Digging through a folder labeled “Stuff” yesterday, I rediscovered a “Life Event Stress Scale” that I had tossed in there and forgotten.
You may have seen one. Life events are listed in order of how much stress they create, beginning with “Death of A Spouse” at 100 points and ending with “Minor Violation of Law” at 11 points. To judge your own stress level, you mark every event you are experiencing and add up the points.
So if you’ve gotten a divorce (73 pts.) and changed your residence because your spouse got the house (20 pts.) and you took out a loan for over $10K (31 pts.) because your ex won’t pay alimony, and you went to jail for trying to run down your ex as he left the courthouse with his new honey, (63 pts.), your stress points would total 187.
That’s probably enough to qualify you for a few days in a psyche unit.
It’s obvious that something like “Personal Illness or Injury” would be stressful (53 pts., in fact), but even events that are supposed to be joyful can cause stress, like “Retirement” (45 pts.), “Outstanding Personal Achievement” (28 pts.) or “Vacation” (13pts.) So for your mental health, don’t retire, just plug along being mediocre and avoid achievements, and stay at home.
I have experienced the stress of a vacation that I thought would help me to de-stress. By the time I tore up my closet finding vacay clothes, jammed them into the small suitcase the airlines permit, made the arrangements to be gone (register online for the cruise— it took me four tries for the information to be accepted — write extra columns to leave for the paper, secure someone to teach my Sunday school class, engage the dog-sitter and change my haircut appointment), my blood pressure was already sky high.
Then I get to my destination and find out that I “Forgot My Toothbrush” (5 pts.), “Didn’t Bring The Shoes I Needed” for my new outfit that I bought for the trip (50 pts.) so I have to “Buy New Shoes In an Expensive Resort Shop” (75 pts.) and my “Flight Home Is Delayed Indefinitely” (80 pts.). I’ve racked up 210 stress points, which puts me on up there above “Getting Fired” (47 pts.), “Marriage (50 pts.) and “Pregnancy” (40 pts.) all in the same week, for an event that was supposed to relieve stress.
Knowing your score on the stress scale, like knowing your IQ, does more than just satisfy your curiosity. The score predicts the likelihood that you will fall victim to a stress-related physical or mental illness. Or pull out all your hair.
The stress scale was developed some years ago. Its original creators didn’t even envision some of the major stressors that come with living in today’s environment — the massive cultural shifts, the political turmoil, wars and civil disturbances, economic inflation and anxiety about the future, and the constant flow of information, much of which requires us to DO something.
We can’t get away from it. We have 10 messages to respond to when we pick up our phones to text Grandma. Even my car demands constant input from me — change my seat position? audio on? check gauges! and “Keep your eyes on the road!”
Bright flashing billboards blind me with messages when I’m driving along. My phone dings and pings so that I can’t avoid looking at it to see if I must respond.
And the stress scale designers certainly didn’t anticipate how stressful living in the computer and AI age would be.
We spend half our time now guarding against and fixing computer scams and hacks. We fill in our online forms and transfer payments to settle our debts, They get lost. We get a late charge and spend our leisure hours arguing with a woman in Mumbai, who took one course in English and is now telling me how to fix my account and get my medical records straightened out. I don’t understand a word she says.
You can’t even relax with a game. When you get on your cellphone to play Solitaire, you won’t see your hand of cards stretched out in front of you until you have watched five ads, each of which asks you to do something. And you can’t close the ads without watching them twice, during which your BP is rocketing upward again.
In my Letter Garden game the other day, the pop-up ads that appeared while I was trying to play demanded that I “Open This!” “Calculate the Benefits!” “Download,” “Respond Immediately!”
The stress is enough to make you want to scream. Of course, I can avoid the hassle— just “PAY FOR THIS APP” for game-free ads!
I couldn’t reproduce the stress scale for you in this column because it takes too much space. But you can find one online, I’m sure, if you can get through all the ads and extraneous information.
Mark the things you’re experiencing and add up the stress points. But prepare to be shocked—and stressed when you see your score.
