Negative Effects of Stress

So what are the negative effects of stress? What can happen when stress overloads your coping resources, when your skills are inadequate to deal with the demands placed on you by circumstances? Stress negatively affects your physical, psychological, and occupational functioning in a variety of ways.

Physical Consequences

The relationship between stress and your health is neither simple nor straightforward. Stress will not automatically cause you to become physically ill. The impact of stress on your health is mediated by a variety of personality variables (which we will address in later chapters), as well as your genetic makeup and environment. But physically, it is clear that when you are under prolonged stress your immune system can be weakened, creating vulnerability to illness and bodily system breakdown. Recent research has revealed that chronic high levels of stress hormones, known as glucocorticoids, cause white blood cells to migrate to the bone marrow and hide out, making them less available for combating disease. This appears to be one specific mechanism by which chronic stress weakens immune functioning, leading to an increased susceptibility to diseases, including cancer. Furthermore, stress can create a wide assortment of psychosomatic problems in which the weakest link in your system of organs, muscles, and glands is affected. For some individuals the heart is affected, for others the stomach or the pancreas; thus, some develop heart disease, others ulcers or diabetes. The following list illustrates some of these problems:

• Eighty percent of all visits to doctors' offices are for stress-related disorders.

• At least 50 percent of all deaths in the United States are caused by cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke, in which stress plays a significant contributing role.

• Most heart attacks occur around 9:00 A.M. on Monday mornings.

• Severe stress is one of the most potent risk factors for stroke—even more so than hypertension—even fifty years after the initial trauma. A study of over five hundred World War II veterans found that the rate of stroke was eight times higher for those who were POWs.

• Hypertension (high blood pressure), a stress-related disorder, afflicts at least 30 million people in the United States, with some estimates going as high as 80 million.

• Cholesterol levels in the bloodstream rise during periods of stress.

• One of the top gastrointestinal specialists in the United States reports that 90 percent of all people with chronic diarrhea (irritable bowel syndrome or colitis) have no organic basis for their condition.

• Ulcers, spastic colon, and similar gastrointestinal disorders are the direct result of elevated acidity brought on by the stress hormone cortisol.

• There are fifty to one hundred million headache sufferers in the United States. Headache is the number one complaint seen by physicians in this country, and 80 percent of all headaches are tension headaches. Migraines compose 18 percent of headaches, but even these (despite the genetic predisposition) are often triggered by stress and tension.

• Fifty million Americans suffer from chronic pain, and lower back pain accounts for 50 percent of this total. Negative emotions and stress can aggravate pain and cause acute pain to develop into chronic pain. The stress hormone ACTH can impede endorphin production (endorphins are the body's natural painkillers), leading to increased pain and discomfort.

• Recent research indicates that stress plays a significant role in the development of osteoporosis in women due to increased levels of stress hormones.

• Dentists report that a high percentage of patients show signs of nocturnal bruxism (tooth grinding at night).

• Stress is implicated in rheumatoid arthritis. The hormone prolactin, released by the pituitary gland in response to stress, triggers joint swelling.

• Studies reveal that during college exam week, students possess lower levels of salivary immunoglobulin, a defense against respiratory infections. Studies also report that students' acne worsens when they are under stress.

Psychological Consequences

It is not surprising that stress is a key factor in the development of emotional difficulties and behavioral problems. Can you remember a time when you felt there were too many demands placed on you? What was that like for you? Did it affect your ability to relax and enjoy life? Stress clearly influences our psychological well-being in a host of different ways:

• Stress is a major factor in the development of anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, depression, PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), obsessions, compulsions, and all major psychiatric disorders. In 1996 it was estimated that 1.5 billion individuals worldwide were suffering from some form of psychiatric disorder, including 115 million dependent on alcohol and/or illegal drugs and 400 million suffering from anxiety disorders.

• According to the World Health Organization, depression, clearly a stress-related condition, is the number one cause of disability worldwide.

• It has been demonstrated that stress alters serotonin pathways. Imbalances in serotonin levels have been linked to depression and, in some cases, aggression.

• More than thirty million Americans suffer from insomnia. Sales of sedatives are second only to aspirin.

• An estimated twenty-four million Americans use drugs to cope with stress. The three best-selling drugs in the United States are Tagamet (for ulcers), Inderal (for hypertension), and the tranquilizer Xanax (for anxiety).

• Alcoholism is the third major cause of death in the United States. An estimated ten million Americans are alcoholic. Relief of stress and anxiety is one of the primary motives for the use and abuse of alcohol. Repeated use for that purpose is viewed as an important factor in the development of habituation and addiction.

• Fifty-five percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Experts report that stress is a major contributing factor to relationship conflicts and the rising incidence of divorce. Frustration tolerance decreases, and thus individuals are more likely to misattribute the source of their stress and blame their spouse.

Occupational Consequences

At times of stress, how well can you concentrate on the task at hand? Do you find thoughts, preoccupations, and fears interfering with your ability to function? The ability to concentrate is significantly affected by stress. It is no wonder that an inability to cope with life stressors leads to lowered productivity and an increased frequency of mistakes on the job. In addition, you are more likely to miss work due to both emotional and physical illness. As the following list demonstrates, this leads to major financial losses for business, industry, and employees:

• People are more accident-prone during periods of stress. U.S. businesses claim that most industrial accidents are stress-related, accounting for two million disabling injuries, more than fifteen thousand deaths, and three billion dollars annually in lost productivity.

• At least ten billion dollars a year is lost in industry to absenteeism due to physical or psychological problems. It is estimated that individuals suffering from chronic pain miss over 700 million work days per year, with a cost of sixty billion dollars per year. A 1995 estimate by the American Heart Association indicated that cardiovascular diseases alone cost the economy $20.2 billion in lost production for that year (Miller, 1988).

• Data suggest that 80 to 90 percent of all business dismissals are somehow linked to tension and subsequent mental and physical problems.

• Stress is eroding the bottom line for business. The combination of decreased productivity, absenteeism, and spiraling medical costs may be costing the economy as much as $150 billion annually, according to some surveys.

• At least 25 percent of the people in the United States suffer from stress overload at work. According to a 1995 Gallup poll, 37 percent of American workers reported daily job stress, while 75 percent reported significant stress at least once weekly. A study by the National Center for Health Statistics revealed that more than half of forty thousand workers surveyed reported experiencing moderate to severe job stress in the previous two weeks. A 1998 Gallup poll strongly suggested that stress continues to mount for American workers, as fully 80 percent reported being significantly stressed at work. This poll also revealed that women feel more “stressed out” than men and, interestingly, that stress increases as income levels rise (Underwood, 1999).

• Insurance companies have recently been plagued by a nationwide epidemic of sick, disabled, and wealthy professionals—especially doctors, but also accountants, architects, insurance agents, and lawyers—filing claims for disability due to stress-related disorders (Freedberg, 1996).