a whole host of terrible consequences -violence, illness, depression and other mental diseases. In fact there is a already strong link between anxiety and depression. Violence & depression are perhaps the two worst “coping mechanisms” of all. Surprise surprise, stress is also a major factor in heart disease and strokes. I don’t have to remind you that homicides, suicides and heart attacks are the top 3 killers in most developed nations… and possibly all three are due to too much tension in our lives. Stress is now seen as a risk factor in both cancer and diabetes as well!
I think reducing anxiety is the key to better physical and mental health. In today’s world, we don’t rely on exercise as much as we should. The study at the bottom of this page proves that exercise can reduce the effects of some mental illnesses. But could the reverse also be true; could decreasing our level of exercise in an increasingly stressful world actually be causing our mental health crisis? Instead of teaching our children outmoded concepts, perhaps we should be teaching them how to relax. Heres a short Stress Management Article.
We spend the majority of our time either paying for, or using (monitoring), this thing we call technology. Wasn’t technology supposed to make our lives easier and more productive? So that we have more time to do the things that we enjoy doing?
The majority of people are not working 4 days a week, are they? A four day week would be better for employees’ health. It would also be better for the environment. Instead, we’re working just as hard as ever and I wonder why that still is. I think it’s because we’re being enslaved.
We’re slaves to people who own lots of real estate. We’re slaves to banks. We’re slaves to big corporations. We’re slaves to the rich. We are all becoming enslaved again. We’re slaves to our technology. We’re slaves to our cars. We’re slaves to our children. We’re slaves to our parents. We’re slaves to our society. We’re slaves to our society. We’re slaves to friends. We’re slaves to our own genetic and chemical programming.
I’ve had this draft here lying around for too long so I thought I’d share it “as is”. I believe these are not my own words, but I think being aware of several current theories about stress is interesting in light of one of my other posts.
Hans Selye , one of the foremost stress scientists, found that stress uses “adaptation energy” that depletes us of our resources. He also found that, in general, stress is good but that it turns against us when it is uninterrupted.
Alvin Toffler , a sociologist, found that in our present society many suffer from over-stimulation, too many changes, cognitive overload and decision overload, while our classical means of coping are not adequate for these conditions.
Rosenmann & Friedman , MD’s, studied their patients personality and the incidence of their heart attacks and found that an ambitious (type A) personality had seven times the chance to have a heart attack than the more easygoing (type B). (The only problem with the B’s is that they may be disaster prone). It can be said that stress is caused by poor timing of external changes in combination with an exaggerated internal perception.
Holmes, a psychologist, related illnesses to changes that took place in his patients before the illness. From this he developed his “Stress scale”, which lists changes in order of resulting stress. Then he concluded that change is not random, but a combination of fate and choice; therefore, change management is possible.
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