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Does stress itself cause poor health, or does stress cause high blood pressure and unhealthy habits, which cause poor health? (monyet.cc)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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title. I feel like you always hear stuff to the liking of "high stress leads to poor health," but I am kind of wondering exactly why this occurs.

For instance, it's said that stress can cause:

Aches and pains.
Chest pain or a feeling like your heart is racing.
Exhaustion or trouble sleeping.
Headaches, dizziness or shaking.
High blood pressure.
Muscle tension or jaw clenching.
Stomach or digestive problems.
Trouble having sex.
Weak immune system.

Imagine, hypothetically, that I were to have a high stress life, but still had good sleep, low blood pressure, and a slow heart rate, while also staying away from unhealthy habits like drinking or addiction.

Would my health still be worse than a person who lives an equivalent, but less stressful life than me?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Well, there are direct effects and knock-on effects.

If you are having stress but none of the mentioned symptoms, you probably aren't having stress. Or at least not the unhealthy chronic variant.

Being stressed in healthy doses every once in a while is not bad for your health. Chronic stress is unhealthy. And that then will result in symptoms. If it doesn't, we aren't (by definition) talking about unhealthy chronic stress.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (5 children)

That's nice to hear :)

I feel as if live what is stereotypically considered a "high stress life" (cPTSD + multi minority), but I've always worked hard for my health and thus have low blood pressure and am fairly fit. Because of that, it's always kind of sucked to see clickbait articles claiming that not only did I suffer through the trauma, but I will also die 20 years earlier due to circumstances completely out of my control.

I imagine these sorts of messages get attention because they can be very validating, but personally I've always found platitudes of "mitigate your stress!" annoying because it usually ends with the implication that I am automatically unhealthy because 1) I challenge myself, 2) am a minority, and/or 3) had some bad stuff happen to me a while ago.

Being stressed in healthy doses every once in a while is not bad for your health.

This reminds me of a good book I once read "The Upside of Stress" by Kelly McGonigal, about how if people viewed their stress positively, such as framing it as "excitement" instead of "distress," they had better health outcomes and were more successful in their given fields. I may have to reread that book sometime :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

If your stress is the kind that can be mitigated by a change of perspective, then it wasn't significant stress to begin with.

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