Stress can be defined as pressures placed on people and their reactions to those pressures or as an imbalance between perceived demands and the perceived ability to cope. Both definitions will strike a chord with those of you who have experienced some form of stress in your lives.
I have written a lot about stress. However, a recent survey commissioned by a well-known painkiller manufacturer brought out the ‘biggest headaches in modern life’.
I thought it would be interesting to compare these headaches to the stress and life events rating scale created by Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe in 1967.
This Social Re-adjustment Rating Scale has been used widely to discuss the life events that cause serious stress to people in their everyday lives.
The theory suggested in the use of this scale was that any stressful events could be linked with higher chances of illness developing. If people were made aware of what caused serious stress, they would hopefully approach the situation with caution and be prepared.
This scale of life events is quite extensive, so I will not copy it all here. However, let’s take a look at the top 10 stressful events as seen in 1967: death of a spouse; divorce; marital separation; prison term; death of a close family member; personal injury or illness; marriage; being fired from your job; reconciliation with spouse; and retirement.
Just as a comparison, the bottom of the 1967 scale looks like this:
• Mortgage or loan under £10,000;
• Changes in sleeping habits;
• Changes in eating habits;
• Going on holiday;
• Christmas.
If we assess this information, we will see that events considered seriously stressful in the late 1960s would probably not be listed at the top. Remember that divorce/marital separation was a very rare occurrence in those days, so, while it is still a stressful event now, it may not be so high up on the list.
I suspect that financial events, such as the mortgage/loan at the bottom of the table, would be much higher up the list and the £10,000 sum would be a lot higher too.
So what did the recent survey show were our stressful events in 2014? Again, there were 30 events, but I will show the top of the list first:
• Laptop/computer freezing;
• Cold calling i.e. sales calls or PPI (insurance) calls;
• Slow Wi-Fi;
• Being stuck in traffic;
• People who take up two parking places;
• Public transport delays;
• Junk mail;
• Waiting on the phone to make an appointment;
• People who throw their rubbish out of car windows;
• Drivers who do not use their indicators;
• Potholes in the road;
The bottom of the list looks like this:
• Noisy neighbours;
• Road works;
• Forgetting your password;
• People talking overly loud on public transport;
• People who cycle on pavements.
It is important to bear in mind the difference between a survey carried out in the UK with 2,000 participants and the 1967 survey carried out by doctors using 5,000 medical patients.
However, the 2014 survey is a good straw poll of what comes to mind immediately when someone is asked what stresses them out in today’s technological world.
There is no denying that technology in our lives is a great source of daily stress
Some of the problems seem relatively minor when compared to the serious life event of ‘death of a spouse’. However, there is no denying that the technology in our lives is a great source of daily stress.
It is ironic that we have such amazing advancement in technology to help our lives and yet it causes serious anxiety when it ceases to work or when we cannot understand it.
Being stuck in traffic, public transport delays, potholes and issues related to travelling are all more relative today. The events in 1967 were far more serious, with serving a prison term coming high on the list.
The interesting factor here is that most of those people will not have served a prison term, but the stress of worrying about it caused it to be high on the list.
In looking and comparing both surveys, there is not one event which has a crossover. They are all completely different.
If we return to the definition of stress and look at the phrase ‘perceived ability to cope’, we should consider, during the next stressful event in our lives, our perception of the stress we are suffering.
If it is true and our everyday stress in 2014 is almost superficial, perhaps we can control it by asking ourselves how important it is in the overall view of life?
Here are some stressbusters that will require you to take control of your anxiety, stress and panic and to calm yourself: stop beating yourself up; stop saying yes; stop and think; stop rushing; stop for lunch; stop and take a walk; stop and breathe; and stop working late.
kathryn@maltanet.net