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You can’t sleep, and you’re craving junk food. You lack motivation, energy, and your shoulders ache. You are having more headaches, indigestion and sometimes, you just feel like crying. Overall, you feel an intense sense that things are just not right.
Chances are you are one of the three-quarters of Americans experiencing moderate to high levels of stress.
Each year, the American Psychological Association (APA) puts out their Stress in America report that describes the causes and impacts of stress in this country. Not surprisingly, in the 2009 report, money and financial problems ranked the number one cause of stress, followed by work and the economy. Family money issues far outranked housing costs, health issues and job stability as sources of stress.
The APA's report focuses on six areas of research: survey participants' perception of their personal stress; causes of stress; how well people manage stress; the impact of stress on families; how people deal with stress; and the management of chronic illness.
In 2009, 42 percent of Americans reported an increase in their stress level, with 24 percent of Americans reporting experiencing high levels of stress at eight or greater on a 10-point scale with 10 meaning a very high stress level. More women than men reported feeling stress, and more women felt stress at the highest levels.
The body responds to stress by releasing stress hormones, such as epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and cortisol. These stress hormones help a person react to a situation with more speed and strength. But stress hormones also increase blood pressure, heart rate and blood sugar levels. In small amounts, stress can be beneficial, but chronic stress at high levels can be harmful to a person's health.
Directly, stress has serious health consequences like anxiety and depression. Indirectly, stress leads to lifestyle choices such as overeating and not sleeping that adversely affect health. Fifteen percent of those with the highest stress levels reported feeling too stressed out to make healthy lifestyle changes.
Studies over the past 30 years examining the relationship between stress and cancer have produced conflicting results, however, recent research found an indirect relationship. Stress produces the release of hormones into the blood in response to the stimulation of the nervous system that can directly alter important processes in cells that help protect against the formation of cancer. Chronic stress can also weaken a person’s immune system that may affect the incidence of virus-associated cancers, such as Kaposi sarcoma and some lymphomas.
The APA study found distinct gender differences. Women are suffering more stress than men overall and more women than men (27 percent versus 19 percent) reported the highest levels of stress. On issues of money and the economy, again more women (75 percent) than men (67 percent) ranked money as an important source of stress.
Women were more likely than men to respond to stress by not sleeping (52 percent vs. 42 percent) and excessive eating of unhealthy foods (52 percent vs. 33 percent). Women also reported higher levels of stress-induced symptoms such as irritability and anger; fatigue; lack of energy and motivation; feeling nervous and anxious; feeling depressed; headaches; wanting to cry; indigestion; muscular tension; and change in appetite. Other reported symptoms from stress include tightness in chest, teeth grinding, loss of sex drive, feeling faint, change in menstrual cycle, and erectile dysfunction.
The APA report also highlighted the too often unhealthy means by which Americans deal with stress. While 44 percent control stress levels with exercise, many more of us rely on sedentary strategies, from reading and listening to music or watching TV to playing video games, binging on unhealthy foods or taking a nap. Fifteen percent of us "stress shop" while 14 percent rely on tobacco and or alcohol.
Lynette Summerill is an award-winning journalist who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. In addition to writing about cancer-related issues, she writes a blog, Nonsmoking Nation, which follows global tobacco news and events.
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