The unflinching horror of STRESS!!!!!

By Nick Lang

Stress is a terrifying force of mystery and power; it is incredible to see the lengths that stress will go to just to show us that we are in fact stressed. The cold is a virus, and as a virus it has full jurisdiction to physically fuck with our bodies as it pleases – so though it can be just a mere speck of liquid it can make our joints ache, our nose dribble, our throat sore and our brain hurt. Yet we must succumb to this because it is a virus, and therefore a physical force that has inhabited our body. Stress however is not real (in a physical sense); it is a non-entity, but it has just as much, if not more, power to physically affect us than most viruses. People who are stressed about anything from something serious like the loss of a loved one, to something seemingly trivial like what they are going to eat before they go out to avoid having to take a shit in a club toilet (probably with its very own urine lake in each cubicle), can be physically transformed by this mental exertion. The amount of times that I, and many others like me, have gone to their doctor with the thought of only days to live, only to be asked: “Do you have an exam coming up? Yeah, it’s probably that.”

“Let me get this straight doctor; I have been sick every day for five days, I have hives all over my face, neck and back, I have violent mood swings, I feel like I swallowed a cheese grater (and my arse feels like it came out of the other end too), I lose at least my body weight, maybe more, in liquid every time I blow my nose, and it feels like there’s a party in my brain and everyone’s throwing up… And this brutal, remorseless, unquenchable plague that has befallen me and that will undoubtedly soon rob me of my young life is the fact that I have an exam this week?!?!”

The other aspect of stress that makes it such a formidable adversary is the fact that it’s so elusive. You can have puss spewing from your eyes and huge boils all over your body, and yet have no idea that the root of this horrible affliction is simply your concern over meeting your girlfriend’s parents. Why? Because you had absolutely no idea that it bothered you so much, but your sub-conscious knows all, and it is the one who’s pulling the strings. So surely then, in a Freudian way, by realising that this is the case by discussing it with another person you should be able to free yourself from it’s shackles, right? Wrong. It seems so often the case that the only way to rid yourself of stress is for the event at the source of your troubles to come and go. Until that time you are, and always will be, stress’ bitch.

About the author: Nick Lang is a Sociology graduate from the University of Sussex. He is currently training to be a teacher, and lives in London.
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Good news for slackers: Working too hard makes you depressed

This article was published on www.guardian.co.uk


Stressful jobs double risk of depression for young workers

* Ian Sample, science correspondent
* The Guardian
* Thursday August 2 2007

High-stress jobs make young workers twice as likely to suffer from major depression and anxiety disorders, according to a British study of mental health in the workplace.

Psychiatric assessments of nearly 1,000 people in the early stages of their careers revealed that one in 20 can expect to experience serious depression or anxiety every year as a direct result of work.

The study is the first of its kind to establish a firm link between stressful working conditions and poor mental health among people who had no previous history of the disorders before their career began.

Previous studies across Europe and the US have found that cases of depression have risen in the past two decades, mirroring increases in reported work stress.

Researchers at the institute of psychiatry at King's College London, who conducted the study, called on employers to be vigilant for signs of chronic stress in their workplace. In Britain, lost productivity due to depression and anxiety is estimated to cost companies £12bn a year.

The psychiatrists interviewed 972 employed men and women from the city of Dunedin, New Zealand, who have been enrolled in a long-term medical study since birth. All of the volunteers were aged 32 and held a variety of jobs, from politician and police officer to brain surgeon and dustbin collector. The study revealed a marked increase in cases of major depressive disorder and generalised anxiety disorder among people in highly demanding jobs, with 14% of women affected and 10% of men. Of these, 45% were directly attributed to stress in the workplace.

"Work stress appears to bring on diagnosable forms of depression and anxiety in previously healthy young workers; in fact the occurrence is two times higher than among workers whose jobs are less demanding," said Dr Maria Melchior, an epidemiologist and lead author of the study, to be published in the journal Psychological Medicine later this month.

Research consistently shows a greater prevalence of depression among women, though the risk appears to be higher only in women of reproductive age, suggesting that the female sex hormone oestrogen may play a role, said Professor Terrie Moffitt, a co-author on the study.

The most high-pressured jobs were not necessarily held by white-collar workers in city firms, the researchers found. Head chefs in large restaurants were among the most highly stressed, probably because they had to cope with constant inflexible deadlines, and very public failure for any mistakes they made.. Read more!