Life Stress

My friend, Barbara, keeps mentioning to me that my life stress scores must be super high.  I had a vague understanding of what she meant, but then I decided (since she's mentioned this to me a few times) that I would look online and find out a little more of what she meant.  If you're like me, here's the synopsis.  Basically, there are events in life that cause stress and someone out there gave them scores or weights.  For instance deciding to run a marathon may be stressful, but not at all compared to losing a spouse.  Anyway, I'm just copying and pasting the chart here.  Feel free to do your own calculations.

100	Death of a spouse	73	Divorce
36	Change to different line of work	37	Death of a close friend
65	Marital separation (or separation from any major intimate relationship)	63	Jail term
63	Death of a close family member	53	Personal injury or illness
44	Major change in health or behavior of a family member	47	Being fired from work
40	Sexual difficulties	45	Marital reconciliation
39	Gain of new family member thru birth, adoption, or remarriage	45	Retirement
39	Business readjustment	40	Pregnancy
38	Major change in finances	50	Marriage
35	Increase in number of arguments with spouse	23	Trouble with boss/superior
31	Mortgage or loan for major purchase (i.e. home, etc.)	30	Foreclosure of mortgage or loan
29	Changes in responsibility at work	29	Son or daughter leaving home
28	Outstanding Personal Achievement	26	Spouse stops work outside of home
29	Trouble with in-laws	26	Going back to school
25	Change in living condition (rebuilding, remodeling)	20	Change in residence
20	Change in work hours or responsibilities	20	Change in school
24	Revision/change of personal habits	19	Change in recreational habits
19	Change in church/spiritual activities	18	Change in social activities
17	Purchase of major items (auto, computer, etc)	16	Change in sleeping habits
15	Change in number of family get-togethers	15	Change in eating habits
15	Vacation	12	Christmas
11	Minor violations of the law (e.g., traffic tickets, misdemeanors)

Here's the groovy little scoring key:

LIFE STRESS SCORES

• 0-149 Low susceptibility to stress-related illness
• 150-299 Medium susceptibility to stress-related illness. 
Learn and practice relaxation and stress management skills and a healthy well life style.

• 300 and over High susceptibility to stress-related illness.  Daily practice of relaxation skills is very important for your wellness. Take care of it now before a serious illness erupts or an affliction becomes worse.

So, you wanna guess my life stress score?  Ha!  It's over 400!!  So apparently, I need to work harder at doing some kind of consistent yoga!  Crazy huh?

Another interesting bit of information is this:

To keep alert on our stress level, the following ten common stress symptoms (information source from The University of Hong Kong) will help to shed light on our stress threshold:

1. Frequent fatigue without special reasons
2. Anxiety or emotional disturbance
3. Headache or muscle tension around the shoulders
4. Irritated or hot-tempered
5. Poor concentration
6. Digestive problem or constipation
7. Frequent "minor" sickness
8. Poor memory
9. Oversized waistline
10. Insomnia

I'm **laughing** because:

#1 is about always true for Ray and me.  

#2 YES!

#3 Ooooh . . . can someone rub my aching shoulders

#4 I've already snapped at my dear friend, Emily in NM

#5 I forgot what I was doing. . .

#6 Does overeating count?  Oh, that's number 9.

#7 I do have some crazy allergies, but probably nothing else.  Maybe I'm good on #7.

#8  What was I doing again?  . . . Oh yeah-

#9  TEN pounds in 3-4 months people!  It's serious, and while utterly vain, I'm very concerned.

#10  I am not the spouse with insomnia, but I dare say we could all use more sleep.

Fascinating, huh?

Where do you fall in all of this life stress stuff?