Stress is a normal part of life — if you aren’t ever stressed, you probably aren’t doing something right. But stress can quickly accumulate and wreak havoc on our well-being if left unchecked. 49% of Americans have had a major stressful event in the past year, and 26% report having a “great deal” of stress. Not pictured: A whole lot of baggage

While stress itself isn’t something to run from, it can have serious ramifications if it piles up, including the onset of serious mental health issues.

So what sort of things stress us out the most?

The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory has an answer to that. Psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe compiled a list of the 43 most stressful life events from a sample of 2,500 participants, and ordered them according to intensity:

Holmes-Rahe Stress inventory. From www.stress.org

Some of these top stressors are obvious — death of a family member, losing a job. Of course these things are stressful.

But other top stressors may be a bit surprising. The entire list is worth a read, but for the purposes of this article, let’s look at the following, all of which are in Holmes and Rahe’s top 20 stressors:

Marriage (#7)

Retirement (#10)

Pregnancy (#12)

Gaining a new family member (#14)

Major business readjustment (#15)

Major monetary gain or loss (#16)

Changing lines of work or promotion (#18)

Taking on a mortgage (#20)

Now, let’s rearrange these items from their order of intensity to the order they might be more likely to appear in an average American life:

Marriage

Pregnancy

Taking on a mortgage

Gaining a new family member

Changing lines of work or promotion

Major business readjustment

Major monetary gain

Retirement

Sounds like a script for a pretty nice life, doesn’t it? These are all usually good things. But this template for the American Dream represents almost half of the top 20 stressors in Holmes and Rahe’s list. Think about that for a second. And this is just the good stuff.

We all have to deal with the bad stuff along the way, too: illnesses, relationship problems, deaths of family and friends, financial crises. With this in mind, it’s easy to see how someone who has ‘ticked off all the boxes’ may still find themselves struggling with anxiety or depression.

The American Dream is a major stressor.

To the body, good stress and bad stress is the same

Stress doesn’t discriminate — the good kind and the bad kind feel the same to your body . The body is a finely calibrated instrument, and it doesn’t like change. Whenever our worlds are flipped upside down — for good or not so good reasons — our bodies feel it, and while many lifestyle milestones be positive, they are highly stressful nonetheless.

Physical effects

Often the first sign of stress in the body is muscle tension. Tensing your muscles is intended to provide short-term protection against an immediate danger in the environment, such as an incoming projectile. Muscle tension isn’t supposed to last for more than a few moments. Chronic stress can bring about long-term muscle tension, which can contribute to a host of symptoms physical difficulties.

Respiratory issues, including rapid or shallow breathing, contribute to anxiety and panic attacks. Stress can also tax the cardiovascular systems, making the heart over-work. This can eventually lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, or stroke.

Finally, stress can trigger the production of a natural chemical called cortisol, which puts the body at an increased state of alertness. Again, this is fine in the short-term, but chronic overexposure to cortisol while eventually causes wear and tear on the body.

Mental effects

The mind can suffer as well. Researchers have discovered that chronic stress can cause changes to the brain which can contribute to mental disorder. Specifically, chronic stress can impede the brain’s ability to regulate itself.

Brain matter comes in two forms: gray and white. Gray matter consists of neurons that store information, and white matter consists of fatty axons that fosters connectivity between neurons. If the brain is a map, gray matter would be the locations on the map, and white matter would be the road system that helps you get from place to place. Chronic stress can change the ratio of white-to-gray matter, muddling navigation and impeding the brain’s various lobes from communicating with each other.

The importance of self-care

The purpose of this article isn’t to attempt to deter anyone from going after traditional life goals. Many of these goals — marriage, children, retirement — are present in almost any cultures, and they are normal desires. But it is important to recognize that positive events can be extremely stressful, and stress can lead to mental health problems. It is just as important to take care of ourselves when the going is good as it is when the going is bad. When you’re in the midst of a major life event, be sure to treat yourself well.

Creating a list of things you enjoy doing is a great way to build a resource for yourself. Here is my list, though I encourage everyone to make their own.

Additionally, youtube is an excellent resource for relaxation and breathing exercises. There are guided muscle relaxation and deep breathing guides for all time constraints (this three minute exercise is a favorite of mine). These are great ‘front line defenses’ against the physical symptoms of stress.

Chose your stressors wisely

Big individual events — marriage, buying a house, having children, starting a business or excelling at work — often get lumped into one ‘super-achievement’ that we call the American Dream. This is a mistake. You don’t need to own a house to have a happy marriage, just like you don’t need to have a happy marriage to have a fulfilling career. A toxic relationship?

You don’t need to have a fulfilling career to have children, just like you don’t need to have children to have a happy marriage. Et cetera. These events are only as interconnected as we chose to let them be.

Big individual events — marriage, buying a house, having children, starting a business or excelling at work — often get lumped into one ‘super-achievement’ that we call the American Dream. This is a mistake.

You don’t need to own a house to have a happy marriage, just like you don’t need to have a happy marriage to have a fulfilling career; you don’t need to have a fulfilling career to have children, just like you don’t need to have children to have a happy marriage. Et cetera. These events are only as interconnected as we chose to let them be.

If having children, for example, is a life goal of yours, then the stress of raising children would be something you’d gladly endure. Maybe, though, you’re not enthused about home ownership. In that case, take a hard look at whether the stress of taking on a mortgage is worth it. There are an abundance of financial tools to help you with your decision.

For that matter, take a close look at all of your spending habits. Are they helping or hurting? Big spending can seriously erode well-being, while leaving little gains to your well-being.

The American Dream isn’t the only dream worth having.

Note: The Holmes-Rahe scale is not without criticism. This scale, like most self-report scales, does not allow for the distinguishing between individual differences in response to each scale item.

References:

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All photographs licensed under Creative Commons zero.

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