Current thinking on stress – two opinions that may surprise you
Angela Patmore is a former UEA Research Fellow. Her book, The Truth About Stress, was shortlisted for the Mind Book of the Year Award 2007. The following summary has been prepared by SafetyPro from an article published in The Independent newspaper (UK) in April 2008.
Feeling stressed? Pull yourself together
She says that anxiety, annoyance and frustration are perfectly normal human behaviour, in common with other animals. She believes the reason we perceive these as harmful is largely due to what she calls the “calm down” industry. Many GPs are now on side with what is a powerful and burgeoning stress industry and handing out what Patmore describes as “potentially lethal drugs”.Essentially, her argument, having analysed “hundreds” of studies with scientists at the University of East Anglia's Centre for Environmental Risk, is that the term “stress” is bogus and that there is no good reason to believe emotions are unhealthy. On the contrary she says, anti ageing research shows that pressure is good for you and enables your life-preserving heat shock proteins to keep you in good repair by a process known as hormesis.
She believes the real dangers to health lie elsewhere: “Home Office statistics for 1964 to 2004 show that minor tranquillisers or benzodiazepines were involved in 17,000 deaths. Kava kava, a herbal "stress" remedy, was withdrawn after reported deaths from liver damage. Ritalin, prescribed to control childhood over-activity and relieve parents' "stress", has caused fatalities”.
Helplessness
Some critics have labelled Patmore as a “heartless bitch”, but she maintains she is the opposite: “I have seen enough evidence to convince me that the stress management industry is harming people”.She believes the other genuine danger to health is that stress management makes people wary of arousal. If your problems don't get you exercised and you don't face up to them but instead try to escape from unpleasant reality, then there really is something wrong with you, she says. Giving up, the scientific term for which is "learned helplessness", by itself can kill. Such behaviour causes the brain to release natural opiates to numb the pain but it also shuts off the immune system. When stress researchers refer to "long-term stress", they are really talking about helplessness, failure to address threats and this biological death wish.
In New Zealand, the approach has always been to understand stress not as an inherently “bad” thing, but to define it as the point past which people “perceive they cannot cope”. Patmore’s point appears to be that by giving a name and too much credence to stress, that perception point may be reduced and it is that lowered level of helplessness that actually causes the harm.
Current wisdom
A related view was recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in their “More or Less” programme. The item made the point that conventional wisdom has become established in the belief that stress increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and mental health problems. These beliefs have influenced legislators and government agencies, (including in New Zealand), and originated from a study, by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, of Whitehall civil servants over 20 years. It attempted to assess the effect of job status on health and concluded that it is not stress per se that has an adverse effect on health and life expectancy. Rather it is working in a job where there are high demands accompanied by a lack of control. People in high demand jobs who had influence and control were found to show no correlation between stress and health.
Is stress caused by lack of control?
Dr John MacLeod is one of a team of
researchers at Bristol University who are sceptical
about Professor Marmot's findings.
"We looked at these issues in a study of 6,000
working men in South West Scotland. In those circumstances
stress was not associated with poorer health."
As far as heart disease is concerned, it is not only
Dr MacLeod and colleagues at Bristol University who
are unconvinced there is a proven link with stress.
The American Heart Association website states that "current
data don't yet support specific recommendations about
stress reduction as a proven therapy for cardiovascular
disease".
So are companies wasting money by
sending managers on courses that might make them feel
guilty about placing high demands on their workers?
Dr MacLeod doesn't go that far. "It may not reduce
the risk of heart disease but creating fairer workplaces
is a humane and just thing to do."
Note: In New Zealand, stress has crept into the HSE
Act in the 2002 Amendment by being specifically included
in the definition of “Harm”. If permanent
or temporary severe loss of bodily function can also
result, then it would be considered Serious Harm. Causes
of such harm would then be considered Significant Hazards,
which employers are required to eliminate, isolate,
or minimise. There have been prosecutions successfully
taken out on employers who did not respond adequately
to resolve such stress issues, and where employees suffered
symptoms such as mental breakdown.
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