Men, are you vexed by little daily hassles?… learn to take them in stride…

Sunday, November 19, 2023.

Hey men.. I have an interesting question for you…What’s more likely to kill you?. little hassles and minor bullsh*t? or major stressful life events?

Here’s a scary new finding from fairly recent research: minor bullsh*t might kill you just as easily as the shock of a catastrophic life event.

Professor Carolyn Aldwin, director of the Center for Healthy Aging Research at Oregon State University, who led the research said:

“We’re looking at long-term patterns of stress — if your stress level is chronically high, it could impact your mortality, or if you have a series of stressful life events, that could affect your mortality.”

The study looked at both everyday bullsh*t, like family bickering, or work problems, as well as sudden tragic events like the loss of a child.

• While both types of stress have an measurable impact on the chances of dying, the research data strongly suggests that each factor independent of the other.

• Some human may be hit by traumatic life events, but this may not be translated into everyday hassles because of the way they deal with stress.

Professor Aldwin continued:

“It’s not the number of hassles that does you in, it’s the perception of them being a big deal that causes problems.

Taking things in stride may protect you.”

How the study was conducted

• The results come from a study of nearly 1300 (ok, 1,293) male veterans, some of whom were logitudinally tracked for over 2 decades!.

• Just under half of those followed went on to pass on during the period of the study, but their chances of dying depended on the hassles and stressful life events they have endured.

• Only 29% of those who’d experienced few everyday hassles had passed away, while that proportion jumped to a whopping 64% for those who’d experienced high levels of everyday bullsh*t.

• When it comes to tragic, major life events, For major stressful life events, the figures were around a third dying for those who’d experienced few major negative events, increasing to around half for those who’d experienced a high number of overwhelmingly stressful events.

Final thoughts about this research…

I don’t know about you, but 2023 has not been particularly kind to me.

I’m in the middle of a personal challenge right now that is characterized by the need to manage a high order of stress and anxiety. I’ll turn 70 next month, as my son will turn 50 a few days before me.

There is little we can do about the inevitable major stressful events in our lives, but this study reveals that how we react to petty daily bullsh*t can have a critical impact on a man’s health.

Humans who fare the worst have the strongest emotional reaction to both large and petty concerns.

Humans also tend to see clinical depression as a reaction to some profound misfortune, and quite often it is; but sometimes it’s all the poorly managed petty bullsh*t that piles up, teeters, and then potentially comes crashing down that we need to keep an eye on.

Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.

RESEARCH:

Carolyn M. Aldwin, Yu-Jin Jeong, Heidi Igarashi, Soyoung Choun, Avron Spiro,

Do hassles mediate between life events and mortality in older men?: Longitudinal findings from the VA Normative Aging Study, Gerontology, Volume 59, 2014, Pages 74-80, ISSN 0531-5565, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2014.06.019.