Carr - Worried Sick

We all know a Naomi, Rob, or Marisol. Each of us has witnessed a friend, coworker, or family member who tried to do it all, yet ended up exhausted, sick, or depressed. Maybe youve faced your own struggles, whether a divorce, a bankruptcy, or a troubled relationship that pushed you to drink more than you usually would. Maybe you have a stressful job, and try to calm your nerves by smoking cigarettes or eating your favorite comfort foods. That stressorslarge and smallaffect our health is a truism. Laments like Im worried sick convey the conventional wisdom that being stressed out will harm our health. Literally thousands of academic studies reveal that stressful life events (such as a job loss), ongoing strains (such as burdensome caregiving duties), and even daily hassles (such as persistent traffic jams on the commute to work) affect nearly all aspects of our physical and emotional well-being.

Yet we have all experienced stressful timesmaybe a major work deadline, or relocating cross-country for a new jobwhen we came out unscathed, feeling not only emotionally and physically healthy, but better than we did prior to the crisis. This experience is not unique; dozens of academic studies also provide support for the rallying cry that which doesnt kill us makes us stronger, which suggests that we may grow more resilient and resourceful with every challenge. But how can stress be a source of both compromised health and resilience? And why do some people withstand tremendous adversity without a scratch, while others fall ill or become emotionally despondent when faced with even a seemingly minor hassle?

Worried Sick answers these and other questions about how stress makes us sick and depressed and even shortens our life spans. I will also show how and why some people are resilient and seemingly immune to such health woeseven in the face of unimaginable stress. Figuring out our own sources of strength and vulnerability is an important step toward developing personal strategies to minimize stress and its unhealthy consequences. Yet I will also challenge the notion that merely reducing stress in our livesdoing deep-breathing exercises or venting to our best friendwill help us to stay healthy despite our increasingly hectic lives as workers, parents, students, and caregivers. By focusing on repairing the stressors in our lives and trying to find quick-fix solutions (a good babysitter, a new job, an antidepressant), were missing the larger picture. Many of the stressors that we face in everyday life are not our problems alone; rather, they are symptoms of much larger, sweeping problems in contemporary U.S. society.

For instance, what might have benefited Rob most? A visit with a therapist? A prescription for an antidepressant? An economy that provided full-time jobs with benefits to all qualified workers? A culture that encouraged men to talk about their fears and insecurities, rather than keeping their feelings bottled up? And while Marisols college advisor told her to get more sleep and attend stress-reduction workshops at her university health center, might a better solution have been programs to help first-generation college students to fund their education? Although the self-help guides lining the shelves of bookstores give us tips on how to manage our stress, and prescription medications to cure our anxiety are just a doctors visit away, more sweeping solutions may be necessary.

Overview of Chapters

The following chapters delve into the concept of stress: defining what it is; explaining how it affects our emotional and physical health; identifying the biological, psychological, and economic factors that protect against (or exacerbate) the consequences of stress; and showing what can be done to minimize its impact on our everyday lives. In this first chapter, I provide a brief overview of the history and concept of stress, and describe the diverse forms that stress may take. Although we often use the term stress as a catch-all to describe the many nerve-jangling experiences in life, we will see that stress can take many forms: stressful events, such as a house fire or job loss; chronic stressors that persist over time, such as marital conflict or a long-term illness; daily hassles, such as traffic jams or a misbehaving pet; and network events, or those stressors bedeviling others that may affect us, such as a spouses work troubles or a childs difficulties at school. I also show how stress exposure varies based our personal characteristics, including gender, race, age, and social class.