Any event in life that a person finds threatening, difficult to cope with or causes excess pressure can be a potential cause of stress.
It is important to bear in mind that stress is an individualistic, subjective experience and therefore what one person finds stressful another may not. Stressors can be broken down roughly into either external or internal or a mixture of both. External Stressors. Research by Psychiatrists Drs Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe revealed a list of common causes of stress that most people would find stressful. The scale is a list of 45 stressors each given a number of points, with the most stressful at the top of the list death of a spouse and the least stressful at the bottom of the scale a minor violation of the law.
The research indicates that if your total score is more than points the chances are that it could have an impact on your health. A score of over three hundred points in one year indicates that you have a high risk of developing a stress related health problem. One of the weaknesses of the Holmes and Rahe Social Readjustment scale is that it doesnt take into account the individuals personality, their perception of how difficult the stressor is, nor does it take into account how long the stressor continues for; the scale just gives a single number for each stressor.
A growing body of research suggests that minor, everyday stress — caused by flight delays, traffic jams, cellphones that run out of battery during an important call, etc.
Chronic daily hassles can lead to increased blood pressure, which puts you at risk for heart disease, explains Carolyn Aldwin, director of the Center for Healthy Aging Research at Oregon State University. She adds that it can also raise the levels of our stress hormones, a process that affects our immune system, and can lead to chronic inflammation, a condition associated with a host of serious illnesses, including cancer.
In a study, researchers interviewed about people about the frequency with which they experienced stress and had them evaluate the severity of it. They also tested their resting heart rate variability, or HRV, the variation in intervals between heartbeats.
Consider all the thousands of studies that have used this scale to correlate stress and illness symptoms: If you were to assign an average correlation coefficient to this body of research, what would be your best guess? How strong do you think the correlation coefficient would be? If it were possible to show causation, do you think stress causes illness or illness causes stress? Potential stressors do not always involve major life events. Daily hassles —the minor irritations and annoyances that are part of our everyday lives e.
Daily commutes, whether a on the road or b via public transportation, can be hassles that contribute to our feelings of everyday stress. Researchers have demonstrated that the frequency of daily hassles is actually a better predictor of both physical and psychological health than are life change units. Cyber hassles that occur on social media may represent a new source of stress. In one investigation, undergraduates who, over a week period, reported greater Facebook-induced stress e.
Clearly, daily hassles can add up and take a toll on us both emotionally and physically. Stressors can include situations in which one is frequently exposed to challenging and unpleasant events, such as difficult, demanding, or unsafe working conditions. Although most jobs and occupations can at times be demanding, some are clearly more stressful than others [link].
Equally likely, most would agree that jobs containing various unpleasant elements, such as those requiring exposure to loud noise heavy equipment operator , constant harassment and threats of physical violence prison guard , perpetual frustration bus driver in a major city , or those mandating that an employee work alternating day and night shifts hotel desk clerk , are much more demanding—and thus, more stressful—than those that do not contain such elements.
Although the specific stressors for these occupations are diverse, they seem to share two common denominators: heavy workload and uncertainty about and lack of control over certain aspects of a job. Clearly, many occupations other than the ones listed in [link] involve at least a moderate amount of job strain in that they often involve heavy workloads and little job control e.
Such jobs are often low-status and include those of factory workers, postal clerks, supermarket cashiers, taxi drivers, and short-order cooks. Job burnout occurs frequently among those in human service jobs e. Job burnout consists of three dimensions. Second, job burnout is characterized by depersonalization: a sense of emotional detachment between the worker and the recipients of his services, often resulting in callous, cynical, or indifferent attitudes toward these individuals.
Job strain appears to be one of the greatest risk factors leading to job burnout, which is most commonly observed in workers who are older ages 55—64 , unmarried, and whose jobs involve manual labor. Heavy alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, being overweight, and having a physical or lifetime mental disorder are also associated with job burnout Ahola, et al. In addition, depression often co-occurs with job burnout.
One large-scale study of over 3, Finnish employees reported that half of the participants with severe job burnout had some form of depressive disorder Ahola et al.
As an illustration, consider CharlieAnn, a nursing assistant who worked in a nursing home. CharlieAnn worked long hours for little pay in a difficult facility. Overcome your Fears and Phobias. Sign Up. Sign In Sign Up. Psychologist World Toggle Navigation Learn more psychology. References Holmes, T. The social readjustment rating scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research , 11 2 , Delongis, A. Relationship of daily hassles, uplifts, and major life events to health status. Health Psychology , 1 2 , O'Connor, D.
Health Psychology , 27 1. The impact of daily stress on health and mood: psychological and social resources as mediators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 54 3 , Personality Quizzes. Self-Help Guides. Follow Psychologist World:. Take the stress test and measure your stress levels. To Run Or To Fight? How the Fight-or-Flight response explains stress. Fight Or Flight Revision Quiz Test your knowledge of the fight-or-flight response with this revision quiz.
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