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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 1 year 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] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not sure what you think “managing stress” consists of, but in my experience it refers to avoiding life events like you’re describing.

A child can’t effectively manage your stress, but independent of any blame dimension, your disease is 100% attributable to not “managing stress” based on that list of stressors you mentioned.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I think the misconception that you might be having is that the stress is even manageable at all. When people go through trauma at this age to this degree, there is little to no chance of managing it.

It's like watching someone get injured in an accident and saying that if they had the opportunity to manage themselves better they could recovery without any lasting effects. Some accidents, no matter how well it's managed by patients or doctors, will still render the patient paralyzed. Not to mention that a worse but more likely outcome is that they don't make it out alive at all.

There is a survivorship bias here that is not seen on the surface. The reason why I am chronically ill is because the alternative in my situation is that I would be dead. You don't see the people who had endured trauma and died, because they don't come on Lemmy and comment.

The best possible outcome from the accident I was in that is my childhood, is that I came out of it alive, albeit physically and emotionally damaged.