‘Tis the season: Can holiday stress affect your health?

It seems as though stress is an unavoidable part of modern life, particularly at this time of year, and this year in particular. You, your friends, family, co-workers and neighbours may be coping with stress on a daily or even hourly basis.

What is stress?
Stress is your body’s way of reacting to the demands of the world. The stress response is sometimes called the “fight or flight” response.

Back in caveman days, stress was frequently of short duration and needed to be responded to immediately. For example, caveman stress might be caused by seeing a sabre-toothed tiger. The brain perceived the danger, flooding the caveman’s system with stress hormones, which quickened his heart rate to give energy to his legs, his breathing became shallower to provide more quickly accessible oxygen, and panic ensured the caveman removed himself from that danger as quickly as possible.

Stress is not necessarily a negative thing: it can push you to perform better and faster than you might normally have done, leaving you with a great feeling of accomplishment and, as in the example above, possibly extending your life.

What is bad is over-stress or chronic stress, a state of constant stress-arousal that depletes your energy and, in the long term, weakens your health.

Causes of stress
There are different causes of stress: internal or external, long-term (chronic) or short-term (acute), big stressors and small stressors. All of these stresses add up to big problems for Canadians.

External stressors include major life changes (births, deaths, marriages, moving, quitting smoking), environmental stressors (noise, poor air-quality, overcrowding), unpredictable events, family relationships, workplace stress, exam stress and social stress (such as public speaking or large gatherings).

Internal stressors are pressure you put on yourself: fears, uncertainty or doubts, negative attitudes such as blame and unrealistic expectations are all stresses people place on themselves. Other factors, such as a poor diet or a lack of exercise or sleep, also contribute to the level of stress in your life.

You are never too young or too old to experience stress: teens and children, adults and seniors all experience stress, although they may show different signs and feel it for different reasons. What causes stress for you may not be stressful for someone else.

Job stress in Canada
A 2007 study by Statistics Canada suggests that people who make less money tend to have higher levels of stress. For example, almost 28% of workers with incomes of less than $20,000 had high-strain jobs, compared with only 18% of workers earning $60,000 or more. (source) (related article)

The same study found that more working women (28%) reported having a high-strain job than did men (20%). One-third of women felt quite a bit, or extremely, stressed most days at work, compared with 29% of men.

The report concluded that a supportive work environment may reduce job interruptions due to stress, but that negative coping mechanisms (such as increased smoking or drinking) caused more job interruptions.

Health effects of stress
Chronic stress can have negative health effects. It can affect your heart, how you sleep, how you work and how much you enjoy your life. It may also cause other physical symptoms, such as headaches, neck and shoulder pain, or bad skin.

Chronic stress also may cause increased accidents, psychological disorders, and diseases such as ulcers, cancers and those resulting from an impaired immunes system.

Symptoms of stress (source)
There are many cues your body sends to tell you might be under too much chronic stress:

Thoughts: Do you have trouble concentrating or remembering things? Are your thoughts constantly racing, or do you feel anxious a lot of the time?
Feelings: Do you feel tired, anxious, stressed? Do you have mood swings, or feelings of despair?
Physical symptoms: Do you get headaches, have trouble sleeping, feel tightness in your chest or feel constantly exhausted?
Behaviour: Are you drinking more coffee or alcohol? Are you eating too much or too little? Do you tend to overreact? Are you having problems with your family or friends, or having trouble keeping up at work?

Coping with stress
Strong social supports are important: having a network of family, friends and people you can'trust and to whom you can'turn when you are feeling overwhelmed.

Learning how to say ‘no’ to certain demands is also important. For example, improving your ability to turn down extra work or unwanted social obligations can take pressure off of you, and leave you time to relax and recharge.

The opposite of the stress response is the relaxation response, also called “autogenic relaxation”. Deep breathing exercises, meditation, progressive relaxation techniques and guided meditations are all ways of encouraging the relaxation response. The more you practice these techniques, the more quickly your body learns to “turn off” the stress response.

Donna MacLeod, for Consumer Health Information Service at Toronto Public Library

Further reading

About the health effects of stress:
Healthy Ontario. Stress. (undated)

HealthInsite. Stress. (January 2008)

Mayo Clinic