Stress In Today's World

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

Almost half of U.S. households are worried about their family's basic needs, according to new data from the American Psychological Association, which shows that food, housing, health care and transportation are major sources of stress in the faltering economy.

The findings of a series of online surveys released today also show that stress overall has increased in a year's time.

"Before, it was like 'Big Brother will take care of me. My 401(k) with Lehman or my company will take care of me.' We could go out to dinner on a credit card. We could buy our groceries without thinking. We could fill the car up. We had choices," says Kathleen Hall, founder of The Stress Institute in Atlanta.

"What you're seeing this year — especially in the last three months — is the eroding of that security blanket."

It's all too familiar to Lizzette Anderson, 38, of Queens, N.Y. She and her husband and 12-year-old daughter had to move to a smaller two-bedroom apartment because they couldn't afford their larger one.

"We had been in the apartment 10 months, and then we spoke to the landlord and said we couldn't afford it anymore. He understood and let us out of the lease," says Anderson, an administrative assistant.

Her husband, Windel Anderson, works as a sales supervisor. They had been saving for a house the past three years, she says.

"We had almost $3,000, and we were just trying to put more money in to save it faster, but it turned out that it went backwards and we were taking money out," says Anderson.

The new survey also found that women appear to bear the brunt of the financial stress and report more physical symptoms and unhealthy behaviors. More women than men say they're stressed about the economy (84% vs. 75% of men); housing costs (66% vs. 58%); and health problems affecting their families (70% vs. 63%).

Also, 56% of women report headaches, compared with 36% of men; 53% of women report a lack of motivation or energy, vs. 45% of men.

To manage stress, 39% of women reported eating to cope, vs. 29% of men. Men were more likely to drink, with 22% of men drinking to deal with it, vs. 15% of women.

Colleen Bacckus, 43, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., says the economy has caused her to spend more cautiously, but her greater stress involves home and family. Bacckus' job as a project manager for a commercial interior design firm is key because her husband is a paraplegic who is unable to work; their children are grown.

"It's trying to strike that balance between working full-time and being the primary breadwinner and balancing the family time and the needs at home," she says.

Working in the garden, playing with their dogs and reading does help relieve stress, she says, but she has noticed changes as financial news has worsened.

"There will be sleepless nights, and I'll get a little snappish," Bacckus says. "I'm just like everybody else — you go for that comfort food if you get too stressed."

Social psychologist Viktor Gecas of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., says the current economic downturn is the most serious since the Great Depression, but he doesn't expect the lengthy and massive unemployment of that period.

"In the short-term, it does have consequences," which he says "do add to more individual stress, which also spills over into marital problems, parent-child problems and family stress in general."

Rev. T. Michael Rock, a 40-year-old United Church of Christ pastor in the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale, says he's been flooded with congregants seeking his ear to discuss financial concerns, which he says they don't often talk about openly.

"If I had 10 people in the last year, I had 10 people the past week, either for them or their children or their parents," he says. "They're coming to say 'I can't hold all this information by myself. I have to share it with somebody.' "

Gecas, head of Purdue's sociology department, suggests the economic downturn may have some hidden positives by forcing people to take stock of their lives and re-evaluate their lifestyles.

"It's easy to fall into habits of behavior that may not necessarily be good for you or the environment," he says. "If you do manage to cope successfully with the adversity, you might come out stronger and more resourceful in the end. This is not to minimize the pain of an economic downturn and the negative things, but it's not necessarily all bad."