ScienceDaily
(Nov. 2, 2012
Contrary to
popular perception, stressors don't cause health problems -- it's
people's reactions to the stressors that determine whether they will
suffer health consequences, according to researchers at Penn State.
"Our
research shows that how you react to what happens in your life today
predicts your chronic health conditions and 10 years in the future,
independent of your current health and your future stress," said
David Almeida, professor of human development and family studies.
"For example, if you have a lot of work to do today and you are
really grumpy because of it, then you are more likely to suffer
negative health consequences 10 years from now than someone who also
has a lot of work to do today, but doesn't let it bother her."
Using a subset of
people who are participating in the MIDUS (Midlife in the United
States) study, a national longitudinal study of health and well being
that is funded by the National Institute on Aging, Almeida and his
colleagues investigated the relationships among stressful events in
daily life, people's reactions to those events and their health and
well being 10 years later.
Specifically, the
researchers surveyed by phone 2,000 individuals every night for eight
consecutive nights regarding what had happened to them in the
previous 24 hours. They asked the participants questions about their
use of time, their moods, the physical health symptoms they had felt,
their productivity and the stressful events they had experienced,
such as being stuck in traffic, having an argument with somebody, or
taking care of a sick child.
"Most
social-science surveys are based on long retrospective accounts of
your life in the past month or maybe the past week," Almeida
said. "By asking people to focus just on the past 24 hours, we
were able to capture a particular day in someone's life. Then, by
studying consecutive days, we were able to see the ebb and flow of
their daily experiences."
The researchers
also collected saliva samples from the 2,000 individuals at four
different times on four of those eight days. From the saliva, they
were able to determine amounts of the stress hormone, cortisol. They
then linked the information they collected to data from the larger
MIDUS study, including the participants' demographic information,
their chronic health conditions, their personalities and their social
networks.
"We did this
10 years ago in 1995 and again in 2005," Almeida said. "By
having longitudinal data, not only were we able to look at change in
daily experiences over this time but how experiences that were
occurring 10 years ago are related to health and well being now."
The team found
that people who become upset by daily stressors and continue to dwell
on them after they have passed were more likely to suffer from
chronic health problems -- especially pain, such as that related to
arthritis, and cardiovascular issues -- 10 years later.
"I like to
think of people as being one of two types," Almeida said. "With
Velcro people, when a stressor happens it sticks to them; they get
really upset and, by the end of the day, they are still grumpy and
fuming. With Teflon people, when stressors happen to them they slide
right off. It's the Velcro people who end up suffering health
consequences down the road."
The results
appear online in the current issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine
According to
Almeida, certain types of people are more likely to experience stress
in their lives. Younger people, for example, have more stress than
older people; people with higher cognitive abilities have more stress
than people with lower cognitive abilities; and people with higher
levels of education have more stress than people with less education.
"What is
interesting is how these people deal with their stress," said
Almeida. "Our research shows that people age 65 and up tend to
be more reactive to stress than younger people, likely because they
aren't exposed to a lot of stress at this stage in their lives, and
they are out of practice in dealing with it. Younger people are
better at dealing with it because they cope with it so frequently.
Likewise, our research shows that people with lower cognitive
abilities and education levels are more reactive to stress than
people with higher cognitive abilities and education levels, likely
because they have less control over the stressors in their lives."
While stress may
be a symptom that a person's life is filled with hardship, it could
also simply mean that the person is engaged in a wide variety of
activities and experiences.
"If this is
the case, reducing exposure to stressors isn't the answer," said
Almeida. "We just need to figure out how to manage them better."
The National
Institutes of Health provided funding for this research. Other
authors on the paper include Susan Charles of the University of
California at Irvine, Jennifer Piazza of California State University
at Fullerton, and Martin Sliwinski and Jacquie Mogle, both at Penn
State.
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