Jul. 30th, 2010 01:27 am
Stress and health: Some vindication
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textualdevianceTo briefly summarize this fantastic article about research into the effects of stress on health:
1. Stress is an enormous, if not the biggest, cause of poor health and early death.
2. The greatest source of stress for most people isn't having a lot to do, but being low social rank/having little control over one's day-to-day life.
3. The effects of early childhood stress cause lasting and in some cases permanent damage to health, especially neural health.
All of this? Is stuff I've been saying for years. Yet stress is almost never actually addressed in the cultural information flow about health, in favor of the latest superfood or diet craze or magic snake oil that's supposed to make everything better.
It's heartening, therefore, to see that there are at least some researchers out there who are focusing on trying to fix this.
It's also heartening on a personal level. Mostly.
On the one hand, it's very sad that the stress I went through in my childhood--poverty, volatile family, abuse, severe bullying, etc.--has undoubtedly caused me so much physical damage that I'll never be able to recover from it no matter how well I do in my life now.
On the other hand, it's at least a bit of a relief to know that my poor health really isn't my fault. The combination of genetic and environmental factors pretty much doomed me to this miserable corpse before I was even born. By the time I was old/independent enough to start having a better grasp on how to manage my life, it was already too late.
On the other other hand (I have three, apparently), it's frustrating to know that, even though conditions in my life have vastly improved, some of the major sources of stress for me--low social status--are still around, and are actually somewhat worse now. The kicker, of course, is that it's become a vicious circle: My childhood stress is a large part of the reason for my physical problems, and yet those physical problems--or, rather, the visible evidence of them (in particular, my size and the scars from my skin issues)--are causing me more stress because they keep me mired in low social rank. Joy.
It's all very depressing, I guess. Kinda leading me down the path of learned helplessness, to a degree. But I also suspect that maybe finally letting go of the constant panic about the state of my body, and accepting that there's really very little I can do to fix what got broken 35 years ago might, in the long run, actually add a few more years. If I spent more time relaxing and enjoying the life I have, even in this broken-down body, instead of fretting about What People Think of it, it'll probably do me far more good than yet another doomed-to-failure attempt at beating my bod into a socially acceptable form.
I also have to wonder whether the screeching health brigade will pay any attention to this stuff, and start changing how they address health issues. I wonder if they'll ever come to the realization that, for instance, berating fat people for being fat is not, in fact, helping them become healthier and is instead making things worse.
But... Probably not.
Addressing the key cultural factors involved in stress-related illness A) requires addressing the worst parts of capitalism B) Can't be marketed/profited from the same way diets, gym memberships and the latest superfoods and magic vitamins can and C) Requires holding the larger culture responsible instead of blaming people for their own problems (which is, of course, the Proper American Way to do things.)
Besides, it's really not health that these people care about anyway. If it was, diets and gyms wouldn't market themselves as the sure ticket to a more socially acceptable body. What they really care about isn't cardiovascular health, but maintaining the existing social rank by making sure lower-status people feel rotten about themselves so they'll never get strong enough to pose a challenge to dominance.
1. Stress is an enormous, if not the biggest, cause of poor health and early death.
2. The greatest source of stress for most people isn't having a lot to do, but being low social rank/having little control over one's day-to-day life.
3. The effects of early childhood stress cause lasting and in some cases permanent damage to health, especially neural health.
All of this? Is stuff I've been saying for years. Yet stress is almost never actually addressed in the cultural information flow about health, in favor of the latest superfood or diet craze or magic snake oil that's supposed to make everything better.
It's heartening, therefore, to see that there are at least some researchers out there who are focusing on trying to fix this.
It's also heartening on a personal level. Mostly.
On the one hand, it's very sad that the stress I went through in my childhood--poverty, volatile family, abuse, severe bullying, etc.--has undoubtedly caused me so much physical damage that I'll never be able to recover from it no matter how well I do in my life now.
On the other hand, it's at least a bit of a relief to know that my poor health really isn't my fault. The combination of genetic and environmental factors pretty much doomed me to this miserable corpse before I was even born. By the time I was old/independent enough to start having a better grasp on how to manage my life, it was already too late.
On the other other hand (I have three, apparently), it's frustrating to know that, even though conditions in my life have vastly improved, some of the major sources of stress for me--low social status--are still around, and are actually somewhat worse now. The kicker, of course, is that it's become a vicious circle: My childhood stress is a large part of the reason for my physical problems, and yet those physical problems--or, rather, the visible evidence of them (in particular, my size and the scars from my skin issues)--are causing me more stress because they keep me mired in low social rank. Joy.
It's all very depressing, I guess. Kinda leading me down the path of learned helplessness, to a degree. But I also suspect that maybe finally letting go of the constant panic about the state of my body, and accepting that there's really very little I can do to fix what got broken 35 years ago might, in the long run, actually add a few more years. If I spent more time relaxing and enjoying the life I have, even in this broken-down body, instead of fretting about What People Think of it, it'll probably do me far more good than yet another doomed-to-failure attempt at beating my bod into a socially acceptable form.
I also have to wonder whether the screeching health brigade will pay any attention to this stuff, and start changing how they address health issues. I wonder if they'll ever come to the realization that, for instance, berating fat people for being fat is not, in fact, helping them become healthier and is instead making things worse.
But... Probably not.
Addressing the key cultural factors involved in stress-related illness A) requires addressing the worst parts of capitalism B) Can't be marketed/profited from the same way diets, gym memberships and the latest superfoods and magic vitamins can and C) Requires holding the larger culture responsible instead of blaming people for their own problems (which is, of course, the Proper American Way to do things.)
Besides, it's really not health that these people care about anyway. If it was, diets and gyms wouldn't market themselves as the sure ticket to a more socially acceptable body. What they really care about isn't cardiovascular health, but maintaining the existing social rank by making sure lower-status people feel rotten about themselves so they'll never get strong enough to pose a challenge to dominance.
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no subject
I'm kind of surprised.. No, wait, not.. that there aren't more papers written on this. The Mayo Clinic is the one that figured out what was going on with me. Usually when they figure out what's going on with me, someone gets published :P
no subject
It's almost like it reads threats as imminent loss of food resources, so it makes me want to consume mass quantities while I still have the chance, and then curl up and do nothing so I can conserve what energy I have until the threat goes away and I can forage properly again.
I suppose this is a classic physical manifestation of learned helplessness, too. Maybe a few decades ago, my initial response to a threat would be to fight back, but after so many years of losing those fights (and finding out that fighting back often makes things worse), I no longer bother, and instead hit the "play dead" response.
no subject
no subject
1. It always devolves into "war on the obese"
2. It's a distraction from the real problem.
We, as a culture, are too busy framing health issues in terms of which of the deadly sins we're committing to actually address the real causes.
no subject