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For many of us, stress is a part of our daily lives. It’s what you feel when the deadline for an assignment approaches or an exam is just around the corner. People who work, for example, feel stress when they have to complete specific tasks or struggle with the workload. Stress itself is an old mechanism that puts the body into a heightened state of reaction to cope with the situation at hand. But because of its archaic origins, it does not always do its job well (and does not always adapt well to the modern age).
So what would be some types and sources of stress?
Sources of stress are the environmental factors that trigger a stress response and affect our mental health.
These factors can be:
Everyday struggles inherent to our routine
Workplace stress includes all factors related to work, such as workload related to project deadlines.
There are six main areas of work-related stress. These are related to demands (e.g., not being able to cope with job demands), control (e.g., someone feeling like they have no control over how they work), support (e.g., not receiving enough support), relationships (e.g., being harassed at work), role (e.g., not fully understanding what the role entails) and change (e.g., adjusting to when changes at work happen).
Significant life changes, such as the death of a loved one, disrupt one’s life.
Losing your job can be a source of psychological stress as it causes much social and economic distress. Another example could be having to go through a divorce can be psychological stress for many people.
Some top sources of stress are financial problems, work stress, stress from personal relationships (e.g., friends, partner, family), stress from parenting (managing a busy schedule), and daily hassles. In addition, our personality can play a part in the stress we experience; for example, perfectionists may demand too much of themselves, leading to stress.
Let us examine some of these different sources of stress.
Life changes are significant events that disrupt daily routine to such an extent that the tasks automatically become more strenuous, such as getting ready for work every day. We then invest more mental energy in these minor tasks, leaving us exhausted and unable to focus on other areas of our lives.
Life changes can be positive (e.g., a marriage) and negative (e.g., a divorce) at the same time. Any type of life change requires physical and psychological adjustment; the more significant the life-changing event, the more adjustment it will require.
Holmes and Rahe (1967) developed a Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) based on 43 everyday life events and analysed 5000 patients. These events are referred to as life-changing units (LCU) and constitute the numbers of each score. A higher LCU means the event was more stressful.
The death of a spouse, a divorce, and school change are examples of one of the 43 everyday life events included in the list.
The scale itself is composed of these LCUs, and Holmes and Rahe ranked them according to how stressful they were reported to be. The death of a spouse would have an LCU value of 100, while a change in eating habits would have a value of 15.A total LCU score of less than 150 was associated with a healthy life. However, people who reported a total LCU value of over 150 were 30% more likely to have a disease in the next year. People with an LCU score above 300 were 50% more likely to report poor health.So we see that the more stressful life events occur in a person’s life, the more likely they are to become ill afterwards.
Life events are a group of experiences collected from the patients in the sample (400 participants) and then rated according to the degree of adjustment in their lives.
The researchers wanted to investigate the relationship between life events and disease (Rahe et al., 1970). The sample included 2500 members of the US Navy who were screened to ensure they had no common illnesses. Participants recorded the life events they had experienced in the previous six months on a questionnaire. The researchers completed an LCU rating for each participant before starting their tour of duty.
Participants were not informed about the motive of the study (blind study). During their tour of duty, each participant was to report any illness they suffered from to a health official who accompanied them on their tour of duty. At the end of their six months of service, researchers correlated their illness scores with their LCU scores. Rahe et al. found:
A significant and positive correlation between life events and illness.
Participants who had a low SRRS score (LCU) were less likely to be ill during the trip.
The change itself causes stress rather than the negativity or positivity of the change.
As life changes affect the vast majority, if not all members of the human population, it’s important that we evaluate the different sources of stress and the tests used to measure them.
We can also experience physiological sources of stress. This is any stress, internal or external, that affects our internal body system and disrupts homeostasis (a stable internal environment). There are three ways in which our body may experience physiological stress; these are from the environment, development, and ageing.
Environmental stress refers to anything in the environment that can disturb the body, such as extreme temperatures.
If someone was climbing an icy mountain and unfortunately got lost and stuck there, plunging the body into a freezing temperature, they would experience physiological stress from this cold.
Developmental stress is the stress the body experiences as it develops from an embryo until adulthood.
The nervous system undergoes stress due to the developing brain increasing in mass.
We can also distinguish stress from ageing. As we age, different parts of the body deteriorate, such as areas of the brain that may lose their functionality as someone grows older. Synaptic connections between other areas of the brain are also affected.
Small but frequent events that produce stress and frustration characterise daily annoyance. Daily annoyances are cumulative because they occur frequently and build up. They can also cause chronic stress.Lazarus (1980) stated that daily hassles cause more stress than life changes because life changes are less frequent. Daily hassles are common, everyday struggles, such as missing a train, being late for work, getting a warning, etc.
Everyday occurrences that can cause stress are both positive and negative.
Negative problems are smaller, frequent events that cause stress throughout the day.
Positive uplifts are small, good things that counteract stress during the day.
According to some research, daily inconveniences and uplifts are a source of stress. Let us look at the studies that support this concept.
Kanner et al. (1981) developed a hassle and uplift scale. The hassle scale consisted of 117 events that included work, family, and friends. Participants had to rate the intensity of the hassles they experienced on a three-point scale. The uplift scale included 135 positive events, such as a good night’s sleep. Participants had to rate how often they experienced these events during the period.
Kanner et al. (1981) examined the relationship between daily hassles, uplifts and stress symptoms they caused. The SRRS scale served as a predictor of stress symptoms.
Methodology:
The researchers conducted the study on 100 American, white, middle-class individuals aged 45-64 years. All participants completed the SRRS questionnaire one month before the study’s start and completed another SRRS questionnaire during the nine-month study. Once a month, all participants completed the hassles and uplift questionnaire and a questionnaire measuring symptoms of depression or anxiety.
Findings:
Researchers found a positive association between daily hassles and symptoms of stress such as depression and anxiety.
Researchers found a negative correlation between uplifts and stress symptoms in women but not in men.
Daily hassles cause more stress symptoms than life events.
Gervaise et al. (2005) examined the relationship between daily hassles and stress symptoms. The participants were all nurses.
Nurses had to keep a daily diary for one month in which they recorded their daily hassles and uplifts in their jobs.
They also had to rate their job performance during the month.
After one month, the nurses reported their uplifts counteracted the negative stress related to their daily hassles.
The nurses’ performance also improved.
DeLongis et al. (1988) developed a combined hassles and uplifts scale in which they rated 53 items according to the extent to which they were either a hassle or an uplift to an individual. In addition to the scale, participants also completed a questionnaire that captured life events.
They also observed the hassles and illnesses to coincide the next day. Still, there was no association between life events and illness, suggesting the daily hassles we described above have more impact on stress and health.
Daily life hassles | Life changes |
Require minor readjustment. | Require major readjustment. |
Frequently occurring events in the daily course of life. | Rarely occurring events throughout life. |
Research supported by Kanner et al. (1981). | Research supported by Rahe et al. (1967). |
Receives less social support. | Receives more social support. |
There is no cause and effect relationship between stress and daily hassles (measured with correlation studies). | There is no cause and effect relationship between stress and life changes (measured with correlation studies). |
Problems of social desirability as stress symptoms were measured through questionnaires. | Problems of social desirability as stress symptoms were measured through questionnaires. |
Sources of support can be accessed in many ways. One of them is seeking professional help.
Sources of stress are the environmental factors that trigger a stress response.
Sources of stress are daily hassles, life changes and workplace stress.
Life changes are significant life events that can disrupt the daily routine. The more stress, the more psychological adjustments are required. Holmes and Rahe (1967) developed the SRRS scale to measure major life events and their effects on stress.
Small but frequent events that cause stress and frustration characterise daily hassles.
Daily hassles are more likely to be associated with symptoms of stress than life changes.
Kanner et al. (1981) support the research on daily hassles, whereas Rahe et al. (1970) support the research on life changes.
The two main types of stress are life changes and daily hassles.
Sources of support can be accessed in many ways. One of them is seeking professional help.
Some top sources of stress are financial problems, work stress, stress from personal relationships (e.g., friends, partner, family), stress from parenting (managing a busy schedule), and daily hassles. In addition, our personality can play a part in the stress we experience; for example, perfectionists may demand too much of themselves, leading to stress.
There are six main areas of work-related stress. These are related to demands (e.g., not being able to cope with job demands), control (e.g., someone feeling like they have no control over how they work), support (e.g., not receiving enough support), relationships (e.g., being harassed at work), role (e.g., not fully understanding what the role entails) and change (e.g., adjusting to when changes at work happen).
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