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Everyday stress as bad for our health as major trauma if we react badly and it builds up, research finds

When little hassles accumulate and we perceive things like children and commutes as very stressful, it can have a big effect on physical health, researchers say. Learning to roll with the punches, it seems, can protect you

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A study found that men who rated their daily lives as ‘extremely’ stressful were three times more likely to die during the study than those who reported low levels of daily stress. Photo: Alamy

When people talk about harmful stress – the kind that can affect health – they usually point to big, life-changing events, such as the death of a loved one. But a growing body of research suggests that minor, everyday stress – caused by flight delays, traffic jams, phones that run out of battery during an important call – can harm health, too, and even shorten lifespans.

One traffic jam a week isn’t going to kill you, of course. Psychologists say it is the nonstop strains of everyday life that can add up.

“These hassles can have a big impact on physical health and well-being, particularly when they accumulate and we don’t have time to recover from one problem before another hits us,” says California-based psychologist Melanie Greenberg, author of The Stress-Proof Brain.

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Chronic daily hassles can lead to increased blood pressure, which puts you at risk of heart disease, explains Carolyn Aldwin, director of the Centre for Healthy Ageing Research at Oregon State University. She adds that it can also raise the levels of our stress hormones, a process that affects our immune system, and can lead to chronic inflammation, a condition associated with a host of serious illnesses, including cancer.

It is not necessarily the exposure to the continuous streams of minor stressors that can take a toll, but how we react.

In a 2016 study, researchers interviewed about 900 people about the frequency with which they experienced stress and had them evaluate the severity of it. They also tested their resting heart rate variability (HRV), the variation in intervals between heartbeats. (A higher HRV is associated with a healthy response to stress; a lower one has been associated with increased risk for heart disease and death.)

Difficulties at work may not be a major stress issue – unless your boss is already mad at you. Photo: Alamy
Difficulties at work may not be a major stress issue – unless your boss is already mad at you. Photo: Alamy
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