Section 5-2: The Subjective Nature of Stress

Continuing on from the last section where I state that stress is a personal and therefore subjective experience I present to you both a quote and a stress "measuring system"

"If a person has less than 150 life change units they have a 30% chance of suffering from stress. 150-299 life change units equates to a 50% chance of suffering from stress. Over 300 life change units means a person has an 80% chance of developing a stress related illness" 

-Quoted from http://www.simplypsychology.org/SRRS/html

The measuring system that calculates these life change units is called the "Social Readjustment Rating Scale", to give you a sample of some of the items included in the scale, here are my own personal results from the application.

So what do you think? 80% chance of developing 3 stress illnesses?
Or do you think I have a 240% chance of having one?

Not to say that the scale is completely "out to lunch"... I did experience PTSD in the last year, and it did take a while for me to recover from that experience including some medication. A lot of these events occured Post-PTSD though, and I have not suffered a second bout nor have I suffered from any major stress.. I am much better able to deal now with both Acute and Chronic stressors in my life.

How I actually feel most days
-Courtesy of orignialstruttingleo.tumblr.com-

How I should feel constantly according to SRRS
-Courtesy of myfofa.com.au-

The SRRS also fails to take into account the subjective nature of stress and the fact that what may appear as stressful to one individual may be either of little/no importance to one individual or even perhaps pleasing... or vice versa. There are two examples that apply to myself. The first of which is beginning school. This event carries a fairly significant 26 points on the SRRS scale. For me, after an extended absence from post-secondary and being in a position where I didn't know if it would even be possible for me to begin attending post secondary again I was delighted to find out I had been accepted into post secondary studies... This in fact was one of the highlights of my year.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Christmas nets a very minor 12 points... it doesn't matter if you are a practicing catholic, Christmas is celebrated around the world in some form or another. Is it fair then, to assign a universal number for an event which is not experienced in a universal way? In fact for myself last year Christmas was one of the most stressful events of the year.

Stress is a subjective experience... and because everyone experiences stress differently there is limited use to creating a scale to measure stress objectively. It won't apply to everyone equally. It certainly doesn't to myself.