Stress -- It’s All the Rage
What if it turns out that stress is contagious, passed from person to person with no vaccine to prevent it? What if concern about stress turns out to be a primary cause of stress itself? What if the consequences of stress are not just as bad as we think, but worse?
Might the American Stress Institute be correct in labeling it “America’s No. 1 health problem”?
What if stress, as the Stress Institute calculates, costs the economy $300 billion a year? That’s up from estimates of $150 billion just 15 years ago.
My, we could get the country moving ahead without mortgaging the future in a sea of red-ink tax cuts if we could only calm down. We might even be able to pay for prescription drugs for the elderly and reduce the need for so many medicines at the same time.
I’ve been asking around about stress. It seems that most stress arises out of our jobs, which is not meant to slight the many other sources, such as travel, shopping, the background bleat of rap music everywhere, too many commercials on TV, telemarketers, awkward teenage socialization, bullies on the grade-school playgrounds, etc.
The federal government’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says more than half of employed Americans feel that job stress is a major problem in their lives and now constitutes “a threat to the health of workers and, in turn, to the health of organizations.” A Roper Poll in 2001 found that 54% of the country felt “seriously stressed” at least once a week.
A study by the independent research firm Merlin Co. found nearly a third of workers described themselves as in the most extreme category of stress, the highest percentage since the survey began six years ago. Fortune magazine says the number of workers calling in sick because of stress has tripled in just the last four years.
With war, the lurching uncertainty of the economy, the G-forces of social change, job insecurity and the relentless calls for greater productivity, no wonder. And just think, 20 years ago Time magazine proclaimed stress “the Epidemic of the Eighties.”
So what are we doing about it? Not enough. Not in our policy priorities, where we barely think of it. Not in business, where stress is considered a problem to be managed, not alleviated. And, from what I can tell of matters, not in our personal lives either. Pick that healthy salad with dressing on the side for lunch, but eat it at your desk -- huff, huff.
Lately, they’ve been handing out the Nobel Prize to economists who have explored how human psychology works on the free market. But we’re still lagging when it comes to the obvious question of how the free market works on us.
Not that there isn’t a lot of research. Credible studies numbering in the hundreds have linked stress to cancer, heart attacks, a weakening of the immune system, high blood pressure, migraines, blood clots, back pain, muscle deterioration, digestive disorder, spousal abuse, child abuse and sundry other maladies and violent behaviors. And that’s just for starters. The American Psychological Assn. reports that workplace assaults as a consequence of “desk rage” now number in the tens of thousands and cost businesses up to $36 billion a year in lost productivity, increased security and desperate patchwork remedies such as massage services or job counseling. A study of 774 men published last year in Health Psychology found that hostility and deep pessimism were worse on our hearts, get this, than smoking, drinking or being fat.
Stress, as commonly explained, is the unnatural result of the very natural fight-flight adaptability of our ancient progenitors. Humans produce a heady cocktail of hormones that speed us along, like an afterburner on a jet plane, when we need to down a mastodon for dinner or escape a hungry saber-toothed tiger. The trouble is, traffic, noise and any number of other facets of daily life trigger the same chemical jolt. Except now we have little chance to fight back or flee, so we spend our hours stewing in our own powerful juices.
I asked UCLA biologist Jay Phelan whether this chemical reaction passes through the human population the way, say, a shiver of fear shoots through a gaggle of grazing animals: “Yes, and I think this has escaped people for a long time,” he said. “It’s like an extended warning system. You can see it elsewhere in the natural world: animals exquisitely attuned to the stress level of their fellow creatures. That way, they can protect themselves without actually having to see the source of danger.”
So if stress seems like the rage these days, it is. We spread it around like the flu.
Worrisome? You bet. In Australia, scientists forced a group of deer to live in proximity to a tiger with no chance for escape. The fight-flight hormone cortisol produced by these constantly stressed creatures broke down muscle tissues. The deer withered and died.
Hum. Ever feel a little caged with the tiger yourself these days?
