Stress also leads to heart disease. And asthma. Stress can bring on obesity and diabetes. Headaches, anxiety and depression are often triggered by stress.
Did you know that stress can make you age prematurely? How about the growing possibility that stress contributes to Alzheimer's disease?
We've long known that gastrointestinal disorders – from ulcers to much worse – can be caused by stress.
Doesn't that make you uneasy? Nearly everything that makes us ill can cite stress as a contributing factor! Stress may be our biggest enemy.
There likely have been studies that show a link between stress and hiccups, stress and eye twitches, stress and arthritis. I didn't feel like doing the research because it would likely make me anxious, make my knuckles hurt and make it more likely that my left eye would start twitching.
Dang! It started anyway!
If we could eliminate stress, would we end illness? Based on the studies, that seems true. Maybe it should be the target of a federal health initiative.
Except . . .
I'm calling baloney.
Not that there's no connection between stress and any illness – we've all been around people who seemed forever ill and forever fretting about it, making them more ill.
But does stress cause all the illnesses for which it's blamed? I doubt it.
The main reason is the vague nature of stress.
What makes you really stressed out might not bug me at all. Or vice-versa.
Have you ever been around someone whose life is a mess, but they're not agitated? What about the person who walks into a room telling a dramatic story and halfway through, you realize they're talking about driving to work? But they're stressed out!
Are they more likely to be sick? Well, we know if they are, they're sure more likely to talk about it.
Here's my theory: Medical professionals who ask patients if they've had stress lately always get a "yes."
Who wants to be the person who says "No. My life is great and easy."?
That makes you seem soft.
Even if things are going well, there's a certain cultural pressure to claim that there's stress in our lives. In a strange way that justifies our existence. Does anyone want to admit their job is easy? Does anyone say their life has been a breeze?
(Except me. My job is a piece of cake and my life is a permanent vacation.)
It's the same way that new parents are constantly told how much worse it will get when their kids get older by parents of older kids. That's the older parents' way of making themselves feel worthwhile.
They're stressed out (and likely getting sick)!
Although lamenting stress really came into its own in the 20th and 21st centuries, it's unlikely that we have any more stress than people of previous centuries.
Does my smartphone dying too quickly create more stress than a 17th-century farmer worrying about his crops? Is it more stressful when our car needs to go to the shop than it was for people in the 12th century, when 50 percent of children died before they were 5?
The next time you hear a study that mentions stress as a leading factor in some disease, remember this: Every person in the world would say that they have some element of stress in their lives, because it's true. Just living brings stress.
On the other hand, all the people in history who endured stress are now . . . dead!
Just thinking about that made me feel some tension. And my eye twitch just got worse.
Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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