Stress and Your Life

Are we there yet? Most readers opening a book about stress management hope they will learn better ways to manage stress in their own lives. Learning about the psychophysiology of stress is a useful starting place, and you may have already seen examples in your own life. At this point, you understand the general nature of stress and the stress cycle. You know that the stress cycle involves sources of stress that can be real or imaginary as well as a stress response-a total body- mind event that includes thoughts, feelings, behavior, and physical preparation for fight or flight. You have seen how the nervous and endocrine systems orchestrate the fight-or-flight response, and you have studied the many physiological effects that occur as you gear up to deal with a potential threat. You have also seen how chronic stress can disrupt the psychophysiological processes that keep you healthy and how such stress can result in a variety of stress-related disorders. You know that stress and its symptoms are not "all in your mind."

    Now it is time to look more closely at stress and your life. In this chapter you will examine your stress cycle from several different angles. You will assess the ways in which you are currently dealing well with stress and the ways in which you would like to improve your coping abilities and stress resistance. You will also set some preliminary goals for improving your ability to manage stress.

SOURCES OF STRESS: LIFE EVENTS 

Most of us would agree that there is a relationship between feelings of stress and the events in our lives. Selye's concept of the General Adaptation Syndrome, introduced in Chapter 2, explained Selye's theory that any sort of change required adaptation, which required energy (Selye, 1976). For example, if a professor asks you to meet with her after class, you adapt by rearranging your after-class plans and mentally preparing for the meeting. Such adaptation hopefully takes only a little energy (unless you are preparing for a hostile encounter), but even small adaptations add up. Larger events such as moving to a new city, starting college, and ending a relationship take quite a bit of energy. In the 1960s, stress researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe proposed a questionnaire, the Life Events Scale, also known as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, as a tool for measuring stress (Holmes & Rahe, 1967). This scale measures stress in terms of Life Change Units (LCUs). The original research of Holmes and Rahe tested the hypothesis that people who reported more stress as measured by this scale would experience more illness. On the average, this was true. Of people reporting' 150 to 199 LCUs in one year, 37 percent became ill during the following year. Subjects who scored 200 to 299 LCUs had a 51 percent illness rate, while 79 percent of those scoring over 300 LCUs got sick. So, more change meant more stress, which meant more illness.

    Subsequent research has not always found a strong relationship between scores on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale and illness. This is not surprising, since a given source of stress may vary in stress "content" from person to person. For example, starting college may be a welcome event requiring only a minimum amount of adjustment for one person, while another young person, not really wanting to attend college, might approach this change full of resentment, loneliness, and fear. Who is to say exactly how many points that event is worth? Nevertheless, calculating your score on such scales can be useful. We are generally well aware of the major stressors in our lives, but we often underestimate how many potentially stressful minor changes occur on a regular basis and require some adjustment. Understanding how much stress you have experienced during the last year can help you understand your current stress level. Two scales are included here. The first is a life events questionnaire adapted from the Social Readjustment Rating Scale; the second is a special version for college students (Anderson, 1972). Use whichever seems more applicable to you.

A given situation, such as a family gathering, may vary in stress content from person to person.

THINKING ABOUT YOUR LIFE EVENTS

It is important not to regard your questionnaire scores as an indication of a future over which you have no control. Remember that college students tend to score high on these questionnaires, but much of the change associated with being in college is positive for most students and thus less likely to lead to stress-related illness. Nevertheless, adaptation does take energy, and that's the main message here. Pace yourself! Recognize all the change that has taken place in your life during the past year, appreciate all the opportunities that are part of this change, and take it from there. Exert what control you do have. Schedule optional events for slower times. When possible, try not to push too much change into a small time frame. Plan ahead and do what you can to make those small changes as nonintrusive as possible. Recognize times when your LCUs are high and remember that you may be more vulnerable to stress-related illness then, so pay special attention to the habits that keep you healthy, like eating well, exercising, and getting enough sleep (Nespor, 1985). Also remember that many people with high scores do not get sick any more frequently than people with lower scores. The next section looks at the characteristics of people who tend to be resistant to stress, and helps you assess your stress resistance.

In the 1970s, a group of researchers looked at the relationship between LCUs and illness from a new angle (Kobasa, 1979; Kobasa et al., 1982). Why, they asked, did some people who score high on the rating scale not get sick? As you remember, research had suggested that almost 80 percent of people scoring over 300 LCUs became ill during the following year. What about the other 20 percent? How were they different? Were there some common traits among people who consistently operated under high levels of stress without suffering from stress-related illness? This research group found that several traits discriminated between people who were stress resistant and those who were more vulnerable to the negative effects of stress. People with these traits were described as having "hardy" personalities. According to this research group, hardy people are characterized by high levels of conunitment, control, and challenge. They feel a sense of commitment to themselves, their work, families, and other important values. We've already seen that a sense of control has come up in many studies as an important stress buffer. Hardy people see the changes in life as challenges to master rather than obstacles to be overcome (Kobasa, 1984). We'll talk more about the concept of hardiness in Chapter 14 -- indeed throughout this book. The Hardiness Self-Assessment on the previous page will help give you some idea of how hardy you are.

STRESS AND WELLNESS

Don Ardell is one of the original writers who helped shape the wellness concept in the 1970s. He devised the next questionnaire, which offers a wellness approach to stress assessment, and evaluates your stress/wellness level from your perceptions of possible stressors rather than their occurrence in your life. This test is more applicable to older students since it asks about situations that have yet to become a reality for many younger ones, such as career choice and satisfaction with the decision of whether to have children. It is included here to broaden your understanding of stress as a component of wellness and to give you a useful evaluation of how things are going in various arenas of your life so far.

RELAXATION AND ADAPTIVE COPING

Most people already have a coping and relaxation repertoire, things they enjoy doing that help them unwind and feel good. In Chapter I we referred to such activities as palliative coping strategies. Take a closer look at yours by completing the Twenty Pleasures exercise on page 78.

USING PLEASURABLE EXPERIENCES TO COPE

It's important to note that the relaxation value of a given activity can vary greatly depending on your mind-set. For example, a hot bath can be very soothing if you focus on relaxing, but it won't be if you spend your time in the tub worrying about how much work you have to do. Watching television can be either relaxing or stressful. Some items on your list, such as having a drink, may be associated with relaxation but actually be causing stress. Evaluate carefully the relaxation activities you wish to promote as adaptive coping measures.

DEVELOPING A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR PERSONAL STRESS CYCLE WITH A STRESS LOG

Awareness is the first step to improving your stress resistance. Keeping a stress log is one of the best ways to increase your understanding of your personal stress cycle: what types of stressors cause you to overreact, how you respond to various stressors, how your stress response affects your health and stress level, how effective your coping strategies are, and how your health behavior and lifestyle contribute to your current level of stress.

    There are many ways to keep a stress log. You may wish to make copies of the sample stress log page in this chapter, or you may wish to devise a notebook of your own. Notice times when you feel stressed, and take notes as soon as possible on what is causing the stress and how you are responding and coping. It is important to include observations on all components of the stress cycle and to record your observations for at least a week-longer if possible. The components of the stress cycle to observe include the following:

1. Stressors: Describe the sources of stress.

2. Physical response. What did your body feel while you felt stressed? Examples: tense jaw, pounding heart, upset stomach.

3. Psychological response: What thoughts and feelings flashed through your mind as you evaluated and responded to the stressor? Examples: I can't do this. Why am I so stupid? She's impossible.

4. Coping. Include actions taken, decisions made, palliative strategies used.

5. Coping evaluation: You may wish to evaluate coping strategies after the stressor and stressful feelings have passed-maybe even a few days later when you can look back on your stress log notes more objectively. Were you satisfied with your coping response? What worked? How could you cope better next time?

6. Health behaviors that may have influenced the day's stress level: Examples include not enough sleep, too much coffee, and good feelings and improved coping following exercise.

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET ...

DESIGNING A STRESS MANAGEMENT ACTION PLAN

Stress management is about intervening in your stress cycle. It is about changing sources of stress and coping with problems more effectively, changing the way you respond to stressors, and improving your stress resistance by building a meaningful, healthful lifestyle. Where do you go from here? Awareness alone often brings change. Over time, simply observing yourself and your stress cycle as objectively as possible will lead to new ways of coping with and evaluating stressors, and to an improvement in your physical and psychological stress response. For example, you may observe that you habitually react to minor hassles by holding your breath and tensing your neck and shoulder muscles. Once you become aware of this response you may be able to intervene before you develop major aches and pains.

Observation can also lead to the formulation of stress management goals. Goals help you set your stress management course. Knowing where you want to go makes it more likely that you will get there. It makes you better able to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. It improves your ability to make decisions, which in turn improves your stress resistance. Now that you have completed the self-assessment exercises and stress log presented in this chapter, it is time to formulate your stress management goals. Goals work best when they have the following characteristics (Gillespie & Bechtel, 1986):

1. Goals must be as clear and specific as possible. It is frustrating to work toward goals that are vague; you feel like you never get there. Instead of writing "I want to be a better student" try something more specific, such as "I want to organize my time and use my study time more effectively."

2. Goals must feel reasonable to you. You should feel as though you can make significant progress toward your goals over the next few weeks. Goals that are too lofty or focus on areas you are not yet ready to address encourage procrastination.

3. Goals should represent something you really want for yourself, not something someone has told you to change. If your housemates have complained about your slovenly lifestyle, you must first decide that orderlinesis something you want for yourself, something that will bring benefits to you, before making it one of your stress management goals.

4. The process of working toward your goal must seem worthwhile to you. Change takes time and commitment. See this process as educational. Change will occur more readily if you value the learning experience rather than feel frustration at what you perceive as failure to accomplish your goal.

CREATING A SUCCESSFUL ACTION PLAN

Successful behavior change occurs when you move slowly. Too much change is stressful because you accumulate more LCUs, right? Slow and steady wins the behavior change race. In the Stress Management Action Plan form, you have room to outline action steps for three goals. This is to give you practice with the Action Step process that is used throughout this book. In real life, you might be more comfortable working on one goal at a time, especially if it is a large and complex one, such as the study schedule example given previously.

    Most behavior is learned; therefore, it can be unlearned and replaced with more desirable habits. This is the premise of the wellness model for a self-responsible lifestyle. Stress management is a lifelong journey toward self-actualization and optimal well-being. We are continually formulating and reformulating our goals, observing ourselves, dreaming up action plans for change, and then assessing our progress. It's a never-ending cycle of assessment, intervention, and reassessment. If we look on this as an onerous chore, we are doomed. If we can remember that wellness is not a destination but a way of traveling, we can create a joyful journey.

SUMMARY

1. To some extent, stress is related to life events. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale measures stress in terms of Life Change Units (LCUs). In general, the higher your LCUs, the greater your likelihood of developing stress-related illness.

2. When experiencing a period of time that requires a great deal of adaptation on your part, exert what control you do have to schedule flexible events at less hectic times.

3. Health behaviors such as eating well, exercising, and getting enough sleep are especially important during high-stress times.

4. Research by Suzanne Kobasa and her colleagues found that of people experiencing a great deal of stress (as measured by LCUs), those with hardiness characteristics became ill less frequently than people without these characteristics. These characteristics include a feeling of commitment, a sense of control, and the ability to perceive a stressor as a challenge.

5. Wellness writers such as Don Ardell emphasize that your perceptions of potential stressors have as much impact on your sense of feeling stressed as the stressors themselves.

6. Most people already have many effective ways of reducing feelings of stress, including pleasurable experiences such as talking to friends, going for a walk, or spending time on a favorite hobby or recreational activity.

7. Keeping a stress log for a week or more can increase your understanding of your personal stress cycle.

8. Stress management is about intervening in your stress cycle.

9. Effective goals are clear and specific, feel reasonable to you, represent something you really want for yourself, and seem worth working for.

10. An action plan for behavior change includes action steps (concrete activities you can do) that will help you achieve your goals.

11. Anticipating roadblocks helps to ensure the success of a behavior change program.

REFERENCES

Anderson, GE. College schedule of recent life experience. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Education, North Dakota State University, 1972.

Holmes, TH, and RH Rahe. The social readjustment rating scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 11:213-218, 1967.

Kobasa, SC. Hardiness and health: A prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 337: 1-11, 1979.

Kobasa, SC, SR Maddi, and S Kahn. Hardiness and health: A prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42: 168-177, 1982.

Kobasa, SO. How much stress can you survive? American Health, Sept 1984, 64-71.

Nespor, K. Stressful life events: A preventive approach. International Journal of Psychosomatics 32:28- 32,1985.

Selye, H. The Stress of Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.