Eileen Lichtenstein’s Balance and Power Blog

Not all stress is bad for you. However, the response system that was designed to save your life can also do some serious harm. You can take steps to see that it doesn’t.  Your body doesn’t knows the difference between pre-marital anxiety (good stress) and taking an important test or being in an accident (bad stress).  What happens is adrenalin and cortisol is up and you may be feeling a bit “overwhelmed” or “out of control”,  both of which are “standard” definitions of stress, which varies with individuals.

 In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe examined the medical records of over 5,000 medical patients as a way to determine whether stressful events might cause illnesses. Patients were asked to tally a list of 43 life events based on a relative score. A positive correlation of 0.118 was found between their life events and their illnesses.

Their results were published as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), known more commonly as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. Subsequent validation has supported the links between stress and illness.

To measure stress according to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, for adults,  the number of “Life Change Units” that apply to events in the past year of an individual’s life are added and the final score will give a rough estimate of how stress affects health.  Add up your score, and the scale is given below this chart.

Score of 300+: At risk of illness.

Score of 150-299: Risk of illness is moderate (reduced by 30% from the above risk).

Score <150: Only have a slight risk of illness.

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