What social factors can affect stress?
| Family problems | Poor health |
| Lack of control over your life | Poor housing |
| Job not secure/not having a job | Work stress |
| Poor education | Not having support from others |
| Money problems | Being single, divorced or widowed |
| Being a single parent | Bad neighbours |
Common sense tells us that the factors above would make any normal person prone to stress. But they do not tell the whole story.
A great many people who do not have any of these problems still suffer from marked stress. At the same time, many people who do have a lot of social problems do not have stress. There is no easy answer to why stress hits some but not others.
Power & Demand
Something that ties social factors in with other things that make us prone to stress is the idea of 'low power, excessive demand.' In other words:
- How much power do you have to control or change your life?
- How much pressure is on you?
The less power and the more demand, the more prone you will be to stress.
Support
We know that having support around you can help ward off stress. It helps a lot if there is someone around who you can go to when times are hard; someone you can get things off your chest with; someone who you know is on your side. You might not even 'use' the person but as long as you know they are there for you, this support will protect you.
If you feel you have little support just now, you should think of how to build up supports over the coming months and years.
Social Status
Rates of stress increase as you go down the social scale. People from the poorest areas in our cities are almost three times more likely to have stress than those in the wealthiest.
But this only relates to numbers not how bad the stress is. So someone who is very well off can suffer every bit as badly from stress as someone who is poor.
