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09 August 2010

that soul-destroying job is (actually) killing you →[More:]
Wired isn't usually where I turn for interesting science, but this one is well done.

One of the more salient points I found was that it isn't so much the continued stress that you encounter at your job, but how much control you are allowed to exercise over your workload and your work hierarchy. High-workload executives seem to show less detrimental effects than peons in the clerical pool. The hypothesis is that being powerless / low on the totem pole is potentially as unhealthy for humans as it is for baboons.

Another interesting finding: the more chronic stress you're under, the more your physical brain makeup and chemistry changes to make you progressively more anxious, stressed, and sensitive to stressful situations - it's a dangerous, self-amplifying feedback loop. While this is probably "well, duh" territory to most laymen, there's now hard scientific basis behind the physical and neurochemical changes that cause this.

I've checked out some of Robert Sapolsky's lectures on iTunes U, and I highly recommend them.

post by: lonefrontranger at: 12:05 | 2 comments

That was a very cool article. Thank you!

I was reading a book by Peter Levine, who writes about the physiological effects of trauma, and one of his points (similar to the article's) was that lasting trauma happens when we're unable to react to a threat in an active way, when we freeze rather than fleeing or fighting. That adrenaline and cortisol keeps floating around in our bodies until we release it in some way, except we often get stuck in a loop where the anxiety makes us too scared to deal with the anxiety, which reinforces the anxiety. He was doing work with trauma survivors in having them visualize themselves *acting* when the trauma occurred, running away or fighting back or whatever, as a way of countering the messages of helplessness and lack of control the actual traumatic event had brought into their lives.

This article also seems to bolster the studies coming out over the last few years showing that experiencing racism is a huge risk factor for minorities' health. That fits in with Sapolsky's ideas about hierarchy and having to "learn your place" creating dangerous stress.

This stuff is really fascinating.

posted by occhiblu 09 August | 12:31

That was a really awesome article. Thanks for sharing.

It may have shed some light on my own anxiety/stress issues. I feel like I can handle stress pretty well, but thinking about the times I've felt batshitinsane and have had a super freakout there does seem to be one common denominator: I don't have control over what is happening.

Take something like going out to dinner with friends for a birthday. There's some stress associated with that in picking a place that everyone will enjoy, getting a head count, making a reservation, making sure everyone gets there on time and is dressed appropriately. That is stress I can handle.

But when the BF tried to surprise me with a birthday dinner and concert (a year ago?) I went berserk. I didn't know who was going, where we were going, how I should dress, where we were going afterward, etc, etc, etc. By the end of my panic attack, I was in no shape to be going out anywhere so we stayed home, ruining the night and his surprise for me.

posted by youngergirl44 09 August | 18:17

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