Warning: daily hassles can seriously damage your health

Seemingly inconsequential daily hassles can take a significant toll on our physical and psychological health, writes Justin Thomas

I awoke to the sound of kids squabbling. A high-pitched emotionally charged altercation had broken out over something ridiculously inconsequential.

Caffeine might have taken the edge off the situation, but disastrously, there was no coffee in the house. And so, in a state of irritable decaffeinated fragility I made my first phone call of the day: a simple request for directions.

The guy at the other end of the phone spoke little in the way of English or Arabic, and my request for directions elicited only an increasingly exacerbated repetition of the phrase, “backside chicky chicky building”. Before further clarification could be sought, my phone’s battery died.

Then, as if the whole universe was conspiring against me, my car keys decided to go into hiding.

By the time I finally left the house, the roads had become a seething grand prix of discontent and discourtesy. This was a bad morning, several hours filled with the kind of trifling annoyances that some people refer to as “first-world problems”.

But perhaps we shouldn’t trivialise such problems? It turns out that these seemingly inconsequential daily hassles – lost keys, dead batteries and jammed photocopiers – can actually take a significant toll on our physical and psychological health.

There is even evidence that, cumulatively, these minor issues may have a more severe impact than major events, such as bereavement or divorce.

Research literature certainly supports this idea. Numerous studies have reported that daily hassles or “micro stressors” are better predictors of mental health problems – typically depression – than less frequent but more dramatic, major life events.

Furthermore, longitudinal studies confirm that high levels of daily life stress precede the onset of depression. So it is stress first, depression second. And that suggests that the experience of daily life stressors is a fairly important risk factor for mental health problems such as depression.

But we can’t eliminate daily hassles: we can’t make loss-proof keys, everlasting phone batteries and fool proof photocopiers – at least not yet. However, what we can do is better manage the way we respond to the slings and arrows of mundane misfortune.

The relationship between daily hassles and depression appears to be rooted in what psychologists call “stress reactivity”.

In short, it’s not the quantity of the daily life stressors we experience that best predicts subsequent mental health problems, but rather, the degree to which we react to such stressors. Therefore, by helping people better manage their responses to minor issues, we can reduce the risk of depression and the many other conditions associated with heightened stress reactivity.

This is an increasingly important public health issue, particularly in the light of rising rates of depression globally, and the tendency for many people to overeat when stressed.

Although often trivialised as “first world problems” these little issues can ultimately have a huge impact on both quality and quantity of life. A recent study published in the July 2014 issue of the Journal, Experimental Gerontology, followed 1,293 men over a 21-year period. One of the study’s key findings was that higher levels of stress reactivity were associated with an increased risk of dying early.

From discourteous drivers to annoying construction noise, the UAE is no safe haven from daily hassles. No place is. Our best option is to learn how to reduce our reactivity to such stressors. Tried and tested psychological techniques exist for this, for example, mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR).

The ideal time and place to learn such techniques would be as a child in the home or school environment.

Several schools in other nations have begun experimenting with this idea, and the early results are overwhelmingly positive, with reports of improved academic performance, as well as improved psychological well-being among participating pupils.

Perhaps this is an idea that might be considered within the UAE’s on going plans to improve quality of life, and educational outcomes across the nation?

Justin Thomas is an associate professor of psychology at Zayed University and author of Psychological Well- Being in the Gulf States

On Twitter: @DrJustinThomas