The Meaning of Stress and How Modern Lifestyle Aspects Cause Stress - Term Paper Example

MODERN STRESS Introduction Stress is anything that creates intense or strong feelings of anxiety or worry (Crum, 2000). It is a state of mental tension and is caused by problems in one’s surrounding. Depending on one’s personality, stress can lead to diverse health conditions or illnesses. While other personalities permit individuals to roll things off their back, others have difficulty dealing with even minor problems in life. Stress and its causes have been issues of concern in the past few decades. There have been attempts to unearth the causes of stress, its impact and ways in which it can be minimised. Heidenreich and Prüter (2009) have identified major causes of stress in last decade as issues related to work, illnesses and high living standards. This is unlike the ancient times when stress levels were apparently low. This provokes the question: Is modern life more stressful than past life. This essay attempts to validate the statement “modern life is more stressful than the past”. It begins by exploring three aspects of modern life. It then discusses two examples of diseases or ill-health that are caused or worsened by stress in modern life. In addition, to support this discussion, the essay examines various research conducted in the USA and UK on stress and its related illness (Eie 2013). Aspects of Modern Life that Cause Stress Work Work has become part of parcel of modern life. In the USA, for example, there were close to 119 million people in full-time employment as at May 2014 (US Bureau of Labour Statistics).Work is an integral part of modern life given the harsh economic times. People work, either in formal or informal jobs, to earn a living. The daily wages or monthly salaries earned from work are used to pay bills, loans, educate children and buy food among other necessities. Therefore; work has become unavoidable and a major cause of stress (Eie 2013). While people can’t avoid to work various aspects at work make people’s lives stressful. One of them is excessive workload or too much responsibility. In some situations people have to work in numerous jobs for many hours to generate income for their families. Working for long hours with less sleep is characteristic of the low class employees in the USA. Lack of sleep and low income (after working heavily) are potential of causes of stress at work. The other cause of stress at work is when an employee is unhappy with their job. Poor working conditions, ineffective management, unrealistic expectations, unsafe working environment, discrimination and harassment contribute to stress at work. As Frederick Herzberg notes in his two factor theory, the unhygienic factors negatively influence workers’ motivation and morale (Eie 2013). The aforementioned negative vices not only kill the employees’ motivation but also stress them up. In most circumstances due to the high rate of unemployment, high standard and scarcity of jobs employees are often left with limited choices when stressed at work. This means that employees must learn how to cope with stress coming from work. At the same time, efforts are being to make the working conditions fair and stress-free. High Standard of Living As opposed to many years ago, the living standard over the last few decades has increased sharply. The economic recession of 2007 made the situation even worse. The cost of living has gone so high and people have to work extra hard to meet their basic needs like food, housing and clothing. With fluctuation, the cost of most commodities is on the rise making people to dig deeper into their pockets. Therefore, people have to work tooth and nail to raise money to cushion the high cost of living. This has generated to a new form of stress caused by money (Eie 2013). In the USA, financial issues top in the list of things that are currently stressing people. In the USA, almost three out of four adults confess of feeling stressed because of money. One in four adults has experienced extreme stress over money related issues. Most people believe that money is an important component that enables people establishes a better life. Thus, when people are financially challenged it makes their stress levels go up (Eie 2013). High standard of living has made treatment and care of diseases expensive. The sick are susceptible to more stress if the cost of treatment is high. The same pressure and stress can be felt among those with a member of the family who is stressed. Accelerated Rise of Health illnesses According to Eie (2013), health related issues characterise the modern life. There is an increase in the number of lifestyle diseases and terminal illnesses across the globe. In modern life people are inclined to fast foods as opposed to indigenous foods. This food is rich in calories. Given that people exercise less often as compared to ancient times, lifestyle diseases like obesity, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases are rampant. Besides, global warming and consequent depletion of the ozone layer is a major cause of cancer. In 2012, 333, 437 people were diagnosed with cancer in UK in the year 2011 (Cancer Research UK , 2015). . In the last few decades, research has indicated that there is close connection between stress levels and health conditions of people. In April 2014, The Harvard School of Public Health in conjunction with the Robert Wood carried out a research in which it was realised that 60% of the people who were stressed most were those with health conditions or illnesses. Most people are stressed by the illness itself since it prevents them from enjoying their normal lives (Eie 2013). Others are stressed because of the high cost of treatment. Health Conditions or Illness Caused y Stress Diabetes Having either emotional or physical stress can take a toll on the health of an individual who has diabetes. Firstly, stress raises glucose levels in people suffering from type 2 diabetes. When a person has stress, the blood sugar levels goes up. The function of stress hormones like cortical and epinephrine is to raise the blood sugar in the body in the event of stress. High blood sugar level is poised to generate excess energy needed to react to the stress. The diabetic individuals do not have compensatory mechanisms to help them regulate the blood sugar level in such circumstances. If bloods sugar cannot be controlled by diet or medication there is a possibility of worsening the condition. Uncontrolled diabetes put the patient at higher of serious health conditions like blindness, nerve damage and kidney ailments (Eie, 2013).  On the other hand, stress is susceptible to inculcating bad behaviours in a patient. Bad behaviour is characterised by poor feeding habits, skipping meals, skipping regular exercises or drug abuse and alcohol abuse. These negative bad behaviours will certainly worsen diabetes. Hypertension Researchers have argued that stressed up people are susceptible to getting high blood pressure. Stress has a direct impact on the heart and blood flow. Firstly, it increases the rate at which blood flows and the heart rate. Secondly, stress in the body provokes the release of triglycerides and cholesterol into the blood stream. In addition to this, stress leads to other secondary problems like smoking which indirectly affect the normal functioning of the heart. Other problems that stress causes are obesity. Stressed people have the tendency to engage in bad behaviours like poor eating habits, taking junk that can lead to obesity. Obesity causes hypertension (Eie, 2013).  Modern life is more stressful In research conducted in the UK and the USA it has been evident that aspects of life in the past few decades contribute a great deal to stress. In the USA, research conducted by the American Psychological Association in August 2014 indicated that 77% of people regularly experience physical symptoms of stress while 73 % of people experience psychological symptoms of stress (Statistic Brain, 2015). In the same research, job pressure, health, and money topped in the list of factors that stressed people the most. These three factors are closely intertwined with the aspects of modern lifestyles discussed earlier. A similar scenario is evident in the UK where the total number of stress, anxiety, and depression cases accounts for 39% of the work-related-illnesses (Statistics - Stress-related & psychological disorders in Great Britain, 2015). In the same report, new cases of work-related-stress in the 2013/2014 were 244,000. Other issues that cause stress in the UK are similar to those in the USA like health issues and financial challenges. Thus, modern life has been the major cause of stress in the past few decades (Eie, 2013).  Conclusion In summary this essay has examined the meaning of stress and how modern lifestyle aspects cause stress. Some of the modern lifestyle aspects examined include; high standard of life, health issues and work. All this aspect was non-existent in the past lives and that’s why levels of stress were low. The essay further looks at how stresses causes hypertension and worsens diabetes. In conclusion it carries out comparative study of the research conducted in both UK and USA on the causes of stress. The common causes of stress identified in the two countries are job pressure, health and money matters. This part is essential in that it helps support the veracity of the statement “modern life is stressful” References Cancer Research UK ( 2015). Cancer incidence statistics : Retrieved from: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/incidence/uk-cancer-incidence-statistics. [Accessed 22 April 2015] US Bureau of Labour Statistics  Crum, A. (2000). The 10-step method of stress relief: Decoding the meaning and significance Of stress. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press LLC. Eie, M. (2013). The theory of multiple zeta values with applications in combinatorics. Hackensack] New Jersey: World Scientific. Heidenreich, P., & Prüter, I. (2009). Handbook of stress: Causes, effects and control. New York: Nova Science Publisher Statistic Brain (2015). Stress Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.statisticbrain.com/stress-statistics. [Accessed 22 April 2015] Statistics - Stress-related and psychological disorders in Great Britain (GB) (2015). Statistics Retrieved from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress. [Accessed 22 April 2015] Read More